Convincing the audience of the reality of the film let Hitchcock mould their conceptions, develop sympathies and build up identification between them and fictional characters. This hugely increased the despair and shock, the feeling of loss even when a character is brutally murdered. Straight away Hitchcock begins to build our sympathies for Marion Crane. He uses several cinematic techniques to create a mise-en-scene. Mise-en-scene is everything a viewer can see within a certain frame and consists of many aspects. For instance, Hitchcock uses a high-angle, mid range establishing shot to put Marion in her context, and highlight her vulnerability. The music for psycho is critical to the film as a whole. Each time a character is killed, when the murderer emerges from their hiding place, the high-pitched music strings up the jumpy rhythm, before the rest of the instruments join in. The music sets the tone for almost all the scenes. The shower scene, in which Marion is fatally stabbed, would be nowhere near as effective without its music. Music is also the key to the film due to its ability to build up expectations within the audience and create large amounts of tension and suspense.
Another example of sound is Hitchcock's use of voice over. For instance, as Marion drives away with the money she ha stolen, she imagines conversations between the people she has left behind and their reactions to her faults. Hitchcock also uses sound, which doesn’t complement the image that we see. Whilst the on screen image is a long shot of the house behind the motel, we can hear Norman and his mother talking in a room. This is done very skilfully because it leaves us convinced that Mrs. Bates is real – we have heard her.
Lighting is also used to show good and evil. For instance, when Marion is in Norman Bates’ parlour, she is pondering whether to take the money back. During this scene, Marion is well lit and her face is surrounded by warmth (showing her innocence). Norman bates however is almost hidden in darkness, as though he is in shadow – hiding something. Even though Bates is presented as shy with a likeable personality at first, his inner-self is exposed through the shadows around him. Furthermore, there is a lot of light at the start of the film, the sun is out and people are smiling. However, once Marion goes to the Bates motel, she is in danger, the darkness follows this rhythm. For example, its always raining, it’s night time no one is smiling and there are a lot of shadows. Hitchcock uses the night to tell the story rather than words or conversations. Everything evil happens during the night. For instance, Marion arrives at the Bates motel at night, she is killed during the night. The darkness is shown as the cover up or ‘the scene of the crime’.
The main part of Psycho is set in a derelict place to look like a typical horror set. Hitchcock set the main plot for Psycho in a spooky, dark motel to create a nail biting atmosphere. Alfred J. Hitchcock wanted to conquer the horror genre so he skilfully chose the perfect setting for every crime to create suspense and terror between the audiences. He accomplished this through Psycho by setting the scenes in the perfect places, this left very long lasting effects on the audience. In addition, because Psycho was filmed in black and white, this helped it look even spookier and it was extremely effective. Through his clever techniques, Hitchcock managed to pass ‘Psycho’ as one of the greatest horror movies of the era but also made himself a successful career. (Psycho was filmed in black and white for the usage of special effects e.g. chocolate sauce as blood).
After analysing Psycho I have come to believe it’s one of the most impressive horror film to date. Considering there wasn’t much technology in the early sixties, not many directors have to this day achieved what Hitchcock acomplished forty-five years ago. Through careful direction and shooting Psycho was able to build tension and suspense, it was able to create emotions between the spectators and give edge of the seat excitement. It truly is pure quality.