The 1960 film "Horror" is a classic work of suspense master Hitchcock, with a Douban score of 9.0, and is known as "the pioneering work of psychological thriller".
The film's famous bathroom murder scene is frequently imitated by later works.
After 60 years of watching "Horror Story", the horror atmosphere created by the unique shots, editing, and sound effects is still frightening.
Today I will talk to you about the things behind the scenes of "Horror Story".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > Why is Horror a black-and-white film? </h1>
In Hollywood in the mid-1950s, the rise of color films was the trend of the times, and black and white films gradually faded out of the film world.
Hitchcock shot his first color film "Soul Requiem" as early as 1948, and in the 50s, his works were also dominated by color films, such as "Rear Window", "Telephone Murder", "To Catch a Thief", "North by Northwest", etc., but "Horrors" released in 1960 was a black and white film.
Why?
(1) One of the reasons: low-cost experimental works
Hitchcock is not only the director of Horrors, but also the producer.
He bought the rights to the original novel for $9,000 under a pseudonym, adapted the script, and wanted to bring this thriller story derived from real events to the big screen.
Prior to that, Hitchcock had already made two more expensive color films in a row, 1958's Ecstasy and 1959's North by Northwest, and he had to consider saving money on the next film.
Therefore, making "Horror Story" into a black and white film became the most suitable choice.
Not only that, in order to save costs, Hitchcock only used a TV crew, most of the time according to the shooting schedule of the TV series to complete the film.
Hitchcock wanted to do an experiment by the way, to see if he could shoot a large-scale movie under the harsh conditions of shooting a TV series, and he also wanted to try whether such a low-cost black-and-white film would be popular with the audience.
His experiment proved to be very successful.
The production cost of "Horror Story" was only $800,000, while the box office after its release was as high as $13 million.
Directed by Hitchcock
(2) The second reason: too bloody for fear of frightening the audience
According to Hitchcock himself, making "Horror" in black and white is actually a very human consideration.
Because the bathroom murder scene in the movie has a lot of blood, if it is made into a color film, the overly exciting bloody picture will make the audience feel uncomfortable.
However, from the final effect, even if it is a black-and-white film, the degree of horror is not smaller than that of the color film, but it makes the tone of the whole film more eerie.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the horrific memory of "Scream queen" Janet Leigh</h1>
Hitchcock favored blonde beauties and was keen to have them "murdered" in the film. This is not only his personal preference, but also the aesthetic and psychological needs of the audience.
Hitchcock: "Blondes are best suited to be murdered!" Imagine how beautiful it was for bright red blood to flow down their snow-white skin, lined with shiny blonde hair. ”
The blonde who was murdered in "Horrors" is played by actress Janet Leigh.
Janet Leigh
She plays Marilyn, an ordinary female clerk who steals $40,000 from a client in order to elope with her lover and stays in a motel at night.
Just as she was unloading the exhaustion of the day and taking a relaxing and pleasant shower, a dark shadow with a knife suddenly rushed into the bathroom.
Marilyn looked back in horror and let out a mournful scream as the close-up shot was aimed at her grown mouth.
These screams shocked countless viewers, and Janet Leigh was also known as the "Queen of Screams".
Janet not only acts fear and fright in the movie, but also scares enough outside the scene.
One day during the filming of "Horrors", Janet finished her morning work and returned to her room after lunch as usual. She pushed open the door of the dressing room and suddenly found that there was a "zombie" sitting on her chair, and she was frightened and screamed on the spot.
This "zombie" was dressed in the clothes of an old woman, his whole body was dry, and his face was quite terrifying.
The one who is playing the "prank" behind the scenes is no one else, it is director Hitchcock. In order to test the horror of the corpse of "Mrs. Bates" in the movie, he took the unsuspecting Janet as the subject of the experiment.
Even more brutally, Janet was frightened more than once.
Hitchcock would judge how scary the "zombies" were based on the size of her voice each time she screamed, and ultimately decided which dummy to use to play the corpse in the movie.
Years later, Janet recalled the experience and felt palpitations.
This kind of loss, really bad Hitchcock thought of it!
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > bathroom murder scene actually tastes a little sweet</h1>
The classic murder scene in "Horror Story" turned the original safe and private bathroom into a terrible murder scene, and after the release, many American women did not dare to take a bath in the middle of the night.
In fact, during the filming process, not a single knife touched the actress's body, and Hitchcock used 78 camera positions and 52 edits to create a thrilling effect of killing people with a knife.
