In class we looked at the clip from the famous shower scene in the 1960 film Psycho. This was such an iconic scene and one of the best known scenes in cinema history. It features 77 different camera angles and the scene runs for 3 minutes.
Many films today have had some inspirations from psycho for example 'What Lies Beneath', 'Fatal Attraction' and 'The Stepfather'.
In What Lies Beneath we watched one scene where we see a man holding a female, most probably his wife or girlfriend dragging her to the bathroom as she appears to be unconscious. He then puts her in the bath tub and turns the shower on bizarrely while she's laying there uncontrollably. Like Psycho it looks as though the women in the bath tub is about to be murdered by this man because it seems like he is about to watch her drown. The use of the water and the shower was borrowed deliberately from Psycho as it was such an important scene. Other aspects borrowed were the setting, the use of Mise en scene and the "shell shocked" facial expression of the women's face.
In 'Fatal Attraction one scene shows a physical argument happening between two women in the upstairs bathroom, one women in particular being incredibly violent. The noise upstairs is not heard from the man downstairs until eventually he hears screaming. He runs in the room and wrestles the more violent lady trying to stop her with a knife in her hand. She doesn't as she starts hitting him with the knife and cuts his shirt leaving him hurt as she cut through his chest.He fights her to the bathtub where he seemingly downs her. Still alive, she comes out of the water with a knife in her hand, about to stab the man then suddenly the other women she was attacking shoots her in the chest killing her and she dramatically falls on the ground. Aspects of the stabbing and the shower elements were again copied from Psycho and looking closely there are similar elements with the camera shots.
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