The extract begins with a medium shot of blonde woman in a bathroom, the woman is wearing a dressing gown. There is a very soft but ominous score playing throughout the beginning of this extract. This begins to create tension from the off and due to prior knowledge of the genre the audience take this as a device to signal something is going to happen in this sequence. The woman is shown as a typical 'Femme Fatale' with the bleach blonde hair and the made up face the fact that she's alone also infers this. Again with prior knowledge of the genre we know that a vulnerable woman alone can only mean bad things and tension begins to build quicker.
There is a close up of a toilet as the woman throws torn up pieces of paper into the bowl and flushes them down the toilet. This is a very out of the ordinary action in itself, and shows she really wants to get rid of whatever was on the paper. This also insinuates that she has something to hide giving the audience all the more reason to believe that something bad is about to happen.
The woman then closes the bathroom door, there is a lot of emphasis placed on the door closing. This is used to foreshadow the killers entrance through the unlocked door while also building suspense in itself as the audience know that something will happen to or through that door.
The woman removes her dressing gown and is completely naked, this emphasises her vulnerability as people are usually most relaxed in this situation and would not expect to be attacked in the shower or when in a supposedly 'safe' environment. This plays on one of the key elements of the thriller genre that "nowhere is safe" and the audience will always be on edge because of this.
When the woman enters the shower the camera movements and cutting begin to disorientate the audience, with frequent breaking of the 180° rule the camera cuts from one side of the woman to the other and different sides and views of the shower head in quick succession. The actress gives off a very relieved performance, she plays the character as relaxing after a long day. The camera continues to cut quickly until it settles abruptly facing towards the door -which is seen trough the semi-transparent shower curtain- the abrupt stop at this viewpoint puts the viewer on edge as they know something's about to happen.
A shadowed figure emerges from the door and gets closer and closer to the shower curtain. The curtain is drawn back quickly and makes a loud noise, the score then gets loud and screeching, a knife is shown on screen and a short sequence of cross-cutting and quick editing is used to show the assailant stabbing the woman. This is a very dry scene as the blood used on screen is not there for long and it's counteracted by the film being in black and white.
When the killer leaves the woman to die there is a reduction in the speed of both the editing and score. The score begins to fall at longer intervals and at an out of tune tone which is used to symbolise the life draining out of the woman. The woman tries to grab the shower curtain and falls face first out of the shower, the camera begins to zoom into the plug hole, there is then a graphic match shot of the plug hole and the dilated pupils of the woman's eyes. This is also used to show that the woman has been killed.
The camera then begins to pan around the room and leave the bathroom. Many people see this as symbolising the woman's soul leaving her body. We hear a non diegetic voice call for his/her mother and a tilt shot through a window at a low angle showing the hotel to be overbearing and very mysterious.
-Regan McSweeney
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