Psycho

Psycho was a horror film made in 1960 by the extremely well-known and successful director Alfred Hitchcock. He was an iconic and highly influential British filmmaker and producer. Psycho was a powerful, complex psychological thriller and is seen as the "mother" of all modern horror suspense films.
Despite the fact that the stark black and white film was low-budgeted ($800,000), it was brilliantly-edited and shocked audiences when it was released in 1960.
The master of suspense skillfully manipulates and guides the audience into identifying with the main character, luckless victim Marion, and then with that character's murderer - a crazy and timid taxidermist named Norman.

Main Characters in Psycho:
Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates.
Janet Leigh as Marion Crane.
Martin Balsam as Detective Milton Arbogast.
John Gavin as Sam Loomis.
Vera Miles as Lila Crane.

Plot:
The movie opens in Phoenix, Arizona, where discreet lovers Marion Crane and Sam Loomis, want to get married but cannot due to financial problems. Unhappy and desperate to improve their situation, Marion steals $40,000 from her office and drives to California, where Sam lives. All the while, Marion is nervous and apprehensive; eventually arriving at the Bates Motel, but this choice is proven to be an extremely wrong decision. The Motel is isolated and out-of-the-way, with no other guests staying; however she wanted to avoid a suspicious policeman.
She is greeted by the young, boyishly handsome and innocent-seeming owner, Norman Bates. Norman does what little work is left, and also looks after his mother in a sinister-looking house on top of a nearby hill.
Forgetting the problems that plague her for the time being, Marion takes a shower. Suddenly, a human figure enters the bathroom, shadowy through the shower curtain, and brutally stabs Marion to death (the famous shower scene.)
Meanwhile, Marion’s friends, relatives and a private detective are growing increasingly worried as to her whereabouts. The detective, Milton Arbogast traces her to the Bates Motel and questions Norman, who lies poorly. Arbogast sneaks into the old house to question Mrs. Bates, but is stabbed to death and falls down a flight of stairs.
Lila then sneaks into the house with the intention of talking to Norman's mother. Furious and panicked, Norman knocks Sam unconscious and races to the house. Seeing him come through a window, Lila hides from him in the fruit cellar, where she discovers that Mrs. Bates is a semi-preserved corpse. At that moment, Norman (wearing his mother's clothes and a wig) enters, screaming and holding a knife. However, Sam has regained consciousness and arrives just in time to save Lila.
At the end of the film, we realise that Bates's mother, is dead, but is still living on in Norman's mind. When his mother found a lover, Norman became jealous and murdered them both. He was so dominated by his mother while she lived, and so guilt-ridden for murdering her ten years earlier, that he tried to erase the crime from his mind by bringing his mother back to life. In effect, he is half Norman, half mother.
The last scene shows Norman Bates seated in a cell. The physical shell of Norman Bates sits unmoving, as "Mother's" thoughts dominate the mind, free of "Norman's" mental presence. We hear "her" internal voice as a voice-over. She blames Norman, and plans on demonstrating to the authorities that it was Norman who did the crimes, whereas she is utterly harmless. She knows that people must be observing her, and will show them what kind of a person she is. As a fly appears, Mother continues, "I'm not even going to swat that fly. I hope they are watching. They'll see, they'll know, and they'll say, 'Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly'". We see "Mother" give a smile of satisfaction, which shows through Norman's demented stare. The film's final shot is of Marion's car being recovered from the swamp.

Many of Hitchcock's films contain cameo appearances by Hitchcock himself. In Psycho, he makes his cameo appearance 7 minutes into the film through a window, outside Marion Crane’s office.

To view the trailer, click here

The original trailer of Psycho made in 1960 has extremely different conventions to the trailers being made presently. It features the director of the film, Alfred Hitchcock, giving a visit of the set, it begins with “The fabulous Mr. Alfred Hitchcock is about to escort you…on a tour of the location of his new motion picture, ‘PSYCHO.’” The main difference that I can notice is the length of the trailer, it is six and a half minutes long, compared to the average of one and a half minutes that we see nowadays during advertisements of films. Hitchcock’s continuing commentary throughout the six and a half minutes implies that what he is describing is a real incident that has taken place. As he takes us on a tour of the house, we are immediately informed of the house’s sinister feeling. He drops little hints to the audience of what’s to come, for example “the bathroom, well, he cleaned all this up now, big difference, you should have seen the blood.” Also the trailer doesn’t follow conventions and is the opposite from trailers nowadays as it is a continuous structure, where it doesn't follow a narrative and usually just features different parts of the film. The trailer then ends with a shot from the famous shower scene, of Marion screaming and part of the music used in the scene.

My Opinion:
Overall, I thought Psycho was quite a good horror movie. I think it was extremely successful for the time period it was produced in, despite the lack of technology and knowledge of other effective techniques in the 60’s. Psycho is generally identified as the ‘mother’ of horror, as it established the genre and no similar film had been made previous to this.
I thought the shower scene and ending scene were extremely effective in the film. The shower scene was really disorienting for the audience, with the use of frequent cuts, fast pace and the sound. The combination of music and Marion’s screams really adds to the fear. Music is also used effectively in the scene when Marion is driving, before arriving at the Motel. This music adds to the suspense and alerts the audience that something is going to happen. The shower scene lasts three minutes and features fifty cuts with various different angles. The use of many close-ups is really effective as the audience feels closer in the shot and can clearly see reactions of the character, making it more intense. I also thought the ending scene was extremely effective and successfully finished the film. Instead of using violence to put across the idea of horror, Hitchcock effectively uses psychological horror to scare the audience. Anthony Perkins plays this character extremely well and displays good acting. The audience is aware of Norman’s problem that he has, after the explanation from the detective, but after being lead by the camera into an empty room containing Norman, they are scared once again. We hear Norman’s mother’s voice and then Norman bows, giving a creepy smile.
“As if I could do anything except just sit and stare--like one of his stuffed birds. Well, they know I can't move a finger. And I won't. I'll just sit here and be quiet, just in case they do suspect me.”
“They're probably watching me. Well, let them. Let them see what kind of person I am.”
“I'm not even going to swat that fly. I hope they are watching. They'll see. They'll see, and they'll know, and they'll say...'Why, she wouldn't even harm a fly!'”