At Flashbak: We All Go a Little Mad Sometimes: The Five Most Blatant Knock-Offs of Psycho (1960)

Last week I had a great time revisiting the Psycho film franchise here on the blog, so my latest Flashbak list considers knock-offs of Hitchcock's classic.

Here's a snippet and url: (http://flashbak.com/we-all-go-a-little-mad-sometimes-the-5-most-blatant-knock-offs-of-psycho-1960-24386/ )

"On release, Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) was not only a huge box office success and a magnet for controversy regarding its violence, the film also set the horror genre on a brand new trajectory. 

Suddenly, new horror movies found themselves slavishly aping the twists and turns of Psycho, which include “The Janet Leigh Trick” (killing off a major character early in the action), the red herring killer (whose surprise identity is revealed in the final act), and the “realistic” psychological reason of his or her dementia (a condition such as schizophrenia, for example).

Meanwhile, other Psycho knock-offs attempt to recast the twisted Bates family dynamic (and Oedipal Complex…) in a new fashion.

With those qualifications in mind, these are the five most blatant Psycho knock-offs:"

Late Night Blogging: Psycho-Themed Commercials

Cult-TV Movie Review: Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990)

Unlike its three predecessors, Psycho IV: The Beginning is a made-for-TV movie. The film was written by Joe Stefano and produced for Showtime. It aired November 10, 1990.

The switch to the TV market occurred because Psycho III had not lived up to expectations at the box office. Following a failed attempt to move the franchise to network television with the low-rated Bates Motel (1987), Mick Garris came on board to direct this premium cable project.

Psycho IV: The Beginning stars Anthony Perkins, but also functions ably as a prequel to the original Psycho, one which reveals the childhood of Norman Bates. In the scenes set decades earlier (in the 1950s), Henry Thomas plays young Norman, while Perkins appears in the scenes set in the present. These moments occur thirty years after the events of Hitchcock’s film.

Your mileage may vary when it comes to prequel stories, but The Beginning’s finest moments, invariably, involve Thomas, Olivia Hussey as bipolar Norma Bates, and the events preceding the first film.  Psycho IV does a terrific job of recreating a bygone era in American history, and restoring that famous Gothic mansion with a happier, more colorful visage.

By contrast, The Beginning’s framing device -- which finds a troubled Norman Bates calling in to “The Fran Ambrose Show” to tell his story -- is not terribly compelling, and the film’s denouement takes us to a destination Norman had already reached at the end of Psycho III. 

Here, after burning down his old family house and putting to rest the ghost of his mother, Norman declares -- just like he did in the climax of the Perkins-directed 1986 film -- that he is now “free.”  

The fact that the very same line is repeated here -- with literally no variation -- suggests that for the first time in the Psycho franchise, it is treading some water, and not entirely moving forward.

Nonetheless, it’s always great to see Anthony Perkins back as Norman, a role that the actor connects with on a powerful, emotional level. But despite his fine performance, the modern Norman story actually interferes with the powerfully-vetted flashbacks. Those remarkable looks into the past represent the story audiences really want to connect with, in part because Hussey is so compelling as Mother.  By contrast, we could care less about talk-show host Fran Ambrose (C.C.H. Pounder), or her attempts to stop Norman from killing again, a sub-plot which is self-evidently a time-waster since it is left unresolved when the end credits roll. The focus shifts to Norman, and we don’t go back to Fran at all.

So Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990) is a bit of a mixed bag. Some moments are authentically involving and well-vetted, and others feel like filler.  In the final analysis, the TV-movie ends the saga respectably (until the 1998 reboot, anyway…), provides a last hurrah for Anthony Perkins, and is quite affecting in its charting of the heretofore unseen Norma/Norman relationship.

“What makes boys kill their mothers? I thought I could help.”

A rehabilitated Norman Bates (Perkins) has moved on with his life, and even left the old motel and house near Fairvale.

His wife, a nurse named Connie (Donna Mitchell), is expecting their first child, but that fact troubles Norman.  In fact, he is contemplating a new murder to prevent what he fears will be another Bates bad seed being born.  This time, however, he will not kill as Mother, but as Norman.

On the night of his birthday, as Norman contemplates killing Connie and preventing the continuation of the Bates blood-line, he calls in to The Fran Ambrose Show, a radio program which happens to be discussing the subject of matricide. One of the guests is Dr. Richmond, who first treated Norman, years earlier.

