Alfred Hitchcock: A Psychological Horror Film Psycho

Psycho: A Psychological Horror Movie Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, the movie, Psycho (1960), is well known for its effective use of suspense to trigger tension among the audience and to complement its central genre, “Bad Guys and Killers.” The film revolves around the idea that violence is part of the American culture and nobody is to be trusted. It uses a myriad of settings and imagery to highlight the qualities of specific characters and hint future events. According to The Art of Watching Films written by Joseph M. Boggs and Dennis W. Petrie, the “strange, foreboding, haunted quality [of the Bates Motel] contributes immensely to the emotional atmosphere of the film… [and] the characterization of Norman Bates” (87). Hitchcock hooks his audience into the film by placing a close-up shot of the action to give the appearance that they are actually involved (Hitchcock). Literary devices scattered throughout the plot serve to enhance the violent and mysterious nature of the film. Behaving suspiciously, Marion Crane, the protagonist of the movie, visits the Bates Motel after driving through a sudden rainstorm. She meets up with the Norman Bates, the owner, to book a room and have a nice, leisurely dinner. Norman seems to be a friendly, young man, but looks can be deceiving: before the dinner, he had a brief argument with
He searches the area and asks Norman to speak to her mother, whom he suspects to have been the murderer. This leads to another suspenseful event in the film because Norman refuses to let him talk to her. Arbogast searches the house and finds the same figure who killed Marion with a knife on the top of the stairs. This scene narrows down and raises some interesting questions about the identity of the killer: whether it is Norman’s mother, someone whom the characters do not know, or even Norman