Psycho: The Shower

[CUT TO: INT. MARION's MOTEL ROOM - (NIGHT). MARION is seated at the small desk, engrossed in figuring in a small notebook. We see from these figures a calculation which indicates her intention to make a restitution of the money she has used of the forty thousand dollars. We see, too, her bankbook. The paper reads thus: top figure, 40,000; directly beneath it 700, the amount used for the new car; total after subtraction, 39,300. In another spot we see a figure which matches the balance in her bankbook; 624.00. Beneath this is the figure 500, and the amount after subtraction, 124.00. She studies the figures, sighs, not wearily but with a certain satisfaction, with the pleasure that comes when one knows that at any cost one is going to continue doing the right thing. After a moment she tears the page out of the notebook and, rising, begins to rip it into small pieces. She goes into the bathroom, drops the pieces into the toilet bowl, flushes the toilet. Then she drops her robe and steps into the tub and turns the shower on.]

[INT. MARION IN SHOWER. Over the bar on which hangs the shower curtain, we can see the bathroom door, not entirely closed. For a moment we watch MARION as she washes and soaps herself. There is still a small worry in her eyes, but generally she looks somewhat relieved. Now we see the bathroom door being pushed slowly open. The noise of the shower drowns out any sound. The door is then slowly and carefully closed. And we see the shadow of a woman fall across the shower curtain. MARION's back is turned to the curtain. The white brightness of the bathroom is almost blinding. Suddenly we see the hand reach up, grasp the shower curtain, rip it aside.]

[CUT TO: MARION - ECU. As she turns in response to the feel and SOUND of the shower curtain being torn aside. A look of pure horror erupts in her face. A low terrible groan begins to rise up out of her throat. A hand comes into the shot. The hand holds an enormous bread knife. The flint of the blade shatters the screen to an almost total, silver blankness.]

[THE SLASHING. An impression of a knife slashing, as if tearing at the very screen, ripping the film. Over it the brief gulps of screaming. And then silence. And then the dreadful thump as MARION's body falls in the tub.]

[REVERSE ANGLE: The blank whiteness, the blur of the shower water, the hand pulling the shower curtain back. We catch one flicker of a glimpse of the murderer. A woman, her face contorted with madness, her head wild with hair, as if she were wearing a fright-wig. And then we see only the curtain, closed across the tub, and hear the rush of the shower water. Above the shower-bar we see the bathroom door open again and after a moment we HEAR the SOUND of the front door slamming.]

[CUT TO: THE DEAD BODY. Lying half in, half out of the tub, the head tumbled over, touching the floor, the hair wet, one eye wide open as if popped, one arm lying limp and wet along the tile floor. Coming down the side of the tub, running thick and dark along the porcelain, we see many small threads of blood. CAMERA FOLLOWS away from the body, travels slowly across the bathroom, past the toilet, out into the bedroom. As CAMERA approaches the bed, we see the folded newspaper as MARION placed it on the bedside table.]