Norman Bates stares through a peephole as Marion Crane readies for a shower in her hotel room. Once she steps in, cinema will be forever changed. In 1960, Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho shook up the world of film. It spawned the slasher genre and ushered in event cinema as we know it today. Sixty years later, it's impact can still be felt.

The infamous shower scene where Marion Crane met her demise as Bernard Hermann's spine-tingling score blared is perhaps the most iconic scene in any movie, let alone the horror genre. Never before in a mainstream film had such graphic violence been depicted so intimately. But Psycho's enduring influence resonates well beyond one act of violence. Hitchcock broke a litany of conventions that drastically altered the course of cinematic history.

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Like so many filmmakers at the time, Hitchcock was hampered by the Motion Picture Production Code of the 1930s -- a stringent set of guidelines films had to follow to be approved for viewing by the public. The Production Code mainly focused on censoring content related to sexuality and violence. The Master of Suspense tested the limits of the Production Code with his earlier films, but never more so than with Psycho, where he essentially flouted it outright. That included having Marion flush the first toilet in American film history even though the Production Code strangely prohibited showing toilets. Hitchcock was a true pioneer.

So much about Psycho made it one of a kind. Hitchcock was so determined to keep the film's twists a secret, he forbade critics from seeing advanced screenings. Cast and crew had to sign non-disclosure agreements and promotion was kept to a minimum. Instead of a traditional film trailer, Hitchcock appeared in a six-minute tour of the set revealing only vague plot details. Audience members were not even allowed to enter the theater if they were late for their showtimes. All of this predates the spoiler-centric film culture we have today and, at the time, audiences were encouraged to keep the secrets of the film so others could enjoy it as they had. The result was a box-office smash hit that basically created event cinema.

One of the most revolutionary aspects about Psycho is what Hitchcock did with his protagonist; or rather, the character film-goers thought was the protagonist, but was actually a red herring. Janet Leigh, the film's biggest star, plays Marion Crane who, at the outset of the film is made to seem like its hero.

Hitchcock opened the film by voyeuristically peering through the hotel window of Marion and her boyfriend, Sam -- a postcoital unmarried couple in the same bed, in their underwear. This was considered incredibly taboo at the time and broke Production Code standards. Hitchcock even dared to show Marion in a bra. Risqué acts could be hinted at or suggested, but never before were they displayed so unabashedly.

The entire first act of the film focuses on Marion as she steals $40,000 from her boss and runs off. It seems like the film will be the story of whether or not she'll get away with taking the money. But Psycho's first act is a completely different film from what follows, and mainly serves to get an unwitting Marion to the Bates Motel, where she's forced to stop because of a torrential downpour.

Alfred Hitchcock Psycho shower scene

After following our heroine into the sinister motel, where she meets the nebbishy hotel proprietor Norman Bates, Marion's story unexpectedly comes to an end when she is murdered in the shower. A series of quick cuts hides any contact between knife and flesh, making the sequence more gruesome in memory than actuality. But more than just the brutality of the act, it was a sinister violation of a private space. This scene left an indelible mark on the collective psyche and paved the way for the violence of films like Bonnie and Clyde and the slasher genre, which includes Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

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It's difficult to overstate just how radical it was to kill off the film's protagonist and biggest movie star only 45 minutes into the movie. The idea that the hero would not be victorious AND would die in the first act was unheard of at the time. Hitchcock pulls the rug out from under the audience and makes you wonder, "What is the rest of this movie even going to be about?" We've since seen this false protagonist trope used to great effect in recent years in Game of Thrones and The Place Beyond the Pines, but Psycho was the originator of this narrative device.

Notably, the killer in this movie isn't some deformed, terrifying monster either. Anthony Perkins' Norman Bates seems harmless. He is an unassuming mama's boy. You're almost meant to overlook him. Initially, you sympathize with him for being the hapless helper to his overbearing mother and hope that he can break free from her spell, especially after it appears she is Marion's killer. Norman seems relatable and innocent, yet slightly off-kilter. Only later is his truly disturbed nature and what he's done laid bare.

While Marion's sister, Lila, eventually takes over as the hero of the story, for a time, Norman seems like he's the protagonist, and Hitchcock toys with the audience by making us unknowingly root for the villain. Norman appears to be a well-intentioned guy in a difficult situation. He wants to do the right thing but he just can't report his mother for the crime. When he dumps Marion's car in the swamp it stops sinking for just a second and a small part of the viewer instinctively wants it to fully submerge. You're not even sure why, but you find yourself panicking that Norman will be brought down for what seems to be his mother's crime. This is an example of masterful audience manipulation on Hitchcock's part. By displacing the protagonist, he has confused the audience about who to root for.

The film's second big twist, of course, is that Norman Bates and Mother are one and the same. Norman's split-personality added layers to the typically black and white hero/villain archetype. When Norman discovers Marion's body, he genuinely believes he didn't kill her, which makes it more unnerving. It's especially odd that the supposed MacGuffin of the movie, the $40,000, also turns out to be a red herring. Norman didn't kill Marion for the money, he unknowingly buries it in a swamp! Psycho delves deeper into mental illness because the film rejects the idea that dressed as Mother, Norman is a "transvestite," instead explaining her as a disparate persona of a sexually repressed individual.

With Psycho, Hitchcock broke all the rules of traditional film. He upended the established order and created a more modern cinema.

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