Psycho. Psycho is regarded as the mother of all modern day suspense and horror films. It was the first of its kind and broke new boundaries in filmmaking.

Mr Cassidy a rich oil tycoon wants to buy a house as his daughter's wedding present. He gives Lowery, Marion's employer, $40,000 to buy a house. Lowery gives the money to Marion who happens to have a headache and Marion gets the afternoon off to go and deposit the money in the bank and then go home. However Marion goes straight home, packs her bags, puts the money in her handbag and starts to drive out of town.

It begins to get dark and so she sleeps in the car by the roadside. The next morning a policeman sees her sleeping in her car and goes over to see what is happening. He checks her license and then lets her go. She carries on driving and stops at a car shop. She trades her car in for a new one. She carries on driving and it starts pouring down heavily. Her windscreen wipers cannot clear the windscreen for her to see.

Marion is attracted to a bright Motel Sign called Bates Motel. She pulls over, gets out of the car and walks into the reception. There is no one there so she walks back out and looks behind the building. Here Marion sees Norman Bates', mother's house. She looks up and sees a shadow in the window. She gets back in the car and sounds the horn. Norman Bates comes running down into the reception and apologises to her for not hearing her come because of all the rain. Norman signs her into the motel in cabin 1. Norman asks her if she would like to have dinner with him and she says she would like to. He goes off to get it ready.

Marion folds up and hides the money in a newspaper and puts it on the bedside cabinet. Then she hears Bates mother shouting "No! I tell you no, I will not have you bringing young girls for supper." She does not let Marion into her house so Norman brings her some sandwiches and milk. Norman tells her to go over to the office into the back parlour to eat. They start to talk about their hobbies. Norman tells Marion that his hobby is to stuff birds. After she finishes her dinner she goes to her cabin to have a shower.

We see Norman taking a picture off the wall in the parlour and peeking through a hole in the wall at Marion getting changed to have a shower. Norman leaves and goes to his mother's house. After a while we see someone slowly walking into the bathroom and they stab Marion several times. We cannot tell who it is because the camera is changing views constantly. Next Norman comes running out of his mother's house and into the cabin where Marion was stabbed. He sees that Marion has been murdered and is surprised. He runs into the office to get a mop and bucket to clean up. He cleans up and puts Marion's body into the back of her car. He takes all her things, puts them into her suitcase and puts it also into the back of her car. Norman starts the car and drives it to a swamp. He gets out and pushes it in.

Next we see Marion's worried sister Lila going into the shop where Sam works, asking if he has seen Marion. Then a private investigator called Arbogast walks in and tells Sam that his girlfriend has stolen $40,000. Lila tells him that Marion was meant to bank the money on Friday for her boss but she did not and no one has seen her since. Arbogast says, "Someone always sees a girl with $40,000. She was seen leaving town in her own car by her employer. She is in this town somewhere, I'll find her." Then he leaves the shop and goes and checks all the motels in town. The last one he goes to is Bates Motel.

Norman takes him into the office. Arbogast tells him he is looking for someone. He shows him a picture and he says, "No, she has not stopped by here." Then Arbogast says she may have used a fake name and Norman says that he does not even bother with guests registering anymore. Then Arbogast has a look at the guest book and finds that the name Marie Samuel's is written with the same handwriting as Marion's. Norman Bates has another look at the picture and this time says that he has seen her. He says it was raining that day and it's not a very good picture of her. Arbogast asks him "tell me all about her." Norman says she arrived late that night and left very early in the morning. They carry on talking and then Arbogast asks if he can help change the bed sheets. They leave the office and Arbogast goes and looks behind the reception and notices a shadow in the window. Arbogast asks who it is in the window and Bates tells him that it is his invalid mother and he cannot see her.

Arbogast then leaves and goes to a phone box to call Lila. He tells her what he has just found out. He goes back to the motel to talk to Bates' mother. He goes into the house and walks up the stairs. As he is walking up the stairs we see a door slowly opening at the top of the stairs. When he reaches the top of the stairs Bates comes running out of the room and stabs Arbogast in the head. He falls down the stairs onto the floor.

Sam and Lila are worried because they have been waiting 3 hours for Arbogast when he told them that he would be an hour. Sam goes over to the motel and does not find anyone and so he goes back home. Sam and Lila then go to see their deputy sheriff. They explain everything to the sheriff and he rings Norman. Lila tells him that Arbogast went there to see Norman's mother and the sheriff tells them that Miss Bates has been buried in Greenlong cemetery for ten years. Then the sheriff asks, "Well if the woman up there is Mrs. Bates, who is that woman buried in Greenlong cemetery?"

Next we see Norman walking up the stairs and into the room. He talks to his mother and carries her, and puts her into the cellar. Sam and Lila decide to go and stay in motel so that they can search the place. They check in and later go and search cabin 1, the cabin Marion stayed in. They do not find anything. So Sam goes to talk to Norman while Lila goes to find his mother in the house. She walks up the stairs and into her room but she is not there. She searches the rest of the house and finds nothing. Norman realises that Lila must be in the house and hits Sam over the head with a pot and knocks him out. While Lila is going downstairs she notices Norman coming and runs to hide under the stairs. Here she notices the cellar and walks in. She sees Norman's mother's back on a chair and swings it around to find a corpse. She screams. Norman comes running in with a knife to kill Lila while Sam is trying to stop him.

