The Yelp review would have been positive before, well, you know. Psycho at 65! It was more than just murder that made the iconic shower scene legendary

The Yelp review would have been positive before, well, you know.

Psycho at 65! It was more than just murder that made the iconic shower scene legendary

The Yelp review would have been positive before, well, you know.

By Jordan Hoffman

on September 8, 2025 11:30 a.m. ET

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Janet Leigh in 'Psycho'. Credit:

Bettmann via Getty

Should you ever find yourself somewhere between Phoenix, Ariz. and Fairvale, Calif., with a car full of stolen cash and need to pull in for the night, there's one place you should absolutely avoid: the Bates Motel.

As most movie lovers know, checking in at the Bates proved unfortunate for Marion Crane, the character played by Janet Leigh in Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 masterpiece *Psycho*. Her violent murder (spoiler?) really put a damper on what was otherwise a very nice stay. Indeed, the spot had more than a few fabulous amenities, particularly the plumbing.

Alfred Hitchcock, taking movie audiences to the bathroom in 'Psycho'.

Hulton Archive/Getty

Okay, we're being a little silly here, but something you may find interesting is how much effort went into the terrifying "shower scene." The surprise story twist, which kills off the main character at the 47-minute mark, is one of the more influential sequences in all of cinema. The creepy image of Anthony Perkins' shadow on the shower curtain and the bloody, senseless killing is still effective. (You can thank the 78 camera setups and 52 cuts that were devoted to the 45-second scene.)

But *before* the stabbing started, audiences at the time were wowed and possibly embarrassed by something they'd never seen and heard in a movie before. For, you see, before she is killed, Marion rips up some incriminating paper and flushes it down a toilet.

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A flushing toilet is something everyone sees several times a day (we hope), but it had been *verboten *by unspoken codes of conduct pre-Hitchcock.

Prior to *Psycho*, there had been the occasional toilet seen in a movie, including in Hitchcock's 1936 film *Secret Agent*. Also, the sound of a flushing toilet had been heard in films, usually as comic punctuation. But to see the water swirl around the bowl as the flushing sound was made? Scandal! Only *Psycho *would dare!

The toilet from 'Psycho'. Don't be too scandalized.

Paramount Pictures

But wait! There's more "psychotic" plumbing to discuss.

The barrage of images that gives the shower scene such an impact relies on a constantly shifting camera perspective. We see over Marion's shoulder while she's got her eyes closed. We see the killer's point of view. We see the *knife*'s point of view. And also we see the rush of water that Marion's face feels before the violence starts.

To get this shot, all Hitchcock would have to do was shoot upwards at a shower head, right? Easy, you might think. Well, today, what with AI and all, it might be. But back then, it was an issue. Shooting into flowing water would mean getting the lens soaked, ruining the shot (and possibly the camera.)

As such, a special shower head was created. It stood six feet high and was built to shoot its spray *around *the lens. Makes perfect sense when you think about it... but in the heat of watching Janet Leigh scream her head off, who is thinking about it?

The special shower head at the Bates Motel.

Paramount Pictures

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Flushing toilets and gargantuan shower heads. Wow, the Bates Motel has it all. Too bad about the murderer running the place.

These are just two wee factoids about the shower scene from *Psycho. *If you've ever wanted to take a true deep dive into the sequence, however, you are in luck. In 2017, the Swiss documentarian Alexandre O. Philippe released *78/52*, an entire feature film just about the creation and impact of Marion Crane's on-screen death. You can check out the trailer below.**

Original Article on Source

Source: "AOL Movies"

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