Psycho's shower scene "best movie death"

The murder in the shower from the film "Psycho" has been voted the "best movie death" by Total Film magazine.

10:05 21 May 2004

The murder in the shower from the film "Psycho" has been voted the "best movie death" by Total Film magazine.

The deputy editor of Total Film magazine, Simon Crook said: "Some of the deaths in the poll, like The Wicked Witch melting in The Wizard Of Oz, are iconic but laughable, but nearly 45 years on, Psycho's shower scene is still distressing."

The clip from Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 masterpiece came in just ahead of Slim Pickens's plummet to earth, straddling a nuclear bomb, in "Dr Strangelove".

In third place was the death of King Kong, falling from Manhattan's Empire State Building, in the 1933 black and white classic.

Fourth was the "Die Hard" death scene of Alan Rickman's baddy Hans Gruber, tumbling from a high-storey building.

Mr Crook believes the effectiveness of the shower sequence is down to "the sheer violence of the edit rather than any explicit gore", describing it as "a masterclass of montage and audience manipulation".

The scene, which lasts 45 seconds, includes 70 different angles, over 90 cuts and took seven days to shoot, is notable for never showing the killer's blade touching Janet Leigh's body.

Mr Crook added: "Knowing that the blood is Bosco's chocolate syrup and that a pulped casaba melon stood in for the stabbing noises does nothing to reduce the impact."

Amongst the other deaths on the list were the shootings of Bonnie And Clyde, and the off-screen death of Bambi's mother.