In this scene from Psycho (1960) we are first introduced to Norman Bates’ mother who the audience think, until now, is alive. The psycho killer Norman Bates shows some resemblances to the infamous Ed Gein in the way that he has dug up his dead mother and preserved her body. The Ed Gein murders happened in 1957 and the fear was still fresh in people’s minds. The writer of the 1959 novel of Psycho, Robert Bloch, based the Norman Bates character largely on Ed Gein, as he fit into the context at the time and terrified the audience as the reminder of what had happened in real life was deeply troubling. Albert Hitchcock exploits this further in the film, and it deeply troubled many audiences.
Body horror is used in order to create Norman’s dead mother which he had been preserving, her rotten eyeballs and decayed face is very unsettling and the close up shot of her adds to the feeling. The institutional context of the film allowed Hitchcock to use this body horror in order to make the audience scared, before the hays code was coming to an end you wouldn’t be able to have a corpse on screen.
The use of low key lighting in the mise-en-scene when Lila hits the light creates large looming shadows of Norman’s mother and other objects on the walls around her which connotes death. When Lila turns her chair around to see a screeching “dead” parallel sound is used in order to frighten the audience and make them jump. Fast paced montage editing is also used at this same time which creates a thrilling effect, combined with the parallel sound and low key lighting, creates a disturbing ‘fun house’ effect in the room, both visually stimulating and disorientating.
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