Psycho 1960 Trailer Analysis

This trailer challenges the usual conventions of the usual horror trailer as it starts with a fairly quick pace - almost five shots of 'jump scares' - and then settles to a slower pace afterwards. The usual convention of a horror trailer in terms of pace would be slow to quick to create a sense of tension for the audience however Psycho immediately makes the audience jump with its very first montage of quick shots of the death. During these five shots there is very loud, high pitched sound created by the music which is repeated for each shot. The music sounds sudden and almost 'stab' like which links the shot of the knife with the music and creates a link with the music and the death of the women in general. Due to the date in which psycho was released - 1960 - it was important for the producer to work with restricted narration which is why if this trailer was out in this days generation we would of probably seen the knife's impact on the women or at least much more blood to enhance the body gore element however due to its era we only see signs of her death for example the mother holding the knife, the close up of the women's hand sliding down the shower tiles and the shower curtain being ripped down to hint at an 'attack'. After the fast montage of shots the trailer immediately slows down and allows the audience a chance to see into the plot of the movie. "Here we have a quiet little motel" - this is the first dialect that we hear which instantly insinuates that something bad is going to happen due to the use of the words 'quiet' and 'little' which creates a sense of dramatic irony. The shots after this are much slower and are generally medium shots of the characters within the film which i see as a sense of introduction for the audience. The slower paced shots eliminate the 'panic' that the first montage made of created and settles the audience ready for another jump scare at the end. The music used is very gloomy but also has high pitched elements to it which i think represents the women's screams as Norman - the main protagonist - focuses his killing on females. "..and none of us can ever get out" - after this line of dialect the music's tempo immediately ups in both 'bass' and tempo creating a sense of 'action' and 'thrill' to the trailer. Again the shot speed increases until we reach a moment where Norman is dragging a women's body out of the bathroom - which again is where the speed of shots slow down to emphasis the importance of the death and highlights the 'horror' aspect of the film. Here is where we first read Alfred Hitchcock's name which is important as it would attract many horror fans that particularly liked his work therefore broadening the target audience. From here on the music grows in both volume and speed generating anxiety and panic from the audience until it finally blacks out and the title slowly appears. The font of the title is fragmented which symbolises Normans disjointed mind due to his Schizophrenia. The background of the font is plain black. The colour itself connotes darkness, loss and mystery but combine this with the bloody red 'splatters' that appear soon after the title has and together we have connotations of murder, slaughter and death. Finally we receive a jump scare of Normans creepy, smiling face which works perfectly after the slow combination of shots that we have just watched. This jump scare is a typical convention of horror trailers as the whole point of a horror film is to scare the audience and so adding a jump scare on to the end of a trailer captures the audiences attention right through to the very end, usually resulting in them 'jumping' and wanting to see more!