How Does Hitchcock Create Tension and Suspense In "Psycho"?

The shower scene is the most famous scene in horror movie history, the audience in this scene see Marian dieing in the bathroom. This is shocking to the audience because she is the main character played by famous actress Janet Leigh; this would furthermore make it shocking. Hitchcock created tension and suspense in this scene in various ways. He does not just use sound, lighting and shots to create tension but he merges these techniques together to make the audience feel what is happening to Marian. Hitchcock uses music in this scene to have an effect on the audience’s feelings. This can be seen when Marian is dieing the music slows down to a gradual stop to represent her heart stopping. Hitchcock uses lighting in this scene very different to normal horror based films. He fills the shower/bathroom with a bright white light, to make us as the audience feel forced to watch Marian’s death. This is very affective on the audience’s feelings. Furthermore the shots and angles show Marians feelings in a very in depth way. Hitchcock uses angles to capture Marian’s death, dramatically. The way he puts together all of the shots taken of Marians death makes the audience feel even more shocked. Marian in one shot holds her hand up in the air towards the camera; as though she is pleading us to help her, we as the audience feel sorry for her as we cant help her. Hitchcock does this to make us feel like Marian, scared, shocked and to make us realise that she is dead, so the money plot will have to change. All of these techniques in the shower scene get the audience thinking what will happen next, Hitchcock does this at the end of the scene when he chooses to track back to the bedroom from the bathroom, to remind us about the money.

In this scene when Lila is approaching the house the shots are, a close up of Lila and a low angle far away from the house. Hitchcock does this to show that Lila is not safe in the house, as though the house is big and unforgiving and Lila is small and innocent in comparison. This makes us as the audience feel tension for Lila as we can see from these shots that something is going to happen to Lila. We furthermore see lots of subjective shots of the house from Lila’s perspective, which increases the tension as well. Hitchcock does this to let the audience feel as though they are in the house with Lila, so the audience sees things in the house, as Lila sees things. This increases the tension while we are watching the film. This scene reflects these kinds of horror conventions with dumb blondes which is usually used in horror films, When Norman comes through the door and up stairs, Lila Crane decided to go down the stairs and into the cellar, when she could have escaped. Hitchcock wanted to use this horror convention to unveil Normans mother “Mrs Bates”. In this area of the scene when Norman Bates/Mrs Bates finds Lila in the cellar, you hear Norman scream “I am Norma Bates”, Norma being his mother’s name. Hitchcock did this to let us, as the audience know that Norman has a split personality with his mother. At this time Hitchcock uses the hanging light in the scene to flash between Lila, Norman and the dead Mrs Bates. Hitchcock does this to show the audience everything that is happening in the scene and draws out attention to certain parts. This lets the viewer feel a large amount of tension and suspense.

Although “Psycho” was made over 40 years ago, Hitchcock’s techniques are still being copied today. Some parts of the film are no longer frightening for a modern audience, for example the stabbing in the shower scene can now be classed as stupidly comical, due to computers and special affects stabbing and cuts can now be shown more realistically, which the present audiences are now used to.