Psycho - Analysis

Alfred Hitchcock's powerful, complex psychological thriller, Psycho (1960) is the "mother" of all modern horror suspense films. The nightmarish, disturbing film's themes of corruptibility, confused identities, voyeurism, human vulnerabilities and victimization and the deadly effects of money. The master of suspense skillfully manipulates and guides the audience into identifying with the main character, luckless victim Marion (a Phoenix real-estate secretary), and then with that character's murderer a crazy and timid taxidermist named Norman.



Like many thriller, there is always one scene which is seen to be the most important, usually this is the scene which contains the sequence which will make the audience think the most and often the muder or fight scene. In Psycho this is the 'shower scene' (seen above) this has become one of the most famous scenes of the film because of the violence and amount of shots used to create a brilliant sequence. This scene shows the murder of the main character, Marian Crane. Althought you do not actually see the knife penetrate her skin or seen any of the stabbing, this scene is cleverly created to give the impression of a gorey and brutal murder. Usually in many thrillers the main character is presented until the end, this film is different however as the main character here gets killed of quite early. The audience will not see this coming and this shock is what Hitchcock was daring enough to do even if it was something completely different to what was usual for thrillers. This confused the audience, just enough to have them wondering what would come next.
During this scene the majority of the shots are close ups, these shots typically used in thillers and used here to show the audience the expressions of the dieing woman. The shots were presented in a way, that just before the knife prenetrated the womans skin the camera would cut away to either her face or another element. This was thought provoking for the audience because they were lead to think about what was happening to the woman as a close up of her face was shown to represent her pain.
Music is also a key componment in this film as the strong sounds are used to create tension and drama. Diegetic sound of the woman screaming and crys for him to stop just adds to the brutality and leaves the audience shocked. After the killing, the audience is just left with the sound of the running shower as she slumps to the floor, showing she is now dead.