On the Road again, the music comes on which is very jaggedy, which causes suspense. Driving, she’s hearing voices in her head, and then there’s a view of the road which is dark which Marion can hardly can see. They show close-ups of her face and eyes squinting with lights blinding her. The music gets faster as she reaches the tall, dark, eerie house on top of the hill, in which they use a long angle shot. All she sees is a figure walking past the window, which makes the viewers think there’s someone else in the house. The hard falling of rain makes the atmosphere more eerie, so Norman Bates comes and shows her into the office.
In the office, Norman Bates is very friendly and welcoming. There’s a close up of Marion’s signing in as she changes her surname. When deciding what cabin to put her in, Norman hesitates and this hand moves back and forth which makes the viewer think why? This is misleading as he was normal in the beginning. He goes to get her something to eat, as the music starts again which makes us as the audience focus back on the money as she’s looking for somewhere to hide it. Marion then hears a voice of his mother’s, which makes her think that there’s someone else in the house, but we know that is Norman being psychotic. When he comes back with the food, his behaviour has changed, he’s now acting very suspicious. He watches her eat very closely and then implies she eats like a bird. She replies, “ You should know,” she said this as his hobbie is taxidermy, which is a reference to death as he starts to talk about killing birds. Norman bates then says, “ A boy’s best friend is his mother.” This is unusual as he starts to talk about how he wants to curse his mother and his hate for her. He says she has an illness. He then starts to talk about death again, when telling her about his father dying. The music then comes back on softly, when Marion mentions a madhouse to put his mother in. This shows and causes suspense and tension in the conversation. His behaviour then changes again, as he becomes unhinged all of a sudden. “We all go mad sometimes.” The viewer responds to this to how Marion would. Scared, as the conversation is very unusual. It’s about death and his mother. Marion feeling unnerved and unsettled so she applies she’s tired and wants to leave the room. As she is leaving, the music starts up again, so the viewers think something might happen to her, and that the psycho is or might be Norman Bates.
The shower scene. This is the high peak of action for the film. It took seven days to shoot this scene and altogether they used 78 cameras. Norman’s watching her getting undressed through the peep hole, and there is a close up of the eye of him watching her closely. The music starts of softly and then gradually gets faster, which causes suspense. Marion then starts writing a letter and getting herself ready to get in the shower. Before she does this, she tears up the calculations of the stolen money and flushes it down the toilet, which was the first film ever to have shown this. She steps into the shower and Hitchcock has carefully used different camera shots, to make the viewer think that something will happen. There is a medium shot of her washing herself, and then they use a close-up of the shower, a high-angle shot, a crane shot and then a low angle shot. You then start to visualise a faint dark figure behind the curtain gradually getting closer and closer. The intruder pulls back the shower curtain and Marion lets out a high pitch scream, which causes suspense as they show a big close-up of her mouth. At this point, the music is getting louder and they show a close up of her being knifed in the chest and stomach, in which they used water melons towards the sound effects. The music is high pitched and gets louder as they show the blood going down the drain, and a close-up of her falling, pulling the curtain rail down and her head hitting the floor. The music is faded out and it goes silent, replaced by the sound of running water. There’s a big close up of her eye and gradually the camera pulls away from her.
Throughout the film, the music was used to reflect the viewers feelings and was used to heighten the tension. When Marion escapes with the money and during the shower scene, they played the music at a piercing volume and the pitch provided the perfect aural counter point to the glinting cold knife that appears to be plunged in the body of Marion. The pitch and tempo matches the frenzied stabbing of the knife, which makes the viewers more tensed. When she arrives at the motel it goes silent and all you can hear is the rain hitting the roof which could be linked to the shower scene, and everything you hear is water, it suddenly goes silent. The effect it has on the viewers is that you start to think something will happen, it is eerie and it creates more tension. To do the music and create the tension they used the shrieking crescendo of the violin which played at a piercing volume, which created all the tension in the horror film “psycho.”
Throughout the horror film (psycho), Hitchcock used a number of camera angles to build up tension and suspense in the film and to manipulate the viewer innerving them. He used long-shots and low angle shots of the house, to give it that eerie gothic look. At the beginning, they used a close up of the money, this is so the viewer concentrated on the money, throughout the film. The other camera shots that were used was a medium close up of Marion driving, a medium shot in the shower scene and the hesitation of the cabin keys, a long shot of the police car, a high angle shot when taking the money out to buy the car. And a big close up of her eye after she had been murdered in the shower. The most camera shots were used in the shower scene, which added to the tension.
In its days, psycho was a terrifying film as it is known as the “Mother of the modern horror films.” This was because it was the first of its kind.
Today, it makes the viewers tense with anticipation of what’s to come. The main sources that built the tension was the music soundtrack that was written by Bernard Herman. Also the different camera angles that were used throughout the film. Hitchcock also used many different innovative techniques that were adopted to manipulate his audience. To add to the sound effects they used water melons and for the high pitched shrieks they used string instruments like violins. These were very effective as they added to the tension and suspense throughout the great horror movie “psycho.”