As Norman begins to relate his story -- from childhood -- of his mother and her boyfriend, Chet, Dr. Richmond comes to suspect that they are conversing not with “Ed,” Norman’s alias, but Norman Bates himself…   

“Some days, little boys can be giants.”

Although it was made for television, Psycho IV: The Beginning features a nice visual through-line. In particular, the famous Bates house symbolizes Norman’s state of mind, and even his sanity. As the flashbacks commence, the house is a lovely yellow Victorian, well-maintained. At this juncture in the story, Norman is a happy boy, and life is good.

Later, as his relationship with his mother grows strained, and he kills her, the house falls into the state of disrepair we associate with it from Psycho, Psycho II and Psycho III.

Finally, at film’s end, the house is burned down, destroyed, and that fact could be interpreted as a sign that the memories (and pathologies) the edifice hides will no longer have control over Norman.

Bates’ story, however, is inexorably tied to that family home, and its external appearance provides us clues to how well or poorly Norman is coping with life. That house is always with him, at least until the film’s end.

In more abstract term, I find very commendable the elegiac tone of Psycho IV: The Beginning.  There’s the feeling here of an older Norman remembering his life and trying to make some peace with it, both with the hurts done to him and the hurts he caused. The flashback of him as a little boy, enjoying a sudden rainstorm during a picnic with his mother does a good job of putting us in his shoes, and making us understand his innocence and love for his mother. 

“Some days, little boys can be giants,” Norman says of that memory, and it’s heart-breaking.  Later, when he describes the pain of missing his mother, he likens it to “soul cancer,” and once more, we are asked to reckon with the very real idea that Norman both loves and hates his Mother at the same time.

Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990) succeeds to the degree it does in large part because of the efforts of Henry Thomas and Olivia Hussey, who create vivid characters in these flashback scenes and make us care about their plight. Thomas is perfect as a young Norman, in part because he has the same wide shoulders and trim, gangly frame as Perkins, and in part because he uses his eyes in the same, expressive manner as the older Norman. 

Hussey is…not what we might expect at first blush. The Psycho movies have always portrayed Mrs. Bates as an old, foul-mouthed shrew.  In this movie, we learn that Norman “aged” her in his mind, and that she died in her prime, a beautiful but capricious and mercurial woman.  Her beauty and charisma goes a long way towards explaining why Norman is obsessed with her.  One moment she is attentive, and it feels like the sun is shining on him.  The next minute she is cruel, and downright abusive.  Today, we understand that Norma’s behavior is a result of a bi-polar disorder, and that she is not entirely responsible for her cruelty.

I would also praise Psycho IV: The Beginning for treading into the strange, twisted, murky sexual terrain that any Psycho movie should, but which is not, simply, the stuff of mainstream movies.  On two occasions, young Norman gets an erection while in the presence of his lovely mother, and his shame, embarrassment and humiliation is palpable.  Norman has very twisted feeling about his mother, feelings that his Mother nurtures. Yet she is abusive to him when he shows the obvious physical response to her physicality and sensuality. A less honest movie simply wouldn’t go there. This one does.

Finally, however, Psycho IV doesn’t entirely overcome several missteps, despite the powerful performances from Perkins, Hussey and Thomas, the brutal honesty of the screenplay, and the elegiac tone. Director John Landis has a supporting role in the film, and though he is a very good director, he is not an actor. Seeing him in this role, as the radio station manager, immediately takes one out of the story, because we know he’s there as an “homage” and as a friend to the director.  A real actor should have been hired instead. Landis is distracting, especially since the part is not just a momentary cameo.

Also, there’s a sort of two-dimensional nature to Norman’s experience with a local girl.  This teenage girl wants to sleep with Norman, but comes across like a nymphomaniac, or worse, a prostitute. She is so over-the-top in pursuing not affection and connection with Norman, but sexual intercourse, that it just doesn’t seem real. 

Imagine how affecting it would have been if Norman killed the first girl he loved, and who loved him. Instead, he simply kills a girl who wants his body, and that is less emotionally-satisfying, in terms of narrative. Why is this hot-to-trot prospective lover after Norman, an outsider and strange guy, to this degree? Wouldn’t she be pursuing other young men in Fairvale, instead?  Something about how this flashback plays out rings as untrue, or superficial.

And, as I noted in my introduction above, Psycho IV feels it necessary to rehash Norman’s break from Mother, a triumph already spotlighted in (the superior) Psycho III. 

