7 Obvious Spoilers You Missed At The Start Of Movies
1. Psycho: Norman Compares His Mother To A Stuffed Bird
Psycho's big twist is the stuff of legend. Who back in 1960 would have guessed that Norman Bates's mother was a mummified corpse and an imaginary voice in his head?
In hindsight, the answer to that question is more than you might think because Alfred Hitchcock drops a very telling clue early on. During the scene where Marion Crane questions Norman about his mother after overhearing an apparent argument between the two, he assures her that Mrs Bates is "as harmless as one of those stuffed birds", pointing to the array of taxidermy on show at the Bates Motel.
Comparing Norma Bates to a stuffed bird is a very deliberate attempt to foreshadow the big reveal that was to come. If more of the audience had taken Norman's words literally, the twist would have been far less shocking.