The way Hitchcock uses a woman as the evil heroine and a female personality for the murderer is a contrast to modern horror films today. At the end of the film the audience and all the characters within the movie learn that Norman Bates’s alternate mother personality is actually responsible for all the murders. The only crime Ryan Andrew Norman commits is destroying the evidence such as Marion’s car and Marion’s blood, and that is only to protect his mother.
The way the set in the film is always dimly lit such as the scene where Detective Arbogast asks Norman some questions about Marion’s disappearance in the lobby of The Bates Motel, creates a constant feeling of evil and darkness in the air. During the murder scenes the audience always get close up shots of the victims faces but the viewers never actually saw the murder weapon sinking into the skin, which left a lot to the viewer’s imagination and increased the horror and fear.
The music used during the murder scenes was sharp, constant and screeching formed which created an evil, nasty twisted feeling. The high pitched Screeches were always synchronised with the strikes of the murder weapon, this could almost make the audience feel the pain themselves. Overall, in my opinion I would say Hitchcock’s Psycho was a great success, changing the way many people thought about films and inspiring many great horror film writers which the public all enjoy today. In my Psycho poster which I have made on Adobe Photoshop 5.
5 I used a dark colour (black) for the background. I did this because dark colours create evil, mystery and tension. My poster also denotes Norman Bates in his motel bathroom looking down toward the shower/bath, this maybe just after he has murdered Marion. To someone who hasn’t seen the film they will not know this is after he has murdered Marion and this will create tension because they will want to know what crime has been committed because Norman Bates looks in shock and in guilt.
The poster also contains some gloomy grey text signifying mystery and some big yellow text to catch the public’s attention. The poster also contains red test because that connotes anger and is also the colour of blood symbolizing that a murder has just been committed. There is also a slogan included on my poster saying “One killer… Two Minds… Who can stop him? ” This also creates tension, because the audience will want to find out who committed the crimes.