Also, if we are to care about Fran Ambrose, why does the film leave her sub-plot totally unresolved?  The character is actually just a writer’s device to permit for Norman’s flashbacks, and once those flashbacks are finished, she becomes unnecessary to the drama. This fact is exposed when the movie drops her like a hot potato. I love CCH Pounder, and she is strong in the role of Ambrose, but the character is a cog in a wheel, and not a real person.

Psycho IV is my least favorite entry in the original series (those that feature Perkins), and yet I still like it, and still believe it’s strong enough to merit a recommendation. With a better framing device, and a little more subtlety in terms of its writing, it could have better served as the final, moving punctuation of the tragedy of Norman Bates.

It almost gets there, but gets stuck in some traps along the way.

Movie Trailer: Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990)

Cult-Movie Review: Psycho III (1986)

Directed by Anthony Perkins, Psycho III (1986) is -- perhaps paradoxically -- both sleazier and more spiritual than its 1960 and 1983 predecessors were. 

The third film in the Psycho mythos explores a world of the fallen; a world of sex without love, and cynicism but no truth. Yet the film’s consistent use of religious symbolism suggests that Norman Bates can yet be redeemed, and yet navigate this mortal coil. He may, perhaps, even find forgiveness, and love.

Although Psycho III does not feature a tightly-structured mystery like the ones that dominated Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) or Franklin’s Psycho II (1982), the second sequel nonetheless thrives on its finely-developed sense of gallows humor, particularly in a scene involving a (bloody) ice machine. 

Also, Anthony Perkins’ unparalleled understanding of the Norman Bates character makes this film, perhaps, the most sentimental entry thus far, and Psycho III is the first film in the series that might genuinely be said to feature a happy ending, even if it is arrived at through tragedy. 

Although Psycho III’s loose narrative structure means that the story feels less urgent than it should, it also permits Perkins’ more breathing room, more freedom to excavate the character of Norman,  the “man boy.”  At least some critics would consider this a fair trade. I know I do, especially since Perkins still leans hard on crisp imagery and visual symbolism to express Norman’s tale.

On that point, the late Robert Ebert recounted in his review of Psycho III a scene in which Norman believes that he will come face-to-face with his (dead) mother. Ebert writes that though Perkins’ “facial expressions” -- in a long, unbroken shot of him walking the length of the motel front -- are not subtle, he isn’t over-acting, either.

Rather “he projects such turmoil that we almost sympathize with him.”  

This is Perkins’ modus operandi throughout Psycho III, making viewers see Norman as more than a murderous schizophrenic, and more than a pawn to be maneuvered on a chess board about like others of strong will (such as Mother, Emma Spool, or Lila Loomis). 

Although it was not a box office success in 1986, Psycho III gained (sometimes grudging) respect from many critics, in part because Perkins’ has charted such an intriguing path for Norman. In the past, Bates has seemed so confused, so directionless that redemption wasn’t necessarily even an option. In Psycho III, one can, for the first time, see his path towards that destination.

The result is a sequel that, in the words of horror film scholar Ken Hanke is “just short of being a little masterpiece.”

“You remind me of someone I knew once.”

A fallen nun named Maureen Coyle (Diana Scarwid) is responsible for the accidental death of a fellow nun at her convent following a suicide attempt.  Consumed with guilt and feeling faithless, Maureen leaves the church and her responsibilities.  She wanders the desert with only a suitcase of her belongings, until she is offered a ride by a sleazy guitar player, Duane (Jeff Fahey).

After Duane makes unwanted advances, Maureen ends up in the desert again, but she soon happens upon the town of Fairvale, home to Norman Bates and the Bates Motel.  Almost immediately, Norman is drawn to Maureen because she reminds him of Marion Crane (and even shares her initials and hair-cut). 

Growing closer to Maureen by the day, Norman hires Duane to manage his motel at the same time a nosy reporter, Tracy Venable (Roberta Maxwell) comes to town wishing to interview Bates regarding “the insanity defense.”

Norman saves Maureen when she attempts suicide again, slitting her wrists in bathtub, and Maureen resolves that she can save Norman too.

But Mother may have other ideas..

“The past is not really the past.”

From Psycho III’s opening blast -- Maureen’s sacrilegious shout that “There is no God!” -- the film treads deeply into a religious argument and symbolism. The film’s inaugural image is of the Virgin Mary, and not coincidentally, Mary looms as an important figure in the film when one thinks closely about Norman and his journey. 

