78/52

In 78 setups and 52 cuts, the deliriously choreographed two-minute shower sequence in PSYCHO ripped apart cinema’s definition of horror. With a shocking combination of exploitation and high art, Alfred Hitchcock upended his own acclaimed narrative structure by violently killing off his heroine a third of the way through his film. PSYCHO played out like a horrific prank, forcing audiences to recognize that even the most banal domestic spaces were now fair game for unspeakable mayhem.With black-and-white film-geek reverence, director Alexandre O. Philippe breaks down this notorious and essential scene shot for shot, enlisting the help of film buffs and filmmakers alike—including Guillermo del Toro, Bret Easton Ellis, Karyn Kusama, Eli Roth, and Peter Bogdanovich.