1960’s Horror

PSYCHO 1960Directed by Alfred Hitchcock

Produced by Alfred Hitchcock

Budget $806,947

Box office $50,000,000

Trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG3-GlvKPcg&safe=active

Plot

Phoenix office worker Marion Crane (Leigh) is fed up with the way life has treated her. She has to meet her lover Sam (Gavin) in lunch breaks and they cannot get married because Sam has to give most of his money away in alimony. One Friday Marion is trusted to bank $40,000 by her employer. Seeing the opportunity to take the money and start a new life, Marion leaves town and heads towards Sam's California store. Tired after the long drive and caught in a storm, she gets off the main highway and pulls into The Bates Motel. The motel is managed by a quiet young man called Norman Bates (Perkins) who seems to be dominated by his mother.

PYSCHO – The Famous Shower Scene

1. The murder of Janet Leigh's

character in the shower is the

film's pivotal scene and one of

the best-known in all of cinema.

2. The scene used 77 different

camera angles. It runs for 3

minutes and includes 50 cuts.

3. Hitchcock used screeching

violins, violas, and cellos to

achieve the perfect soundtrack

for the shower scene.

Trailer:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrN_U830_Gc

“Genuinely disturbing thriller classic from the master of suspense” –Empire

Magazine

Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds”

Budget: $3.3millionBox office: $11,403,529

Plot:The story begins with a love triangle

involving wealthy Melanie Davies, handsome Mitch Brenner and the school teacher Annie Hayworth.

Curious behavior occurs from the local birds, at first no more than a sea

gull swooping down and pecking at Melanie's head. Things get ugly when

hundreds of birds start to attack.

In theatres: January 1st, 1963On DVD: October 17th, 2005

Hitchcock’s “The Birds” used a variety of special effects (much blue screen work and some animation provided by Disney technicians). It also had a spooky soundtrack - a combination of deathly silence and artificial bird noises – create a many-headed monster, flapping and screeching and pecking.

After Hitchcock's “Psycho” he realised that people wanted believable horror. The corpses that seen onscreen are grotesque mannequins of characters sightless eyes and splayed legs.

The way the film ends, with resolution for our antagonists, shows that Hitchcock was aiming squarely for an adult audience, who would think about the film for long after the final shot had faded from the screen.

Hitchcock's “The Birds”

Horror in the 1960’sThe 1960’s saw a change in what people perceived as

horrible and a rethink occurred in everything from homosexuality to censorship. Underground cinemas were now being more open to nudity and onscreen violence. People wanted horror that was rooted in

reality, which was more believable and more sophisticated. The monsters of the 1950’s now looked silly, no one wanted aliens or a nuclear holocaust. The

1960’s brought in the thinking of the social psyche. Going to the cinema to be scared in the 1960s was

like gazing in the mirror and noticing for the first time that there was something strange going on in the

shadows.