For one thing, the Virgin Mary is a mother -- the mother of Jesus in particular, -- and we all know that a boy’s mother is his best friend, according to Bates own testimony.  For a franchise that obsesses on a Mother’s power over her family, it is appropriate that this Psycho sequel should choose the symbol of the Virgin Mary to explore.

More to the point, Norman boasts a long history of falling in love with women named Mary, women who can -- under the right circumstances -- “save” him from himself/Mother, if given the opportunity. Janet Leigh plays Marion Crane. Meg Tilly plays Mary Loomis. And Diana Scarwid, here, is Maureen.  All three are human versions of Mary, one could say, women who try to help Norman in some way.

The film’s first act also suggests, after a fashion, a story from Scripture: the expulsion from Paradise or the Garden of Eden.  We see Norman living a life alone at the motel, happily stuffing birds and never interfacing with people or the larger world.  This little tract of desert land is his paradise, away from the prying eyes of Fairvale, and it is a place where he gets to be…innocent. 

The events of the film soon compel Norman to leave that paradise, reckon with the real world, and finally, embrace a genuine human relationship

Early in the film, we see a plastic Jesus figure in Duane's car. Later in Psycho III we get a close-up of the Holy Bible, and finally, Maureen hallucinates that Norman in his Mother gear, brandishing a knife, is actually the Virgin Mary holding a crucifix, coming to save her from herself. 

Mother wears a dark blue dress, as always, and importantly, many art works from antiquity associate Mary with the color blue as well. 

One level, one could note that this is a wicked joke: a murdering, knife-wielding “Mother” as the Virgin Mary? 

On another level, however, Maureen’s hallucination of the Virgin Mary suggests the ultimate strength of her faith, and it is that faith which allows her to forgive Norman and help him seek his redemption.

Thus Psycho III suggests a weird symbiosis. By dressing as Mother and saving Maureen from death, Norman rekindles the nun’s belief that she deserves a second chance.  And by embracing that second chance, Maureen decides to spend it saving Norman, despite her full knowledge of his past wrong-doings.  They each help or complete the other.

Another figure known for love – Cupid – however, proves Norman’s undoing. Maureen falls on the staircase in the Bates house and her skull is speared by a Cupid sculpture, an act which precludes Norman and Maureen from finding happiness together. Yet, in a way, Maureen, by showing Norman love and acceptance, has already done her job.  By the end of the film, Norman turns his butcher knife on Mother and declares that he is finally “free” of her. 

Sure, he’s headed back to the looney bin, but Mother is no longer a monkey on his back. Norman has known love because of Maureen, and will no more be enslaved to his most peculiar form of Oedipal love.

Oddly enough, the sleazy aspects of Psycho III ultimately add to the film’s spiritual argument.

Duane puts the moves on Maureen and when she resists, quips that she could have been “coming” instead of “going.”  Nice.

Later, Duane is nasty and abusive to a woman he has bedded. He throws her out of his hotel room, leaving her stranded -- and topless -- in public.  

At another point, we see the drunk, horny revelers of Homecoming in the motel, and again there’s the feeling of a cynical, sleazy world. That Norman and Maureen find true love -- even for a brief, shining moment -- against this backdrop, is truly an accomplishment.  They not only forgive and accept one another, they love each other in a way that is not ugly or cynical, but sweet.

One of the best scenes in the film is a quiet one, wherein Norman, sitting in a diner, allows himself to be interviewed by the toxic, chain-smoking reporter, Tracy Venable. She asks him about the insanity defense, and Norman replies that his cure “could not cure the hurt” that his actions caused.  He furthermore explains that “the past is not really the past,” a viewpoint that suggests a highly developed form of Catholic guilt. 

Long-time readers of the blog may remember how I discussed Catholic guilt vis-à-vis Captain Kirk in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), but Catholic guilt could defined as a melancholy or world-weariness brought about by an examined life. It's the constant questioning and re-parsing of decisions and history (some call it Scrupulosity). Here, Norman shows the capacity to examine his life, and see it from a perspective that is not to his favor. His quest is to be forgiven for “the past that is not really the past.” Maureen helps him to do that, but the scene with Venable explores the fact that Norman is not some mindless lunatic (in sharp contrast to the other slashers of the 1980s), but a man who is fully aware of the “private trap” in which he is snared.

