Film Review - Psycho 1960

Period 3-4

Film Study

Psycho

In Psycho (1960), Alfred Hitchcock used several techniques to scare his audience. The most important technique used was waiting until the very end for everything to unravel. He has us thinking like detectives, trying to figure out what is going on towards the middle of the movie. The next tactic he uses is the music. Classical music such as using violin and horns to a climax, can change how a person is thinking. The musical crescendo changes how we take in what we are seeing. Just like in the shower scene there is music but then it suddenly stops with the victims scream. Up until that point, we are anticipating something to happen. This makes the audience panic for a brief period of time and when its all done everyone is thinking about what just happened, or going to the bathroom to get rid of any evidence. Hitchcock also used weather to get his audience in the right mood. I didn't notice it until after the movie, but everytime something bad was going to happen it was very gloomy, night time, or raining. The blood was also a great deal in this movie because it was the first movie of its time to have it. The truth is the blood was actually syrup because in black and white, they could pull that off. I think that a good comparison would be a modern time movie coming out with a full nude (nothing hidden) scene in it. The blood was just something that people weren't used to, and it probably scared a lot of them. I think that the anticipation of fear, or the idea of something lurking behind every doorway is what makes Psycho one of the greatest horror films of all time.