Psycho- Use of Red Herrings *new*

In the film Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock uses red herrings to purposely distract the audience from the true psycho. One example would be how the overall story and plot changed many times during the film. The film starts off as being about a woman having an affair, to a woman who stole money, to a missing person case, to a mystery. Also, although they were subtle, the use of the suspenseful violins were also a red herring. At almost too many times in the film, the violins would start playing, and would lead up to nothing. One example would be when Norman was cleaning up the blood in the bathroom. The violins starting playing, like something would pop out, but nothing happens. The violins stop, he walks out to go pull the car up, and when he goes back inside and turns on the light switch, the violins start again. Hitchcock intentionally decided to use this type of music to further distract the audience, to add to the suspense of the movie. These techniques constantly challenged the audience to think about what the main point of the movie was, and what those violins were leading to. More obviously, Norman's mother is a red herring for Norman being the psycho. Of course the audience would believe that Norman's mother is the psycho, she lives in a creepy house next door and is always lurking in the window. There are a few hints throughout the film that Norman is the psycho, for example he says "We're all in our private traps" and "We all go a little mad sometimes" which explains the ending, and how he is mentally trapped, being both his mother and himself. These hints are suspicious, but still to the audience, the mother makes the most sense. Because of Hitchcocks use of red herrings, the ending was unexpected and exciting. Because of the use of these red herrings, Psycho can be considered a scary movie. Scariness is achieved because the audience does not know a lot about the movie. Because of the confusion of the plot, suspense, and who exactly the psycho is, there are a lot of questions and wonders. This makes the audience feel unsafe, not knowing what to look for and what will happen.