Pycho Thriller Analysis

The sequence begins with a medium shot of a young blonde woman, in a bathroom with a bath robe over her body. This is followed by a close up of her hand as she places shards of paper into the toilet before flushing it. This action leads the audience to believe that she is throwing some piece of information she doesn’t wish for anyone to know, in turn creating a sense of tension for the viewer from the outset that something bad is likely to happen. The sound of the flushing is extremely loud as it seems to drown out any other sound in the scene for a short period of time, accompanied by a quiet but foreboding score these two sounds themselves further create a sense of tension for what may happen through-out the rest of the sequence. 

Both these factors denote that the woman is a ‘femme fatale’, due to her innocent yet suspicious looks, along with the fact that she’s alone suggest that something bad may happen to her, due to the typical stereotype of women being weak and vulnerable within film genres especially within thrillers where they are portrayed as the victim of a sometimes brutal crime. This leads the audience to believe that something is definitely going to happen soon. The audience then sees as she closes the door quite firmly as if to make sure that no one is watching, almost hiding from something, increasing the foreshadowing feeling for the viewers that someone or something will burst through that door. Following this the woman proceeds to take of her bath robe making her even more vulnerable, due to her being completely naked one again helps to build tension within the scene, since no matter the person nobody would feel protected if they were forced to fight or fend off in nothing but their bare skin with a lack of any protection big or small.

As the woman enters the shower the audience is met with the use of camera techniques which left the scene looking distort and sort of twisted adding to sense of a psychotic scene. The most visible camera angle shown is the breaking of the 180 degree rule; a rule usually never broken due to the fact that it makes a scene seem rather strange and awkward adding to the creating of tension within the scene and foreshadowing that something is bound to happen. As the woman steps in the shower a look of relief can be seen on her face as she washes down almost cleaning herself of any sort of troubles. However this sense of relief due to this type of genre and the environment she is in will not last long. A medium shot is then used showing the woman underneath the shower however leaving a wide section behind her the closed door visible behind the quite transparent shower curtain, which suggests that something is coming. 

This suggestion and suspicion is soon answered as the audience can see the door slowly open behind the curtain, a shadowy figure slowly approaching the woman creating a sense of dramatic irony as the audience can see what is about to happen even though the woman herself is clueless of what is going on behind her too enticed by the feeling of being clean. As the shadowy figure approaches the curtain he draws them creating a loud sound and an even louder screeching score ensues in the process. A knife is clearly visible on the screen, as the knife lunges towards the woman the score is turned pleonastic as it repeatedly strikes the woman.

The use of crosscutting and quick editing can be seen more visibly in order to give a variety of different shot in order to mimic the stabs without physically showing any knife penetration apart from a split second which is in fact quite mild and the killer is never shown only his shadow. As the killer quickly leaves the scene of the crime and the woman is left dying on the floor, the editing is slowed down as well as the score in the background, which continues to act as a pleonastic sound to the woman’s slowing heartbeat. As she slowly droops down to the ground, the sense of tension is once again present , this feeling of tension is further increased as she rips the curtain off the rail and falls over the tub not moving, blood slowly seeping out of her body. The audience is soon met by a high angle shot of the blood as into pours into the plughole; a graphic match is made here with the use of a dissolve transition to a close up of the woman’s eye symbolising her life draining just as the blood is drained down the plughole slowly fading into darkness.