Psycho And Final Destination Two
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Almost all horror movies have similar traits to other horror films allowing them to be defined in the horror genre. In this comparison I will focus on the similarities between the 2 movies, Psycho and Final Destination 2 (and the differences). The areas covered will include Irony/Coincidence, Stages of death, Lighting and shadows, Music and sound, and its relation to our mood, Setting/Scenery and the evolution of cinematic horror and violence. I will also sum up what I think of both movies.
Music is a great place to start this comparison and how appropriate because all movies begin with music. The Music in Psycho was very different from the much more modern FD2 music. Psycho uses high pitch erratic melodies to inflame the senses and create confusion and terror. The music in FD2 is more a testament to the taste of todays youth. Most FD2s songs are written by death metal and satanic bands. Also none of it was written for the movie they just choose relatively suitable music for a scene. This is apposed to Psycho where all the background music has been written especially for the movie.
Music plays a huge part in movies it helps to tell you what emotions to feel and enhances the feeling. The music can provide the only emotion to a scene every now and then (Usually if the scene has no dialogue or facial expressions). This happens intermittently in both movies. In Psycho you can feel the emotions because of the acting talent and what I might call over acting (this also happens in FD2). A demonstration to the fact that music creates emotion was silent movies. They had no words, so over acting and music was used to create the desired audience emotion.
Also on a psychological note, in music or even the sound of a movie affects people physically, in the cinema or at home even if you dont notice it. If youre watching a movie you dont know it but the louder the background noise the louder you breathe this means you become relaxed. As sound stops in a movie you often stop breathing making you physically more susceptible to fear. This is why just before a scene the director wants to be really terrifying; the movie becomes completely silent. It happens in FD2 a couple of times and in Psycho once or twice. This proves that the technique is popular, that the technique has lasted this long.
Lighting and shadows play a huge part in Psycho; In fact the whole movie was shot in black and white to enhance the effect of shadows in the movie. The use of shadows doesnt have the same place it did in the horror movie Psycho. Psycho was like a pioneer in horror, showing evil through darkness. The way it was commonly done was through the use of shadows on the face, another thing Hitchcock did was making inanimate objects black (like black underwear after she stole the money or the black car she was driving to escape) and this would reflect the characters actions at that time. Hitchcock also used shadows to show if they characters didnt know something (when the boy friend and her sister were talking to each other they were in complete darkness).
The shadows in FD2 were used slightly differently. In FD2 they were used to make things more menacing and you increasingly frightened. Because you cant make a face look black in todays color film the technique isnt really used.
In Psycho they showed things could cause evil (like money) and in FD2 it shows that things that are seemingly good can be evil (like an air bag or a fire escape ladder). This is a contrast because one tries to make a statement about something (Psycho Ð- that the saying Ðmoney is the route of all evil is true, very powerfully shown as well) and the other tries to scare people (FD2 Ð- makes people think that anything could kill them, if things that are designed for safety can). These techniques add evil to anything making everything scary when you leave the movie.
Also note they didnt want people to seem evil before they died in FD2 and in Psycho (how ever in Psycho it showed the woman start out evil, and then become good after doing the right thing, the color of her underwear was used to express this). This makes the death more horrific in the end if a seemingly innocent person dies. In FD2 makes all the characters even the bad ones seem to be good. For example the druggy saved a boys life before he, him self was killed
Irony is used a lot in FD2 and a little bit in Psycho. The reason its used so much in FD2 so much is because it was essential to its story line. The whole premise of the signs of how youre going to die is based on irony in FD2. Examples include cruel irony where the people die from something ironic like an airbag or a life support machine. Humorous irony was also used in FD2 when something like a beer truck would drive by and the driver would be drinking beer and the truck would have Ðdrink responsibly printed on the side.
There isnt too much irony in Psycho because thats not part of its storyline. The only irony (in your face) that I really saw was on the number plates. On the car she was driving it had her name followed by 666 as the number plate. This was just a touch added by Hitchcock to make his movie just that much better for the viewer and isnt really mentioned in the movie by the characters, it wasnt really a pivotal point in the storyline. This is very much opposed to FD2, in which the use of irony is very important to the story and is often pointed out by characters.
Coincidence plays a big part in both FD2 and Psycho. In Psycho all of the deaths seen happen because she stole the money. Then if you break it down again you could say that she died because that guy hit on her. Without listing each event the previous sentence seems so strange. This is because of how all these unrelated events fell together to lead to her death. Also its a huge coincidence that it just happened to start raining as she was going past the Bates Motel, a motel that just happens to be run by a psychotic killer. It all seems like coincidence is just a part of destiny.
In FD2 coincidence plays a different kind of role. Though it plays a huge role in the movie it is shown differently from how it is shown in Psycho. In Psycho each event leads to the next event to create one complete story. In FD2 it has each event lead to the next but only when someone is about to die. All these seem to be like a stack of dominoes as one falls the next one does. This also happens to be a metaphor for the movie Final Destination 2. Each