Norman is taken to the county court house. Next we see the psychiatrist explain to Sam and Lila Norman's problem. A policeman takes Norman a blanket. We hear Norman's mother's voice talking to Norman. At the End of the film we see Marion's car being towed out of the swamp.

Norman's mother is dead, but is alive in the mind of Norman. She is dominating Norman's mind. Alfred Hitchcock makes us think that the mother is alive throughout the film. The audience think that she is alive therefore makes us suspect that she is probably the killer. She is very jealous towards Norman having relationships with women.

Norman Bates is the property owner of Bates Motel. He is soft spoken and hesitant. He lives an isolated life revolving around his invalid mother. Norman has a mental illness called Oedipus Complex. Norman starts to act nervous when Arbogast starts questioning him about the whereabouts of Marion.

Marion Crane is from Phoenix, Arizona. She is a working girl trapped by circumstances in a relationship that she does not want to end and because of this she does not seem to move forward. On an impulse, she makes a choice, which will change her life forever. Marion has respect, but no control over her actions.

Sam Loomis is Marion's boyfriend. He loves Marion but cannot marry her because of his current financial situation. He is paying off his alimony to his ex-wife.

Lila Crane is Marion Crane's sister. She is cynical and suspicious. She is desperate to find her sister, who has been missing for a week. She follows any leads she can and travels to see Sam Loomis who is Marion's boyfriend.

In Psycho there are many effects and it is very interesting the way they are created. The title Psycho was not just chosen randomly but it had a purpose. Alfred Hitchcock thought about what the title to the film should be called. He decided to call it Psycho because Psycho is a title that makes us wonder what is going to happen. Also it describes someone with a severe mental illness. Norman is obsessed with his mother and suffers from a social dementia. He is so emotionally disturbed that he has no control over himself. It is his twisted emotions that drive him to violence and murder. He is peculiar that he has lived with a corpse for ten years. Hitchcock could have decided to call it many other things but nothing would have had the same effect that Psycho has.

The music is also used to manipulate the audience during the film. Bernard Herman composed the music for Psycho. He used cellos and violins to make the music very sinister, high pitched and with a high tempo. The music adds a lot of suspense and tension. This keeps the audience guessing what will happen next. He uses voices in people's heads for example when Marion takes the money and is driving away on the road. She hears Sam's voice "Marion what in the world, what are you doing here...of course I'm glad to see you. I always am....What is it Marion?" These voices are meant to stress that Norman is living in an unreal world.

Another aspect that adds suspense in Psycho is the dialogue and the way Hitchcock arranged his writing. He did it in such a way that he would make the audience think. For example when Marion asks Norman how many rooms there are at Bates Motel, Norman says, "12 rooms, 12 vacancies." In other words people check in but nobody checks out. Also Hitchcock makes the audience think when Norman is struggling to speak about his mother. "No. Uh, Mother, m-my mother, uh what is the phrase? She isn't quite herself today."

The camera work in Psycho has a big effect on the film. The camera work in psycho is very good. In the shower scene there are over ninety different camera shot. This is called a subliminal shot. These subliminal shots happen very fast and make the audiences' heart rate's increase, making them more irritable and uncomfortable. Another good camera shot used in the play is used to make the audience think that the mother is still alive. This is when Norman is carrying his mother's body to the basement. We hear the mother screaming and shouting, and therefore we think she is alive. Whilst Norman is carrying the mother, we see her body, but not her face. The camera shot is taken from the top of the hall. We see the top of her head and her body, and we presume that she is still alive. At the beginning of the film the camera pans over Arizona, then focuses at a window and takes you inside. This makes the audience think. Another intriguing camera shot is when Marion is killed. Whilst she is lying dead in the bathtub, the camera slowly shows a close up of her open eye. When the audience see she has been killed they are shocked because they have identified her as the main character or a heroine, and feel they have become part of her. This breaks the convections of a normal film and we do not expect her to get killed. A different type of view is a point of view shot. A point of view shot puts us in the mind of the character. During the time Marion Crane is alive point of view shots are used a lot to give us an idea of how she is feeling.

The lighting in Psycho is used to add to the suspense. The Parlour behind the reception is a very small room and there is just enough space to fit the two arm chairs and the table. On the table there is a lamp, which is the only source of light in the room. Marion sits close to the lamp and this produces a warm and cosy image. Hitchcock positions Norman further away from the lamp. This emphasises that something is hidden away from us and adds to the suspense. If you look carefully at Norman you will see a shadow behind him. This could symbolise someone else, i.e. his mother. Hitchcock changes Marion from a dark personality to a lighter one for example when Marion takes the $40,000 she swaps her dark car for a much lighter car.

The set and timing is another important factor in Psycho. Hitchcock starts to manipulate the audience even before Psycho has begun. In the short trailer, he manipulates the audience's perception of what the film contains, and what the genre of the films is. Psycho is a trailer, but this is not what the audience suspect when they watch the trailer. Now we understand why Hitchcock insisted that no one would be seated after the film had started. This was enforced by uniformed Pinkerton guards. The audience assumed that something horrible would happen in the first few minutes even though nothing happened.

In conclusion, Alfred Hitchcock manipulates the audience in many ways. It is the best horror film of all time and Alfred Hitchcock will forever be the father of suspense. It has spawned three sequels and two remakes of the original. This shows you the popularity and quality of the film. Psycho's ending and spectacular shower scene has forever ingrained itself in the mind of every filmgoer who has ever seen it. Psycho will always be remembered for its music and unforgettable shower scene.