Intertextuality of "Psycho"

A man transports a lady, who looks paralysed, in the bathroom and places her in the bathtub. He fills the bathtub with water. 

Intertextuality: The bathroom scene is similar and the horrified look on her face

A school girl is walking down the corridors, and heads towards the shower. We can hear someone using the shower, presumably a boy. She silently comes in and comes closer to his cloths. She smells them intensely, which is very weird. She then slowly brings a knife out, looks at it and rubs it against herself. She then approaches the shower, opens the door and strikes the boy showering several times. 

Intertextuality: When he slides slowly down the shower, after she stabbed him and the shot of the boy’s feet at the end reminds us of Psycho.

Towards the end of the film, the stepfather runs after the woman he was living with, to kill her. He follows her to the bathroom, but as she strikes him with a knife on the neck, he falls in the bathtub and holds on the curtains. 

Intertextuality: The fact that he holds on the shower curtains brings us directly to the shower scene in Psycho.

Suspenseful moments of "The Stepfather"

 3 Suspenseful Moments

 

Example 1
At the beginning, the Stepfather goes down to the kitchen with a packed bag. He switches on the music player, with what it seems a slower version of “Silent Night”, which triggers our attention. He then goes to the kitchen, prepares a few slices of bread with peanut butter. He eats them and drinks his cup of tea/coffee with tranquillity. As he walks towards the living room, the camera suddenly starts to tilt on the side to reveal the dead chid, on the table. As the camera tilts, the music suddenly changes to a more terrifying theme. We then discover the whole family, dead, and his tools, full of blood, in the sink. The tilting and the sound (music) made this moment suspenseful.

Example 2
When the Stepfather is outside the cat lady’s house, he notices that she is staring at him, convinced that he is the wanted murderer. He drives on in his car. We then follow the cat lady, giving most of her attention to her cats. The doorbell rings, we think that it will be the stepfather. However, no one is here. The camera, placed at a low angle, shows the intrigued cat lady, closing her door. Suddenly, a cat jumps and screams right in front of the camera, which makes us jumps. The false plateau was very effective in this scene.

Example3
When the young teenagers are making out, the young female seems intrigued by the door, which is slightly open. We start to worry. The guy goes out to check, shouts out loud to check if anyone is in the house. No one seems to answer, silence. This silence makes the scene more stressful. Suddenly, the stepfather appears and scares the teenagers (and the audience!) by his unexpected arrival.

 2 Aspects that will influence my film...

I think that the main aspects of this film that really impressed me was how the camera was used, and placed to make normal scenes unusual and stressful. But the most important to me was the use of sound (through either the sound effects or the music). These two aspects really influenced this film, and will definitely influence mine.

Thriller Sub Genres - lesson 2

There are several types of Thrillers, including Action (Tron Legacy), Supernatural (6^th Sense), Psychological (Inception), Crime (No Country For Old Men), Romantic (He Loves me, He loves Me Not)...

This video is the opening of the film “He Loves me, He Loves Me Not” (A La Folie... Pas Du tout), a French thriller film. The sub-genre is romantic, clearly identified by the roses and the use of pink in this opening. Several shot types have been used, such as close ups when she is looking at the roses but also mid shots when she is looking at the shop window. Long shots are used when she is on her bicycle. The sound is peaceful. At the beginning, when she carefully chose a flower, we can hear water noises but also birds. We then move onto the dialogue between the lady and the man,  both of them seem to be happy and in a good mood. The music used soon after is happy and represents love. The Mise En Scène features a lot of red (red cloths, red flowers...), a flower shop and another shop representing love (with a lot of “heart” items). It is sunny.

This film is a romantic thriller; suspense is therefore created in another way than inaction thrillers, for example.  In this opening, we do not know for who this rose is, and the fact that she insists on getting this one flower delivered shows how important this person is. This makes you ask questions. It therefore keeps the audience’s interest.