Psycho

Psycho is a thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1960, which includes stars such as Anthony Perkins and Janet leigh.  The story in the thriller is about Marion Crane who is an office worker who is fed up with her life.  She is unable to marry her lover Sam as he has to give his money away for alimony.  One day she is trusted to bank $40,000, however, she sees the opportunity and takes the money and starts to head towards Sams californian store to start a new life.  After a long drive and getting caught up in a huge storm she gets tired and decides t rest at The Bates motel.  The motel is managed by a quiet man named Norman who seems to be controlled by his mother.

At the start of the film the audience believes that the film is about the money that Marion stole, so when she is murdered everyone was in shock, which makes the audience apprehensive for the rest of the film  as anything could happen.  The audience now knows there is a murderer in the house, however, they do not know when they will strike again.  This means to be suspenseful they know that it could happen again at any minute.  Hitchcock stresses that as the apprehension increases there is less and less violence.  

The shower scene:

The most famous part of the whole film is the scene where Janet Leigh is murdered in the shower, it is so famous that people know of it even if they haven't seen the film.  The music has also been used in other films or television shows to denote the appearance of a 'psycho'.  Also, if you go frame by frame you can see that there is a lot left to the imagination of the audience.  We only see the knife, blood and part of the body, with only a couple of shots of the knife penetrating the body.