Describe

Isolation in Psycho and Scream.

Isolation is used in Psycho and Scream in very similar ways, as the place where most of the murders happens in a very isolated place, but there is secondary locations which are also isolated.

Stu's house is the final location in Scream, where there is a party happening. This location is isolated as the whole movie is set in a small town, so most of the houses are far apart. It is a stately home and the isolation makes it feel more creepy, as it is harder to get help when everyone else is so far away. The establishing shot above shows this isolation. This helplessness is taken advantage of with the first killing in the movie, where Casey is having a conversation with the killer on her phone.Casey states "Look, I am two seconds away from calling the police!" but the killer responds with "They'll never make it in time." This, and the fact that Casey is isolated herself (she is home alone), clearly show isolation.

There two principal locations in Psycho are both isolated from the closest city. The Bates hotel is so isolated as the highway was moved away from it years ago. When Marion asks if there are any vacancies, Norman states there are "12 rooms and 12 vacancies." This quote shows that because the highway was moved there has been much less traffic passing the hotel, meaning less people staying there. The other location, the 'family' home, although close to the hotel, is rather isolated as it is situated on top of a hill. This positioning makes it seem agressivley placed, much like a high angle shot (see below picture).

Both the houses in the film are very large and have similar architecture, with wooden exteriors and windows in the roof. These similarities suggest the houses were built around the same time, even though there is a 40 year difference in the movies production. The movie Scream refrenced many horror movies and typical conventions, and the similar style of house and location may be another refrence taken from Phsyco (use of a knife, and falling down stairs are others.)