Alfred Hitchcocks Psycho Movie Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Alfred Hitchcocks Psycho - Movie Review Example Suspense is always characteristic of a Hitchcock movie. Though he started with horror genre, Hitchcock was able to transform his work into a different kind of style, and that could have transformed into a genre itself. In TV and in films, the plot, the music and scoring are typical of Hitchcock. A woman unrobes, steps into the bathtub, draws the shower curtain closed, and turns on the shower. As she is showering, the door opens, a shadowy figure slowly approaches, and a hand swiftly throws open the curtain. A shadowy figure of a woman appears from behind the curtain, raises her hand with a large bread knife and stabs the naked woman several times. She screams but the attack is relentless. The scene is intensified by a searing background music of a violin that seems to slash and scream. The woman lays lifeless, half of her body hanging on the tub. What's so peculiar and popular - and controversial - in this shower scene in Psycho These days thrillers or mystery/suspense movies employ this kind of gory scene, in fact modern thrillers apply a more intense and horrifying scene that one can say they are more violent blood-soaked scenes than the original Hitchcock Psycho movie. Here, Hitchcock committed many firsts in movie viewing in the 60's. Janet Leigh, or Marion Crane in the movie, flushing the toilet is believed to be the first such shot shown in American cinema, and with her showing her nipple, was also a no-no at that time. Out of this film and the succeeding Hitchcock classic, the guy initiated, albeit unknowingly, his own brand of horror - the mystery and suspense genre. Psycho defines the beginning of Mystery and Suspense Genre Hitchcock has very shrewdly interwoven crime, sex and suspense, also blending the real and the unreal in fascinating proportions and punctuating this with several quick, grisly and unnerving surprises. It is clear that the story has an unsolved crime, or a serial killing is still uncovered. But why was Psycho popularly known - and advertised - as a horror film This was the beginning, in fact, of the mystery genre and Hitchcock was one of those who made it happen. Hitchcock is known for his horror movies, but in Psycho, horrifying as it is, the genre that we can and must refer to is Mystery/Suspense. During the first showing of the movie, Hitchcock again attempted another first in American cinema appreciation. The movie was to be seen at the very beginning, so as not to anticipate the suspense. Psycho is not an ordinary police story, although this can be regarded as a police story because murder is being committed - or a series of murder - and the perpetrator continues to commit such murder. After the first killing, another one, the private investigator is himself killed. It could not be positively identified who was the perpetrator of the murder, but at first it was insinuated in the scenes that the "mother" of Norman Bates, the manager of Bates Hotel, was the murderer. Some scenes shown were that of Norman arguing with his mother, although the figure of the 'mother' was shown with