Psycho

Psycho

Title: Psycho

Year: 1960

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Starring actors: Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins

Brief Narrative:

Psycho is a Thriller movie directed by the famous Hitchcock. The narrative is about a young women (Janet) who is struggling financially. When sent home early from work after feeling ill she was asked to deposit some money for her company along the way. Janet took this as an opportunity to help her self to the money. This is the plot that the viewers expect the movie to be about, a women on the run. However when she pulls over for a night of rest at the Bates motel the plot begins to change. Janet is killed off within the first 30 minutes of the movie which totally throws the audience as she is the main character and we expected the narrative to be about her on the run. This intrigues the audience. The rest of the movie is about the death of Janet being uncovered.

I feel studying this movie at GCSE as well as A level has allowed a greater insight of what makes a good thriller movie. This movie is famous for a number of reason. First it changed the whole idea of Thriller completely. Instead of a killer animal (The birds) or a killer alien (The blob) the killer was in fact a human. this instilled a whole new fear factor within people. Secondly the movie created phobias within people of showering, it was recorded that people would much rather take a bath than shower and felt very vulnerable when showering. Thirdly the music itself when Janet was being stabbed has become a world wide icon. It is recognized by almost everyone and has been used in countless productions. For example The Simpsons. Also the shower scene itself has been re-created numerous times as well as the shot of blood trickling down the plug hole.

Psycho teaches the importance of camera angles also. For example when Hitchock showed his first production to the censors their reaction was outstanding. They refused release of the movie on several counts. One minor reason being that a toilet was flushed. Another reason was for the brutality of Mrs Leighs murder. The censors claimed that they saw the knife penetrate her skin and saw wounds and too much blood however Hitchcock was quick to point out that in fact you do not see the knife penetrate her skin at all but that the use of his clever camera angles makes the audience believe they have seen this. Therefore in fact his movie has done nothing to upset the censors. The use of his angles in this film could quiet possibly be the making of Hitchock himself. I admire Hitchocks work within this movie and feel that it has truly changed the ideas of Thriller today. I would love to be able to use camera angles as effectively as Hicthcock did.