Review by
Eric Hillis
Arrow Video's boxset 'Psycho: The Story Continues' gathers together the
three sequels to
Alfred Hitchcock's seminal 1960 slasher
- Psycho II, Psycho III, Psycho IV: The Beginning - with all three films restored
from their original negatives.
Psycho II
Belated sequels and reboots may be all the rage today, but in 1983 the
notion of following up one of the most iconic movies in cinema history a
full two decades later seemed like a fool's errand. The popularity of
slasher movies in the early '80s would likely have made the idea of
bringing back Norman Bates for another stabbing spree irresistible
however. Few expected a
Psycho
sequel to work, but in the hands of Hitchcock obsessive
Richard Franklin, who brilliantly reworked
Rear Window
with his Ozploitation classic Roadgames, Psycho II proved a surprisingly effective
follow-up.
Going against the grain of Reagan era Hollywood's black and white
morality, Franklin's sequel casts Norman as a sympathetic victim rather
than an outright villain. After spending 22 years in a psychiatric
institution, Norman is declared sane and released back into the community
of Fairvale, where he is set up with a job washing dishes in a local
diner. Norman makes the unwise decision to resume living in the creepiest
house in California, and takes over the management of the infamous motel,
which had been run as a halfway house by its temporary manager (Dennis Franz
at his sleaziest).
The vulnerable Norman befriends Mary (Meg Tilly), a pretty young
waitress at his diner, and when she finds herself homeless he offers her
free lodging in his house. Norman confesses to poisoning his mother as a
child but holds back the details of his other crimes from Mary, whose
presence provides him with comfort and takes his mind off the ghosts of
his past. When Norman becomes the subject of a gaslighting campaign from
an anonymous tormentor posing as his mother, his brittle sanity begins to
crack and the bodies start to pile up once again.
Franklin and screenwriter Tom Holland keep us guessing as to who
is behind the fresh series of killings. Has Norman lost it or is someone
trying to frame him? Each new plot twist serves to deepen the mystery,
though I've never been entirely convinced by the ultimate reveal. Franklin
displays his reverence for Hitchcock with some fiendishly mounted
set-pieces and the gore is amped up to slasher era levels.
The heart of the film is Anthony Perkins' Norman Bates, and the
whole enterprise collapses if we aren't sufficiently convinced that he's
deserving of our sympathy. Having been initially reluctant to the return
to his most famous role, Perkins delivers an astonishingly affecting
performance, playing Norman as a tragic victim of both mental health
issues and an uncaring society, while at the same time leaving us in no
doubt that he's capable of violence should he snap. Perkins' performance
is greatly aided by the fact that he maintained the wiry physique of his
youth, which lends a boyish quality to the fortysomething Norman. The
maternal relationship between Mary and Norman is genuinely touching, and a
scene in which Tilly cradles Perkins as Norman recalls his one pleasant
childhood memory, that of his mother's grilled cheese sandwiches, is
enough to wet your eyes. It's said that Perkins and Tilly didn't get along
during the shoot but you'd never know it from their onscreen
chemistry.
Psycho II is the best type of sequel, one that understands
the enormity of its task but never allows itself to become overwhelmed by
such pressure. Franklin's daring choice to reconfigure Norman as an
anti-hero is backed up by Jerry Goldsmith's score, which refuses to
call back to Bernard Herrmann's iconic stabbing strings and instead
complements the tragic nature of this older Norman with a melancholy piano
theme.
Only a fool would claim Franklin's sequel is the equal of Hitchcock's
groundbreaking film, but I guess I'm a fool, as I find
Psycho II just as entertaining as its predecessor. Well, we all go a little
mad sometimes.
Psycho III
1986's Psycho III picks up just weeks after the conclusion
of its predecessor, with Norman Bates doing his best to live the normal
life of a motel owner. Once again Norman is a victim figure, manipulated
by Duane Duke (Jeff Fahey), a sleazy drifter who takes a job as
Norman's assistant, and gaining the unwanted attention of journalist Tracy
Venable (Roberta Maxwell), who doesn't buy the official explanation
of the events of the previous film.