The greatest scene in Psycho III, however, is one that would have made Hitchcock proud, and which isn’t strictly speaking, a part of the film’s theme of forgiveness/redemption.  

Instead, it’s just a droll scene brilliantly shot, that fosters suspense. The scene involves Fairvale’s Sheriff Hunt at the Bates Motel. He has come to question Norman about a missing woman, and digs his hand into the outdoor ice machine to cool off.  

Right out of his view, is the body of that victim, buried under all the ice in the freezer.  Norman knows the corpse is there, but the Sheriff doesn’t. Perkins’ camera cuts to a close-up of the ice -- the bloody ice -- next to the Sheriff’s grasping hands.  The scene’s pay-off is a close-up of the sheriff’s face as he licks bloody ice water from his lips, but is no wiser to the game.   

This scene is brilliantly written, constructed, and executed and it gets to the core appeal of the Psycho films. Not surprisingly, that appeal is schizophrenic. On one hand, we want Norman Bates to get caught.  On the other hand, we want him to go free and find happiness. Those two ideas compete in the brain, and the result is a kind of unbearable suspense.

Perkins gets it, naturally, and as Jeff Strickler in the Star Tribune wrote, he “shows the same precision as a director that he demonstrates as an actor.”  Psycho III is a “cut above” most sequels horror sequels because of his involvement, and proof positive that the film series was still conjuring new and worthwhile stories for Norman Bates in the late 1980s.

Later today: Psycho IV (1990).

Cult-TV Gallery: The Psycho House

Laredo (1965)

Rod Serling's Night Gallery: "A Question of Fear"

The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries: "The House on Possessed Hill."

Knight Rider: "Halloween Knight."

Fear Factor (2005)

Cult-Movie Review: Psycho II (1983)

“Jerry Goldsmith’s first main theme was melancholy and I persuaded him to go with something more innocent. The music he’d written for the stairway flashback…I played it to Tony [Perkins] and he cried.  [He] said he’d lived with Norman all those years and no one else had ever understood his innocence – ‘the boy man’ as Tony called him.”

-Psycho II (1983) director Richard Franklin, in an interview for my book Horror Films of the 1980s (2007). Page 351.

If Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) concerns the “private traps” that people often make for themselves, then its impressive 1983 sequel -- directed by Richard Franklin -- focuses on what happens when people won’t let go of those traps.

No matter what. 

Not coincidentally, Psycho II involves a generation gap of sorts, since two protagonists (Norman Bates and Mary Loomis) are compelled to join their wayward parents (Lila Loomis, Emma Spool) in those aforementioned traps, with dire results. 

In this case, the will of the older generation is imposed violently on the younger generation, and the cycle of violence and madness continues because of it.

In fact, that’s the image Psycho II leaves us with: madness re-asserted at the Bates Motel because the older generation can simply not live with the possibility of countenancing something new or different. Lila refuses to believe that Norman can be sane, and Spool succumbs to her madness to protect Norman, an act which re-awakens Norman’s own Mommy issues.

In short, both Lila Loomis (Vera Miles) and Emma Spool (Claudia Bryar) wish to stick rigorously to their long-standing biases and preconceived notions, and even take (violent or subversive) action to assure the outcome that validates their viewpoint and desires.

It is the children, however, who suffer for the sins of the mothers, and Psycho II is thus a story about the ways that families keep replaying the same dramas and reliving the same pathologies, one year to the next, one generation to the next.

This sub-text adds some meat to the bones of the film, which -- while not revolutionary like its storied predecessor -- is nonetheless an extremely well-made thriller. More than that, even, Psycho II is a compelling mystery featuring many effective and unexpected twists and turns.

Also, it seems impossible not to read “the generation gap” sub-text of Psycho II as a pre-emptive defense of this sequel.

Once more, we must consider historical context. The older, established movie intelligentsia was up in arms about a sequel being crafted to Hitchcock’s masterpiece in 1983. It argued, basically, that a sequel could only be more of the same: violent hijinks at the Bates Motel.

Psycho II’s very story, its narrative content, seems to suggest otherwise. Indeed, one aspect of Psycho II that remains quite beautiful is the one alluded to in the quote above, from Franklin.

This sequel beautifully expresses Norman’s tragic and innocent qualities. One spends the film wishing Norman some measure of happiness, but understanding that the cynical, caustic forces of the world will simply not let him have it.

