Psycho Response

            Because of how the film opened up, I did not expect it to turn into what it did during the latter half. One of the opening scenes was with Marion and Sam, talking about how they cannot get married because of financial issues. Before we started the film, I only knew that Marion would be running away and hiding because she stole money and to be with the one she loved. I figured the film might just be her going crazy because she is stuck hiding out and has nothing really to do. The film turned out to be VERY different, and it was interesting to see what it was like, especially because it was considered a horror film at the time it was made. Because it was made in 1960, the technology able to be used wasn't what made this such a famous film. It was how they worked with what they were given, because of the limitations they had to try and create a horror film. The camera angles and use of sound/music made this film that much scarier, as well as the connections Hitchcock chose to make within different parts of the film. For example, a bird’s eye view is used when Norman Bates’ “mother” kills the detective, and Norman also happens to be very fond of Taxidermy with just birds. He also says that Marion “eats like a bird”, which is a bit of foreshadowing for when he kills her and she becomes sort of like his own birds. Because the murder scenes could not be very realistic because of the lack of technology, Hitchcock made up for it by screams and shadows and multiple different shots, which made it equally as scary as it could’ve been with just sight of what was happening.
               After watching the film, and realizing that Norman was the murderer the whole time, I thought back about every scene that the "mother" came out and am trying to understand how Norman was able to get to the house when he was talking to someone in the motel moments before. Also, was Norman talking to himself when he was trying to convince his mother to go down to the fruit cellar? Or when people said they saw a woman in the window upstairs moving, how did that happen. Some of these things, the fact that the viewer as well as some of the people in the film don't know what's going on is what's scary. The mystery and suspense makes it very scary, without being gory scary.