Rue Morgue Magazine Analysis

The world’s leading horror & entertainment magazine, Rue Morgue, has expanded over the years to not only just a publication but also an expo, successful film production, broadcast, radio show, film series and so forth. Editor, publisher and film-maker Rodrigo Gudino, was who launched Rue Morgue in 1997.

This was the October 2010 issue of Rue Morgue; celebrating Psycho’s 50^th anniversary – it was released in 1960 - and first appearance on Blu-ray.

The image is of Norman which is a section towards the end of Psycho where he is caught by the police and put in a sell. When we reach this part in the film, we fully understand that Norman is half possessed by his mother - this screenshot shows him as well as half of his mother’s appearance; this is where we see his weakness and despair. This image dominates the whole cover, there’s no other use of imagery on the cover, which corresponds to how Norman is being controlled by his mom. The image is in black and white which relates back to the time it was released, 1960 – no colour image productions.

The textual styling of everything but the subheadings located on either side of Norman’s head, is fairly distressed; the lettering is bold yet shattered, as well as being in uppercase form which automatically grabs your attention. In terms of the styling, the shattered typeface connotes the life of Norman, his life has been shattered into a million pieces which he tries to amend – by still working and trying to act like a normal guy - but due to his mother governing his mind; possessing him, it makes it all the more difficult which results in him getting caught by the police. The subheadings are in a bold and simple typeface, kind of looks like an impact text, which is to showcase what’s inside the magazine but it also helps signify the main aspects of the magazine which is the masthead and main cover line – these are also in different colours, prominently the only colours in orange which highlights their importance. The selling line is located next to the main cover line which is the most important aspect of Psycho’s feature because Rue Morgue incorporated this film into their magazine since the film celebrates the 50^th anniversary.

The coloration is blue, orange, white and black.

In terms of blue, this portrays the aspects of Norman, blue connotes the hatred towards confrontation and fuss; doesn’t like attention. This refers to how shy he is as well as how he hates to cross his mother in bad terms. Blue often refers to the full control of your life, which isn’t supported in this case; in fact it’s the total opposite in regards to Norman. It’s also said that blue is the colour which refers to a spiritual perspective which is 100% the case, he tries to take control of his life but he is mentally haunted by his mom. Not only that, Norman tends to constantly refer everything in his life back to his past, he can’t overcome his horrid past of killing his mom which is why he relates past experiences to the past – he’s predominantly against woman.

In regards to orange, this is usually the colour that refers to optimism and assertive. It corresponds to that of lonesome if you’re not around people. Subsequently, I think this refers to Norman as well as his mom. His mom is very forceful; pushy in regards to her son’s life. And Norman often feels lonely due to having an unsuccessful motel business as well as the fact that he has no one around him apart from his mom’s spirit.

Converging all of my thoughts to the colours black and white, the black signifies the horror aspects as well as outlining the main features in the magazine. The white highlights the people in the publication as well as outlining the photo of Norman which I feel connotes the innocence of his personality, granted he killed his mother but afterwards his life was ruled by his mom to which resulted in more murders. Predominantly though, I think these colours were used for decorative purposes. They sit nicely against the blue and orange.