PSYCHO

Alfred Hitchcock was the director for the movie Psycho, which was one of the first slashers which paved the way for future gore based films. The movie was delibertly made black and white as Hitchcock felt that releasing a colour version would be too gory for the viewers of the 1960’s.

Camera shots and angles that imitated a persons gaze was used, forcing people to engage with the act of voyeurism making them uncomfortable and uneasy. One the most famous scenes in horror history take place within the movie. The shower scene is well known for the great amount of camera angels as well as the very memorable soundtrack.

Before the protagonists, formally know as Marion gets into the shower, there is very quite non diagetic music which slowly builds to create an eerie atmosphere. The soundtrack then comes to a halt as Marion gets into the shower.

The only sound available to the audiences is the running shower. Hitchcock used multiples shots to shower the protagonist showering, this can be seen as voyeuristic as the viewers are watching an act which should be a private matter.

The soundtrack suddenly appears when the killer (Norman Bates) appears and begins to stab Marion. Fast tempoed strings play at each movement of the stabbing. The soundtrack automatically build fear within audience members as they are so high pitched ,fast paced and alarming.

What follows are around 90 different camera shots as well as 70 varying camera angles. The footage is put together through the use of fast paced cuts . The sheer volume and tempo of the footage is very alarming. Hitchcock was very careful not to show any nudity within the scene nor to show the knife penetrating the actors skin due to film regulations of the 60’s. The shots all consisted of many extreme close ups of facial features such as Marion's mouth as she screams, followed with high angles shots of the blood running down the drain.

There is an extreme close up of the drain within the bathtub, as blood drowns through it, there is then a transition fade to an eyeline match with Marion's iris, the camera then slowly zooms out to a mid shot of a dead Marion on the bathroom floor. The slow pace of this shot may have been done to let viewers sink in the fact that her character died so early on within he film.