Aprils Shower
In need of money to marry her boyfriend Sam Loomis, Marion Crane steals $40,000 from her employer and flees Phoenix, Arizona by car. While en route to Sam's California home, she parks along the road to sleep. A highway patrol officer awakens her. Marion's agitation arouses his suspicions and he decides to follow her. When she trades her car for another at a dealership, he notes the new vehicle's details. Marion returns to the road but, rather than drive in a heavy storm, decides to spend the night at the Bates Motel. She checks in under an Assumed name, although she unwittingly gives Norman her real name later.
Owner Norman Bates, who lives with his mother in a sinister looking house on a hill overlooking the motel, tells Marion he rarely has customers because of the motel's disconnection from a new interstate. As it is still raining and the nearest diner is 10 miles away, Norman suggests that she have dinner at his house. She overhears Norman arguing with his mother, who seems to suspect that his dinner with Marion is part of a sordid affair, about letting Marion in the house, and during the meal she angers him when she suggests he institutionalize his mother. He admits he would like this, but does not want to abandon her. He compares his life to stepping into a "trap," and observes that this could apply to many situations.
Marion, after hearing this and realising that she has stepped into a similar "trap" herself, resolves to return to Phoenix to return the money. After calculating how she can repay the money she has spent, Marion dumps her notes down the toilet and begins to shower. An anonymous female figure enters the bathroom and stabs her to death in an extremely famous montage. Finding the corpse, Norman is horrified. He places Marion's body, wrapped in the shower curtain, and all her possessions — including the money, which is still hidden in a newspaper — in the trunk of her car and sinks it in a nearby swamp.
Shortly afterward, Sam is contacted by both Marion's sister Lila and private detective Milton Arbogast, who has been hired by Marion's employer to recover the money. Arbogast traces Marion to the motel and questions Norman, who unconvincingly lies that Marion stayed for one night and left the following morning. He refuses to let Arbogast talk to his mother, claiming she is ill. Arbogast calls Lila to update her and tells her he will call again after he questions Norman's mother.
Arbogast enters Norman's house and at the top of the stairs is attacked by a figure who slashes his face with a knife, pushes him down the stairs, then stabs him to death. When Arbogast does not call Lila, she and Sam contact the local police. Deputy Sheriff Al Chambers is perplexed to learn Arbogast saw a woman in a window, since Norman's mother died ten years ago. Norman confronts his mother and urges her to hide in the cellar. She rejects the idea and orders him out of her room, but against her will Norman carries her to the cellar.
Posing as a married couple, Sam and Lila check into the motel and search Marion's room, where they find a scrap of paper in the toilet with "$400,000" written on it. While Sam distracts Norman, Lila sneaks into the house. Sam suggests to Norman that he killed Marion for the money so he could buy a new motel. Realizing Lila is not around, Norman knocks Sam unconscious with a golf club and rushes to the house. Lila sees him and hides in the cellar where she discovers the semi-preserved and mummified body of Norman's mother. Wearing his mother's clothes and a wig and carrying a knife, Norman enters and tries to attack Lila, but she is rescued by Sam.
After Norman's arrest, a forensic psychiatrist tells Sam and Lila that Norman's dead mother is living in Norman's psyche as an alternate personality. After the death of Norman's father, the pair lived as if they were the only people in the world. When his mother found a lover, Norman went mad with jealousy and murdered them both. Consumed with guilt, Norman "erased the crime" by bringing his mother back to life in his mind. He stole her corpse and preserved the body. When he was "Mother", he acted, talked, and dressed as she would. The psychiatrist concludes that the "Mother" personality now has complete control of Norman's mind.
In the final scene, Norman sits in a cell, thinking in "Mother's" voice. In a voiceover, "Mother" explains that she plans to prove that she is incapable of violence by refusing to swat a fly that has landed on her hand. The final shot shows Marion's car being recovered from the swamp.
