Taxidermy is a very big part of the film, it hints to the ending, creates a scary atmosphere, describes Norman’s character and is used before something evil happens. The stuffed birds prey down on Norman and seem to haunt him (as his mother does).
They mirror the way the dark, gloomy, gothic house watches over the hotel and also how Mother psychologically watches over Norman, this creates suspense as the audience wonder how he will use the tension he is building up.
Another example is when Arbogaust gets killed and when Norman is taking his mother downstairs, we watch over this scene from the top corner, as the birds do in Norman’s office this implies that Norman is haunted by something watching over him. These examples foreshadow the ending of the film and the real situation between Norman and Mother.
The music builds a lot of tension and suspense in psycho, it tells us that something is going to happen very soon and we get prepared for it, the lack of music can make a scene seem calm and normal, which then contrasts with the loud scary music that starts quickly as the scary part happens. The audience are unprepared and scared. An example of this in the famous shower scene where Marion is killed. This is my favourite scene as every symbol is shown so obviously and we know exactly what is going to happen and yet we are powerless to stop it, the tension is very high. This scene starts with Marion in the shower. There is no music and all you hear is the water splashing. This lack of music and everyday, familiar sound effects make this scene feel very real and, as most of us have had showers before, we relate to it. It could be us in the shower. There is a musty shower curtain, which you can barely see through, so Marion cannot see or hear, she is totally blind to what is happening. She is simply washing as you and I do and she is very vulnerable to, this creates empathy for her. Then we see a dark figure through the mist, again, darkness represents evil. Marion showers oblivious to the dark figure moving towards her. She may be washing away the evil, the crime that she has committed as before; she decides to give back the money.
The “slashing” music commonly used for deaths in psycho begins but quietly in the background the music and the figure move towards Marion simultaneously, the audience realise this and are forced to watch yet are powerless to stop it. Guilt is mixed with the complex emotions of the audience on witnessing the murder, as they knew that Marion was not safe before she did. When the figure pulls back the shower curtain, it has its back to the light so no face is seen, this makes the audience desperate to know who the figure is and creates suspense. A brutal stabbing follows, which would have been considered even more violent when it was first released than today, when the violence on screen is much more common. The audience never see a stab, we never see the knife penetrate the body, Hitchcock uses our imagination to make the killing seem a lot more violent than that was actually shown, also not showing the stabbing allows the audience to know what is happening without it being explicitly shown as psycho needed to stay inside the boundaries of being accepted by censors.
Marion lays on the shower floor perfectly still but with her eyes open, with a shocked expression and a lone drop of water in the corner of her eye. The audience see a plughole with the blood and water draining out. The plughole slowly merges with Marion’s eye. Her iris part is blue like the water and the pupils dilate. The life is being drained out of her as if her eye is the plughole, a window to her body. Marion’s eye is at one point part of the plughole, connecting the two, showing their similarities.
The ending of psycho is where all the tension builds up to the climax. Hitchcock builds up the tension using evil and good lighting, props, clothing, facial expressions, music and audience empathy. We see Lila going towards the house with similar shots to the Arbogaust shots, this tells the audience that what will happen is going to be similar to the Arbogaust situation.
There is no one in the house and Hitchcock cuts to Norman telling Sam how happy his childhood was. Hitchcock cuts back to Lila in the bedroom. There are dolls, teddy bears and other toys. There is a record on the gramophone, “erotica” which seems out of place.
The bedroom seems to be owned by someone half adult half child. There is something wrong with the person who lives here, this person seems to half two lives, hinting the way Normans body has two lives in it.
Norman realises that the woman is in the house and runs towards it. Music begins quietly in the background. Lila runs towards the nearest exit (the cellar) and watches Norman choose to go upstairs. The audience is relieved for Lila that Norman chose the wrong way but we still are scared as Norman will be coming back.
The music becomes more “slash-like” but is still not exactly like the death music of when the dark figure approached in the shower scene.
It is similar to the death music, but not identical, death is only approaching.
We see Mother sitting as though she is going to turn round by herself any moment. Lila’s hand reaches towards her slowly, prolonging the audience’s suspense. There is no music at this point it is silent. Silence is used here for contrast against the death music approaching.
The hand waits, then touches mother. The corpse swings round very willingly as thought it wanted to turn.
Lila screams in the exact same way Marion did and the death music begins suddenly out of the silence. The contrast between silence and the screaming stringed music plus the screaming Lila is massive and scares the audience to death. Hitchcock did exactly what he wanted to do to the audience.
After this, Norman runs in wearing his mothers clothing, with the scream still ringing through the room. He tries to stab Lila, Sam stops him and Norman almost melts to the floor in a spasm, the suspense of this scene deflates and the audience is left in shock.
In conclusion, there are many interesting ways Hitchcock created and sustained tension in psycho. He used the audiences imagination to make what very little he was allowed to show on screen much more powerful, Hitchcock knew how people would react to symbols he placed in Psycho and used that to his advantage in making them feel what he wanted them to, and it worked very well.