Psycho (Death Scene)

This scene from PSYCHO is the first scene where we see the first death in the film. The low key lighting in the room emphasises the danger and suspense of what is happening in the scene.  The suspense is the auteur style of Alfred Hitchcock which shows the importance of the “Auteur theory" by Andrew Sarris formulated in his book (Film Theory and Criticism 1979).

Restricted narration is used in this scene as you don’t see the knife go into Marion because of Hayes Code, this shows the institutional context of the horror industry as Hayes code was still enforced up until the late 60’s.

There was a lot of slow and quick editing in this scene as when the killer approaches the shower it uses a slow montaging to create tension and then when the killer strikes it uses quick montaging to emphasise panic of the actual attack and used together this contrast also creates collision cutting between these two moments in the scene.

Marion is the female victim in the film and is shown in this scene because she has a blonde hair another one of Hitchcock’s auteur influences, as he was renowned for becoming obsessed with female stars like Grace Kelly and Tippi Hedren.  She isn’t wearing any clothes which all emphasises a female victim in most horror films.

There is also a theme of loneliness and isolation in this scene as Marion is all alone in her room where the attacks about to happen which is a very common generic convention of Psychological horrors which shows Thomas Schatz interest in the Genre Theory (Hollywood Genres 1981) is accurate because Hitchcock is clearly aware of important genre features.