Influence of Hitchcock's Psycho on Culture and the Movie Industry

When Alfred Hitchcock was originally shooting Psycho (1960), he realized that it would make an impact on many viewers. What he did not realize is the cultural impact that it would still have almost fifty years later.

One of the more obscure facts about Psycho concerns the paperwork that the actors and actresses were forced to sign along with the rest of the crew. This paperwork explained that Universal Studios and Alfred Hitchcock would sue anyone for a large sum of money if they were to speak about anything to do with the movie.

While this had been done to a small extent before Psycho, the exasperating amount (that has never been fully disclosed) was a first. Ever since then, nondisclosure agreements have become the norm in Hollywood.

Many directors believed that it ruined their vision for a movie if the theatergoers were not all in their seas when the movie started. Hitchcock made it a rule that no one was allowed into the movie theater once Psycho had started. Once again, he made movie theater owners sign statements that explained this rule, and the fact that they would be sued if they did not follow.

On top of this, they would no longer be given Universal Studios movies to show ever again. This was a major threat to any theater owner since most of the movies out of Universal Studios were big moneymakers.

There were very few directors that ever believed that this was possible. Once they saw Psycho, and realized that the main female lead in the movie was actually a thief, they realized why Hitchcock made this requirement. They realized that she had to die since she had done something evil.

This became a norm later on when the slasher movies came out. Many of the victims in slasher movies die because of the fact that the have done something illegalal, or unethical. The most common victim became the high school teen who was doing drugs or having premarital sex. This was all inspired by Psycho.

Psycho, at it's basis, inspired many of the serial killer and slasher movies that we see today. Psycho was one of the first horror films that gains popularity by taking the horror away from a monster, and putting it into a person. This time, the person was the monster in the form of Norman Bates.

Hitchcock made the strange move of not only putting a toilet in Psycho, but to also have it flushed. This was the first time that any movie had ever had a working toilet in it. ile this may sound like a strange point to mention, it does have extreme importance in Hollywood.

There were many walls in Hollywood that were being jumped or broken down when Psycho first came out. Directors realized that they had limitations, and wanted to break through those limitations. The working toilet in Psycho made it clear to all directors that there are taboos that can be broken during a movie.

Staying in the bathroom for a moment, the shower scene in Psycho has become one of the most familiar scenes in any movie. One of the reasons for this is because of the fact that the shower scene still affects a lot of people to this day. There are many people that refuse to take showers because they are worried that someone is going to sneak up on them.

Also, by today's standards, Psycho is still scary because of the amount that was not showed on the screen. Unlike many of today's movies, the gruesome deaths were not shown to the highest possible degree. People became more afraid by what they did not see, then they could have by what they did see. The mind's eye worked overtime during Hitchcock's Psycho.

This is one of the reasons why the sequels to Psycho did not work. Most people do not even realize that there were sequels to Psycho. The sequels showed the violence, gore, and nudity. The original just suggested them.

To this day, Hitchcock's Psycho continues to influence movie making, and the nightmares of many people. It will be interesting to see in the next fifty years how much influence the movie still hold on our lives and on Hollywood.