Psycho

Psycho

Psycho (1960) is a thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, John Gavin, and Janet Leigh.The screen play is written by Joseph Stefano, which is based on a book with the same name by Robert Boch.

The story starts with Janet Leigh's character stealing £40,000 from her work place. She decides to stay at a small motel far from the road. When she decides to give the money back however, she is killed killed by a mysterious killer at the motel. The audience are tricked into a false sense of security, thinking that Janet Leigh's character will be the main character in the film, however, she is quickly killed. This shocks the audience because she is such a big name, its unlikely that she would be killed off so early. The rest of the film focus' on trying to find out who the killer is, we soon find out that it is actually the motel keeper, Norman Bates, played by Anthony Hopkins. He turns out to be psychotic and has a split personality split between himself and his mother's personality, who he had previously killed.

One element of suspense in this film is the shower scene in which Janet Leigh is murdered, we can see the shadow of the killer in the curtains and the 'screeching violins' play as the shadow gets closer, and closer...then he kills her. Then her eye morphs into the shower plug. This is a graphic match.

However, this film breaks the conventions of a thriller. Typically, in a thriller film a less equipped hero has to defeat the antagonist/villain by outwitting or outsmartting him/her. However, this doesn't really happen as the main character gets killed off rather early in the film. There are a variety of characters that are introduced into the film which eventually cause the villain, Norman Bates to get caught.