While the relationship between Norman and Mary in
Psycho II was that of a surrogate mother and son, here
Norman is given a full on love interest in the form of Maureen Coyle (Diana Scarwid), a troubled former nun who left her convent after a crisis of faith
resulted in a fellow nun falling to her death from a bell tower (as
portrayed in a prologue that nods to Hitchcock's Vertigo). With her short blonde hair and the initials "M.C." emblazoned on her
suitcase, Maureen reminds Norman of Marion Crane, the doomed fugitive
played by Janet Leigh in the 1960 film. Norman is given the chance to
settle down with a loving partner, but her resemblance to his most famous
victim threatens Maureen's life.
This one sees Perkins make his directorial debut and features a
screenplay by Charles Edward Pogue, who scored a hit with his
script for Cronenberg's The Fly the same year. Both of
Pogue's 1986 scripts share a similar theme of a romance between a man and
woman that's doomed by the former's mad compulsions. The relationship in
Psycho III is never quite fleshed out enough to be fully
convincing though, and we never feel the intended weight of Maureen's
tragic storyline. In Fahey's Duane we get the franchise's creepiest figure, an absolute
scuzzball who begins by attempting to sexually assault Maureen and moves on
to blackmailing Norman. Fahey's performance is positively satanic and unlike
Norman, who simply wants to be normal, Duane is a willing sociopath.
Unlike the previous two entries, there's no mystery regarding who is
perpetrating this entry's murders. The audience's awareness of Norman's
guilt is playfully exploited by Perkins the director, who stages some tense
sequences in which we find ourselves actively rooting for Norman to get away
with it. A scene involving a corpse in an ice box is a blackly comic
highlight. When actors turn their hands to directing they often deliver
movies that look like they were made for TV, but Perkins proves himself
something of a visual stylist. There's an expressionist touch to how he
frames characters and lights their surrounds, like Duane's motel room, lit
in garish reds and pinks to create a hellishly unpleasant atmosphere.
Perkins also finds some clever ways to transition between scenes, and adds
the odd weird touch like Duane's unsettling nude dance with a pair of lamps
covering his privates. It's a shame Perkins would only go on to direct one
other movie, the 1988 flop Lucky Stiff. Like Jerry Goldsmith with the previous film, composer
Carter Burwell ignores Bernard Herrmann's score here and delivers a
synth heavy, New Wave influenced score that has been sampled by several hip
hop producers int he decades since.
Psycho III is ultimately let down by its fumbling of the
potentially intriguing Maureen subplot, but there's enough here to thrill
fans of the series.
Psycho IV: The Beginning
Despite its title, 1990's made for TV Psycho IV ignores the
events of the previous two sequels, bringing back the original 1960
movie's screenwriter Joseph Stefano. This one sees a rehabilitated
Norman Bates living as a free man with a wife and a baby on the way.
Norman's old instincts rise to the surface when he listens to a radio talk
show on the subject of matricide. Calling in to the show, Norman relates
his life story to the host (CCH Pounder) and a psychiatrist (Warren Frost).
After three outstanding turns in the previous films, Perkins is left to
literally phone in his performance for most of Psycho IV. The bulk of the film instead sees Henry Thomas play a teenage
Norman as we witness his descent into madness. This is provoked by his
controlling mother Norma (Olivia Hussey), who teases the boy in an
incestuous manner.
Director Mick Garris fails to make anything interesting of the
various vignettes in which we see Norman off a series of victims. Thomas
does his best but we can't but compare him unfavourably to the young
Perkins' iconic turn in Hitchcock's film. Things aren't helped by
Graeme Revell's score, which unlike those of Jerry Goldsmith and
Carter Burwell in the previous sequels, insists on aping Bernard
Herrmann's work. Laying that famous music over Garris's blandly staged
scenes doesn't do the film any favours.
The emphasis on the borderline incestuous relationship between Norman and
his mom makes Psycho IV seedy rather than suspenseful. There's an ickiness to
the whole affair that makes it an unpleasant watch, but the cast-against-type Hussey is suitably deranged as the awful woman who kicked off this
chain of events.
Special features:
Across the three discs we get a host of new and archive commentaries, on
set featurettes, audio and video interviews and video essays by genre
experts Alexandra Heller Nicholas and Guy Adams.
Psycho: The Story Continues is on
bluray and 4K UHD from February 26th.