One of the most realistic shots of a knife stabbing into the abdomen, in the real shooting, is to use the back of the knife against the actress's stomach, and then pull out, and then put the camera upside down, it looks like stabbing the abdomen with a knife.
The most interesting thing is that the ingredients that created this murder scene are like a delicious meal.
Let's take a look at what's good to eat:
(1) Milk
The close-up of the shower head spraying water outward is taken directly with the camera, blocking the water hole in the middle of the nozzle, allowing the water to flow naturally from all sides, and the camera is shooting directly below, and then back.
In order to make the water clearer and better, Hitchcock deliberately mixed milk into the bath water.
(2) Melon
In order to simulate the sound of a butcher knife piercing flesh, the sound engineer prepared more than 20 kinds of melons of different sizes, all of which were spread out on the table.
The sound engineer kept poking at the melons with his knife, and Hitchcock listened with his eyes closed, judging which sound was most similar.
When the prop master had finished poking all the melons on the table, Hitchcock said a word: "Melon." ”
The melon was full and juicy, and the sound of being stabbed by a knife was crisp to the bone, sounding like the sound of a very sharp blade piercing into muscle tissue.
That's it.
Source: Documentary "Hitchcock's Bath scene 78/52"
(3) Steak
In addition to the melon, Hitchcock had the sound engineer prepare a large piece of beef tenderloin. Poking melons and stabbing steaks alternately mixed the two sounds to simulate the thriller sound of the movie.
After recording, the melon was poked, but the steak that had been stabbed with many knives was not wasted, and it was taken home by the sound engineer for dinner that night.
(4) Chocolate liquor
The blood stains in the movie are actually chocolate syrup.
While filming Marilyn being stabbed by a knife, the prop designer poured diluted Hershey chocolate syrup on the actress's body, and the water in the bathtub gradually stained with dark "blood".
In the black and white picture, the real color of the chocolate is completely invisible, which is enough to fake the truth.
Friends, this Hitchcock carefully developed "Horror" signature set, fresh steak with sweet and delicious melon chocolate milk, do not come to taste it?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > how does Hitchcock prevent spoilers? </h1>
Hitchcock, who hated spoilers, was on guard during filming, asking all production staff to swear an oath to keep the plot of the film strictly confidential and never divulge any details to the outside world.
In order to prevent the true identity of Mrs. Bates in the film from being revealed, Hitchcock spent a lot of effort, which can be described as "Ming Xiu Zhan Dao, Darkness Chen Cang".
Before filming began, the crew publicly released the casting recruitment information, carefully looked for the actress who played "Mrs. Bates", and also announced the list of candidates.
Friends who have seen the movie know that there is no "Lady Bates" scene in "Horror", she has long since become a "zombie", the illusion of schizophrenia by her son Norman.
Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins)
However, in the film, several actresses do "play" "Mrs. Bates" in various ways.
The first is "Lady Bates" who commits a knife in the bathroom, played by slender stunt actress Marg Eper.
When filming that scene, the actor Anthony Borkins had no time to perform on Broadway, so he had to use a female stand-in to play. In order not to be recognized by the audience, the face of the female stand-in was also smeared into a black.
The second is "Mrs. Bates", who suddenly rushes out at the top of the stairs to kill the private investigator, starring another actress, Miz Costner.
The camera is shot vertically from a high place, and the audience can't see her face at all, and she will never wear a gang.
In the repeated dialogues between "Mrs. Bates" and Norman, the voice of "Mrs. Bates" is synthesized by the voices of at least three women.
There was also an actress who took on the role of a live voice actor, reciting the lines "Mrs. Bates" to play Anthony, who played Norman.
At the premiere of the film, Hitchcock warned the audience through the speakers of the theater: "After the film starts, no one is allowed to enter, and after the movie is over, it is forbidden to spoil anyone." ”
Because Janet Leigh, the so-called "heroine", does not play many scenes, she will be killed less than halfway through the film.
If the late-arriving audience doesn't see the beginning, as soon as they come in, they ask, "When will Janet come out?" "It will seriously damage the atmosphere of watching movies."
To prevent spoilers, Hitchcock really thought of every point.
Thanks for reading!
Resources:
Documentary "78/52 Hitchcock's Bath scene"
Text / @Nine Petals Dream Light shadow original
Photo / Stills and screenshots of "Horror Story", screenshots of the documentary
Click to search for "Hitchcock" and "Horror" for more information.