The Lasting Impact of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho

The 1960s film Psycho directed by Alfred Hitchcock was groundbreaking and continues to influence film making to this day. The film has been credited as being the foundation for modern day horror films and launching the “slasher” sub-genre. Alfred Hitchcock was known as the master of suspense which definitely proved to be true through all of his movies, especially his most influential film, Psycho, which surprised the audience with shocking bursts of violence and provocative sexual explicitness thus changing cinema forever.

Although it may have not been his best film it became one of his most successful. Psycho was a change in pace for Hitchcock. Movies directed by him usually consist of a wealthy protagonist in an exotic location. Unlike any of his other films, none of the main characters in Psycho were wealthy, of course until Marion Crane stole the forty thousand dollars from her job, but other than that it was very different from his usual work. Another difference in Psycho was that it took place in Phoenix, Arizona and small towns in California like Fairvale, rather than places like Paris or Mount Rushmore shown in Hitchcock’s other films. Even though movies shot in color, which were raved about, were becoming more popular than movies shot in black and white during the time period Psycho was made, Hitchcock went against the rest of the movie making industry and did something very unusual, especially at the stage his career was in.

Although his reasons for shooting in black in white was partly a money issue and majority because he thought the famous shower murder scene would be too graphic if shown in color, it was genius of him to decide to do so. The lack of color set the tone of the movie. Shooting Psycho in black and whi...

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... vastly admired and appreciated to this day as one of the greatest movies made. It is incredible how years later this film still has such an influence on modern day horror films. This timeless classic redefined horror films for generations.

Works Cited

Dolan Roberts. “The Genius of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.” Whatculture.com. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.

Kevin Carr. “33 Things We Learned From the ‘Psycho’ Commentary.” Filmrejects.com. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.

Larry Poupard. “Horror Movie Clichés Started by Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.” Yahoo.com. Web. 20 Apr. 2014.

Mark Kermode. “Psycho: The Best Horror Film of All Time.” Theguardian.com. Web. 20 Apr. 2014.

Stephen Robb. “How Psycho Changed Cinema.” BBC news. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.

Stephen Whitty. “ A Psycho Analysis: Alfred Hitchcock’s Spookiest Movie Brought With it The End of Hollywood Innocence.” NJ.com. Web. 21 Apr. 2014.