In this final chapter, I will discuss the uncanny through the lens of film, describing the strangeness within the ordinary. First, an analysis of three horror classics: Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), Rosemary’s Baby and The Shining. Then, an evaluation of the hypotheses made in the second chapter considering the evidence from film analysis. In the first chapter, we have outlined some ways in which the uncanny can arise: something familiar feeling unfamiliar, intellectual uncertainty, recurrence of repressed complexes or surmounted beliefs and all of Freud’s examples of such recurrences. Through analysis, I hope to illustrate that these are uncanny horror films not by mere virtue of exhibiting uncanny motifs, but because they wholly embody uncanniness through their themes, narrative and visual direction, respectively.
Some describe Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho as the first “psychoanalytical thriller” and the first slasher film. Certainly one of Hitchcock’s most celebrated films, it is a masterwork in suspense and was revolutionary for horror in Hollywood at the time, and later, the world. Hitchcock employed overtly Freudian themes, most notably in Norman’s Oedipal obsession with his mother, dramatically articulated by the psychiatrist at the end of the film. Also, in the metaphorizing of the three levels of the Freudian psyche (i.e. the superego, the ego and the id) as the three levels of the Bates mansion – top, ground and basement. It also has themes of madness and morality. But by far its most uncanny theme is that of the double.
The thematic double is visually represented through several mirrors, shadows, and stuffed birds. We see a physical and symbolic double in the form of Mother, Norman’s alter ego, who at times would occupy his body and ‘live’. From the moment this is hinted at in dialogue to the shocking reveal of Norman in Mother’s clothes, Norman’s scenes are imparted with a dread uncertainty. More subtly, perhaps, Marion and Norman are staged as uncanny doubles of each other. We see this first in the similarity between their names, each containing almost the same letters as the other. We also see this in the deliberate placement of mirrors in the background of scenes where Marion interacts with Norman, perhaps a subtle nod to their reflecting of each other. The doubling is concluded with Norman’s inner monologue as Mother in the penultimate shot of the film. Mother ruminates in a voice-over about the guilt of her son and Norman shakes his head and pouts in response. As Mother’s rant ends and she begins to take hold of Norman, his face curls into a sinister smile. The entirety of the scene is eerily reminiscent of Marion’s paranoid drive away from the car dealership in Bakersfield. In both scenes, Marion and Norman are imagining voices of authority, accusing them of their crimes. Marion guiltily imagines what the policeman, her colleague, her boss and Mr. Cassidy must be saying about her. “She sat there while I dumped it out! Hardly even looked at it. Planning. And even flirting with me!” At this point, a naughty smirk breaks out on her face as she enjoys the thrill of her crime for a moment, bemused at the thought of how she has ‘stuck it’ to the boastful and boorish Mr. Cassidy. The shots of Marion and Norman smiling mirror each other in their shadowy lighting, tight framing and rough symmetry. One reading of the doubling between the two is that Hitchcock, through Marion’s long drive, takes us on a journey from Marion’s perspective, the brightly lit, realist world of the ordinary, to the uncanny world of Norman’s twisted psyche (Zizek, 1992). Zizek writes “Marion’s world is the world of contemporary American everyday life, whereas Norman’s world is its nocturnal reverse.” The last time we see Marion on screen is at the 50th minute, roughly halfway through the film. After her death, Norman quite literally replaces her as the protagonist, for a time. The audience is forced into his world, taking his perspective and sympathising with him. Even worrying alongside him when the car containing Marion’s corpse briefly remains floating in the bog. The thematic doubling of Marion and Norman imbues the film with a strange duality. We are given two ‘protagonists’, both disturbed in a sense and both candidates to be the eponymous ‘psycho’. We initially take Marion’s perspective and root for her escape to California with her lover, Sam. But she is suddenly murdered by her double, Norman, who proceeds to take her place as the lead character. As the audience, we neither expect nor want this shift in perspective, but are forced into it via Hitchcock’s direction. With uncanny unease, we watch the remaining story play out from Norman’s perspective.
Finally, another uncanny theme that recurs throughout the film is that of the “evil eye”. As we have described earlier, the uncanniness of the “evil eye” lies with a paranoia of others wanting to do harm to oneself, out of envy of a precious thing we possess. In Marion’s case, this is, of course, the $40,000 in stolen money she is hiding. The uncanny gaze of others begins to haunt her from the moment her boss spots her as she is escaping with the stolen money. She becomes wrought with guilt and paranoia, punctuated by the striking chords of Bernard Hermann’s score. Subsequently, she is gazed at again by a policeman and the eyes of stuffed birds. During her off-kilter dinner conversation with Norman, he bitingly retorts to her presumptuous suggestion to put his mother in a facility. “Have you ever seen the inside of one of those places?... The cruel eyes studying you...” Later, she is gazed at by Norman, through his voyeuristic peephole. Shortly thereafter, she is murdered and the camera spirals slowly out of her eye. Symbolizing her ill fate as a result of that which she feared from the moment she committed her crime, the ‘cruel eyes’ of others.