I love and admire the original Psycho for all the reasons I enumerated yesterday. I love how it plays with structure and shatters decorum. And I admire how it splits our point of identification, the protagonist, into three individuals.

But Psycho II has its pleasures too, even if they are of a different, perhaps more grounded sort

Without resorting to gimmickry or cheap tricks, the sequel really reveals to us Norman Bates as a human being who is worthy of our sympathy, not just as a surprising boogeyman.

In so many ways, Norman really is like a lost “boy man” instead, and as this film points out, the world -- circa 1983 -- simply has no place for him.  He is now not only a man out of his mind, but a man out of time, out of step with the present.

The film’s serious, sincere attempt to excavate Norman’s identity (and plight) is the very thing that refutes those who say “you can’t make a sequel to Psycho, because it will just be a lame imitation.”

Psycho II opened the same day as another sequel, Return of the Jedi (1983), but nonetheless succeeded at the summer box office, and paved the way for additional sequels, all of which continue more or less in the vein of Franklin’s film, not Hitchcock’s. 

The Psycho sequels are, essentially, character studies of a “lost boy” in the modern world, and the ways that society continues to fail him.

I don’t believe, honestly, that the sequels would have succeeded to any creative degree if they had not adopted this grounded, character-based approach. Psycho II turns the gaze of the camera squarely on Norman and the world of the 1980s.

And in that view, it’s clear to audiences Norman Bates isn’t the only insane one. The world is “psycho” too (II).

“When he murders again, you will be directly responsible.”

After twenty-two years in asylum, murderer and former mad-man, Norman Bates (Perkins) is released.

At the hearing before his return to society, Lila Loomis (Miles) stands up and complains that the laws of the country protect the guilty, not the innocent, and that there is no justice for Norman’s victims.  She warns that he will very likely kill again, and that when Norman does so, the blood will be on the court’s hands.

Norman returns home to Fairvale with his psychiatrist, Dr. Raymond (Robert Loggia), and learns that the Bates Motel has been turned into an “adult” (pornographic) establishment by its manager, Warren Toomey (Dennis Franz).  After taking a job at a local diner with kindly old Mrs. Spool (Bryar), Norman fires Toomey and decides to run the motel himself.

Norman also takes in a waitress from the diner, Mary (Meg Tilly), who is having relationship troubles.  But the truth is that Mary is Lila’s daughter. Her mother has asked her to insinuate herself into Norman’s life and drive him crazy, wearing his old “Mother” garb, while Lila telephones him and claims to be the dead Mrs. Bates.

As Mary gets to know Norman, she sees how cruel her mother’s plans truly are, and begins to rebel against Lila and the strategy to de-stabilize Bates.

But all along, another figure lurks in the shadows, one who claims to be Norman’s “real” mother, and will commit murder to protect her beloved boy…

“I don’t kill people anymore, remember?”

At one point in Psycho II, Norman experiences a flashback of his mother, Norma Bates, while standing just outside her bedroom. In the brass door-knob (and over it, in the door itself) we can see a distorted reflection of Norman, but in that reflection, Norman is not a grown man, but rather a child.

That image, in many ways, is the key to appreciating this sequel.

Norman is developmentally arrested and a virgin to boot, as Anthony Perkins and Richard Franklin have both pointed out. He lived in a fantasy world before being caught in 1960. But since 1960, he has been frozen in time and living in a bubble of a different sort. While exorcising the ghost of his mother, he has actually learned nothing of life. Thus when Norman is released in 1983, he is a fish-out-of-water, a victim both of his mother, and of the society which incarcerated him but never taught him how to live, or how to succeed. Norman returns to “real life” rudderless and without direction, with few friends, and many enemies. 

This situation makes him incredibly vulnerable. That vulnerability is ruthlessly taken advantage of.

Mary Loomis is a victim in the same sense: a pawn in her mother’s twisted scheme to send Norman “over the edge.”  This plan puts Mary in mortal jeopardy, but it also requires her to be a liar and deceiver.  And it all must happen in the name of Mary’s aunt, the dead Marion Crane. Lila Loomis has been unable to forgive Norman for her murder, even after twenty-two years.

In fact, Lila has become a cruel, strident person railing at everybody, including the legal system, for failing her. Lila is so consumed with rage and anger that she dresses as Norman’s mother to vex him, and calls him on the telephone and pretends to be Norma. There can be no argument about the fact that she acts deplorably.  Never once does she allow for the possibility that Norman might be healed, or seeking some form of redemption.

