When viewing a film, it is is entirely important to have a knowledge of the people watching. Who are they? What time period is it? Where are they from? How old are they? Psycho, being released in 1960 had a very interesting crowd to work with. Coming out of the "Nifty Fifties" Hitchcock really pushed the borders of what was accepted at that time, and did a very good job of maybe not scaring his audience, but he certainly shocked the living crap out of them. There are several instances of this shock value, big and small throughout the entirety of the film. For one thing, the film opens with a scene of two lovers, dressed to be scantily clad and performing rather scandalous activities. For a very public, Hollywood film, this was rather uncommon and really made the audience think? I can guarantee that half the audience was thinking, "Wait, can they do that?" A wise man once said, "All press is good press!" Hitchcock wholeheartedly believed in this and threw whatever controversial bits and pieces that he could into Psycho to make a name for himself and the film. Another famous instance of this is not only the murder scene, as it included murder, nudity, blood, but only seconds before, a toilet is shown flushing... in the middle of the shot no less! This had never been done! You can still hear the audible gasp of the crowd as they witnessed this history-changing event!
Now, for another thought... What in the hell is scary these days? Quite frankly, I don't think this question can be answered. I believe that it is purely a matter of preference. Myself, I'm scared of most anything with a horror connotation, and then some of the more existential things like oblivion, death, AND THE DEPTHS OF THE F***ING OCEAN. We seriously don't know what's down there... Others tend to be afraid of gross things, or large things, or heights or anything like that. There's a lot to be afraid of in this world.
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