Psycho
I honestly am not a fan of horror movies or slasher movies at all (especially old ones), so I found this pretty difficult to watch. However, I will definitely say that the enormous plot twist at the end made the movie way more worth watching than I initially thought when I assumed that the real mother was actually guilty of the murders.
This movie really made me consider the importance of evidence and how misleading and misrepresenting it can be. It reminded me a lot of Valley of Fear because of the way the story and characters mislead the audience through evidence and then have a surprising reveal at the end that we do not see coming at all, which in this case for me was pretty much everything that was uncovered at the end. I obviously had no idea that Norman's mother was actually dead and that Norman kind of imagined her still alive as another personality in his mind. Similarly, In Valley of Fear, I did not at all suspect that McMurdo was actually Birdy Edwards given his behavior throughout the story. Both of these surprising reveals really forced me to think about how easily evidence can be manipulated or how easily people fall victim to believing things without real proof. In Psycho, I assumed that Norman was telling the truth about his mother and in Valley of Fear, I assumed that McMurdo was exactly who he appeared to be. Given how important the theme of evidence and its reliability has been this entire semester, I think this movie was very applicable to this topic given how much it purposely misleads the audience to trust a lead that ends up not being true.
I think it's really interesting that you compared Psycho to The Valley of Fear; I totally can see how they relate because of the plot twists at end. In both works, you have to wait until the conclusion to find out the fact that basically puts the whole plot together. As far as evidence goes, The Valley of Fear definitely had more physical clues, like the dumbbell, but there weren't really any clues that were found in Psycho. Norman was labeled as guilty just from being caught in the act of trying to kill Lila.
ReplyDeleteI also really like your comparison of Psycho to the Valley of Fear. I was definitely misled to think that the mother was actually still alive, which is definitely similar to how The Valley of Fear misled us. These characteristics of the two stories really make them interesting and makes them mystery stories.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the audience member or reader needs to be aware that the evidence presented might not always be accurate. It is important that the audience member or reader is actively questioning the clues given at face-value, as one cannot believe that all stated "facts" are true. For example, Norman's statement about his mother being an "invalid" and incapable of interacting with others is stated as a fact. However, in reality, she is dead. Similarly, in "Valley of Fear" McMurdo is not truthful about his identity. So, "Psycho" strengthens the argument about the necessity of being engaged with the text or movie, as passively watching a movie or reading a book will lead to the reader or audience being tricked.
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