Lila simply can’t get beyond the past, and about what she “knows” to be true. Everyone else -- the law, the psychiatrist, and even her own daughter -- are wrong for thinking otherwise. Lila is thus a dead-ender, a person willing to believe things which are not true so as to validate her own hatred and prejudices.  It’s a surprising and rewarding idea to turn our final protagonist in Psycho, Lila, into an antagonist in the film’s sequel, but is also speaks to a sad truth about people. They sometimes get brittle and inflexible with age.

Psycho 2’s cleverness comes about, in a sense, from our conflicted feelings for Norman. He is heart-breaking when he talks about his mother making him toasted cheese sandwiches, and being good to him, and yet, we also remember the weight of history. We know he has killed and that, as I wrote above, that Norman is vulnerable. 

In one well-directed scene, Norman cuts a sandwich for Mary and the scene is alive and electric with tension. Mary hands Norman a very large butcher knife, and, remembering the past, he doesn’t want to hold it or take it. 

Mary -- in on the plan to de-stabilize Norman -- realizes that by handing the knife to him, she is putting herself in danger.

And then, as audience members, we have to wonder about the moment too.  Mary is handing Norman the tool that could be used to murder her! 

Who, finally, is responsible, when someone knowingly hands a former murderer a knife?  Is Norman responsible for his actions? Or is it Mary?  And does the fact that Norman does not succumb to violence mean that he is, in fact, cured?

Psycho II asks us to consider all these ideas.

Another great scene occurs near the film’s climax.  Norman attempts to disarm Mary, but she is holding the knife.  He keeps approaching her, hands outstretched, and she stabs him, and cuts his hands. At this point, it is not Norman who is acting violently, but Mary, driven to rage by her mother’s death, who does the stabbing.  This is a neat inversion of typical horror movie tropes.  Here the “boogeyman” is unarmed and pleading, and the final girl, Mary, is losing her grip on sanity and drawing blood.

In terms of style, Franklin is a Hitchcock protégé, and so Psycho II features many moments as elegant and frisson-creating as those I enumerate above.  Some moments in the film are also downright shocking, even today.  Lila takes a knife to the mouth (and through the mouth), and the violence is, in its way, decorum shattering too.  Here a sweet old woman (and our former protagonist) isn’t just killed, but tactlessly butchered!

Before she dies, Franklin provides a close-up of Lila's mouth, screaming in horror, and the shot should look familiar from Psycho.  In this, in set design, and in fidelity to the characters, Psycho II seeks to honor its predecessor without slavishly imitating it.

I wrote about this some in Horror Films of the 1980s, but Psycho II is really about Norman making a choice. 

Should he choose the sanity that society prefers, or, finally, the love of a (psychotic) mother figure? 

On one hand, society makes it clear it doesn’t want Norman. Lila frames him. The sheriff suspects him of killing two teenagers. And Mary, even, betrays him. In broader terms, cut-backs in social services mean that Norman is never visited by a social worker, someone who can help assimilate him back into the mainstream. 

On the other hand, we have a woman, Emma Spool, who claims to be his biological mother, and would kill to protect him. “I’m the only one who truly loves you,” Mother says to Norman. “Only your mother truly loves you.” 

The great thing about Psycho II is that Mother’s comment -- while horrifying -- also happens to be absolutely true, given what we’ve seen of mainstream society in the film. If his only choice is between a world that hates him and a mother who is steadfast (but nutty…) then love wins out, every time.

Psycho II’s last moment is perfectly conceived and executed. The vacancy sign turns on at the hotel, storm clouds roil in the night sky above, and Norman stands in the shadow of that Gothic house, in the shadow, again, of his mother. 

For Norman, this is a return to madness, and some might even say it’s a reset of the Psycho franchise, taking us back to the world as it was before Marion’s visit in 1960.

But really, it’s the only logical destination for Norman, the lost “boy man.”  Another shot in the film goes even further in depicting his plight. We see Norman banging on the attic window of his house, locked in and unable to escape.  He sees the world outside, but can never quite get to it. That’s Norman in a nut-shell.

Norman’s just not getting out of the “private trap” the world has made for him.  But tragically – and quite unlike Lila or Emma – he really, really wants out.

Tomorrow morning: Psycho III (1986).