78/52 at Sydney Film Festival

A documentary tribute to a movie sequence: the infamous shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho gets the full-on geek cinephile treatment.

The title refers to the number of set-ups and cuts in the two minute scene in Bates Motel that shocked audiences on release in 1960. Alexandre O. Philippe’s 78/52 tracks in deliciously manic detail the story of this legendary sequence and how it changed cinema forever. Interviews with acclaimed horror filmmakers such as Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth), actor/producer Eli Roth (Cabin Fever, SFF 2003) and Australia’s Leigh Whannell (writer/producer Saw) feature. Three-time Oscar winning editor Walter Murch lends his expertise, as does author/screenwriter Bret Easton Ellis, composer Danny Elfman, actor Elijah Wood and even Hitchcock’s granddaughter Tere Carrubba. Scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis also offers insights on her mother Janet Leigh’s most iconic role.

The scene provoked massive gasping and screaming upon its release and, no matter how often it’s been imitated, referenced, parodied and outstripped violence-wise over the decades, it still retains its power as a prime example of pure visual cinema. – Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter

It is still, make no mistake, a terrifying movie (especially when you’re watching it by yourself late at night), but Psycho has also evolved, in a funny way, into something that’s the opposite of shocking: It’s the ultimate movie to watch again and again, to study and revel in and obsess over like a cinematic codex. – Owen Gleiberman, Variety