Richard Franklin's 1983 sequel to Alfred Hitchcock's 1960
classic
Psycho is, depending on your aesthetic temperament, an entertainingly
pulpy homage to the original or a crass, brazen cash-in on the reputation of
the Hitchcock film. Critics at the time of the film's release tended toward the
latter point of view, but time has been kind, and recent years have seen an
uptick in reputation and a small, growing cult of appreciative fans. Count me
in with the film's admirers. I really enjoyed what director Franklin,
screenwriter Tom Holland, and star Anthony Perkins did with
Psycho II.
Franklin is ballsy enough to open with the entire shower
scene from the first film. This is a risky move. Hitchcock was a spatial
architect of near-genius, while Franklin is merely a good director, and putting
their filmmaking styles side-by-side from the beginning invites an unflattering
comparison for Franklin. It works for me because the majority of scenes in the
sequel echo, pay tribute to, or affectionately parody Hitchcock's film, and the
sequel uses the same sets of the motel and house as the first film and two of
the same stars (Perkins and Vera Miles). Unlike the cheap, cash-grabbing knockoff
it was derided as in 1983,
Psycho II is the love letter of a fan to one of his
favorite films. It's like fan fiction, in a way, and everyone here appears to
be operating from affection, not opportunism. And those detractors conveniently
ignored, or maybe didn't know, that Franklin was a friend and protégée of
Hitchcock's.
Psycho II opens in real time, 23 years after the first film,
with Norman Bates (Perkins) declared sane and released back into society. Lila
Loomis (Miles) is also at the hearing, vociferously protesting his release and
claiming he will kill again. Norman's psychiatrist, Dr. Bill Raymond (Robert
Loggia), keeps close tabs on Norman and helps him get a job at a diner to help
integrate him back into society. Norman befriends a waitress at the diner, Mary
(Meg Tilly), and she soon moves into Bates' house after her boyfriend dumps her
and kicks her out of their apartment. Norman returns to find a new proprietor
of the Bates Motel, Warren Toomey (a seedy, delightfully over-the-top Dennis
Franz), and he is dismayed to find out Toomey has turned the motel into a
by-the-hour dive for those wishing to engage in illicit sexual and
pharmaceutical activity in a private setting. Norman fires Toomey and makes
plans to reopen the motel as it was before. Things are going great for Norman,
except for the phone calls and notes he keeps receiving from his long-dead
mother. Is he going crazy again, or is something more sinister going on?
What follows is a highly entertaining B-movie with a great
Perkins performance and nice visual and structural nods to most of the key
scenes in the first film, including the shower scene, Arbogast's fall down the
stairs, the peephole, the explanatory speech at the end, the car dredged from
the swamp, and Mother Bates. There are also a couple surprise twists I didn't
see coming, not enough Robert Loggia, an excellent Jerry Goldsmith score,
effectively squirm-inducing suspense, genuine shocks, and some lovably cheesy
low-budget '80s special effects sequences. It will also make you want some
toasted cheese sandwiches.
Director Franklin, an Australian who died in 2007 from
cancer, made two cult horror films prior to
Psycho II I hear good things about
(
Patrick and
Road Games), the kids' adventure movie
Cloak & Dagger, the
sequel to
F/X, and some television work. Screenwriter Tom Holland would go on
to write and direct the hit horror films
Fright Night and
Child's Play. The
cast I'm sure you're mostly familiar with. Oddly enough, Robert Bloch, writer
of the novel that was the basis for the first film, wrote a second novel in
1982 that saw Norman Bates escape from the mental institution to attempt to
stop a Hollywood biopic of his life from being filmed. Bloch's unflattering
take on the film industry supposedly pissed off Universal Studios enough to
cause them to develop a sequel of their own, completely unrelated to Bloch's
book. That sounds like an apocryphal tale to me, but if it is true,
I'm glad their temper tantrum led to this film. It's a good
one.
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