Everyone remembers watching a movie on network TV channels and being annoyed by a voiceover cutting in over the credits to announce what is coming next. NowApple TV+has been called out on X/Twitter for going one step further and “ruining” the ending of Alfred Hitchcock classicPsychoby auto-minimizing the film’s final moments to promoteThe Big Bang Theory.
While it is one thing to cut out the end credits of a movie, something that every streaming platform does now, the problem with a movie likePsychois that the film doesn’t really have any end credits, so in order for Apple to get in their few seconds of self-promotion, they interruptthe chilling moment Antony Perkins’ Norman Bates stares directly into the camera, and the subsequent footage of Marion Crane’s car being pulled out a filthy lake.
Naturally, this is not something that could pass without someone calling out the “disrespectful” treatment ofa cinema classic. In fact, once others started commenting on the back of the post,even one Hollywood star weighed in with their own shocked reaction.
The discussion sparked by the original post gave an almost unanimous verdict that many viewers are not happy with their viewing experience being interrupted on services that they are paying a monthly subscription for – especially those who pay for an ad-free experience. While there were a few who did not see the issue as “the movie had finished,”many questioned why streamers cannot give people the option of opting out of having their credits (and occasionally the last 30 seconds of a movie) taken away from them.
Psycho’s Lack of End Credits Poses a YouTube-Style Problem for Streamers
For many years now, anyone who has spent time watching videos on YouTube will have been triggered by the constant monetized ads turning up in inappropriate places, and a whole screen of cross-promotion blocking out the last 20 seconds of movie trailers, music videos and more.
When paying for a streaming service such as Apple TV+, it is not hard to expect a little more for your money than to get a similar experience to something that is available to view for free. However, even paid for services want to promote their other wares, and while most modern movies have a lengthy run of credits at the end to accommodate this,manyolder movies such asPsychorun their titles at the beginning of the movie instead. This means that the end of the movie is literally the end of the movie.
That means the pre-set timing of many streamers’ promotional codas often cuts into the final shots of the movie instead of the credits. While few movies have something important to see right up to the final frame,Hitchcock’s 1960 masterpieceis one of them that has its mood broken by such an invasion before the screen fades to black.
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The outrage that has surfaced online is unlikely to make any of the big streaming platforms rethink their current strategy, but it doeshighlight in a very public way how viewers feel about adverts and self-promotion in general. Having previously moved away from a network television model, recent changes have seen streamers returning to ad-supported content and releasing new episodes of their most popular shows on a weekly basis. Having headed so far down this route, it is impossible for them to turn back.This means the kind of annoying interruption that many have now become aware of withPsychoseems set to be a bugbear for a long time to come.
