PSYCHO II

by Kevin Koehler

Despite the money-grabbing cynicism of its conception, Psycho II is not without merit. Actually, some vaguely human-esque characterization, a capable director, a title change, and a script that dared follow through on its own provocative premise could have yielded an interesting film worthy of its royal lineage; a film Alfred Hitchcock might have composed. Alas, he died three years prior to this sequel's production, so what we have instead is a picture directed by Richard Franklin, a man who's obvious affections for the fat man outweigh his skills as a filmmaker.

Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), most will remember, was declared not guilty by reason of insanity in the original's garrulous conclusion, confined not to a prison but to a rubber room. After replaying Janet Leigh's iconic shower scene (as if to say "yes, we've really made a sequel to that Psycho"), the story jumps forward twenty years to Norman's state-sanctioned release. He is judged no longer to be a crazy person by a team a mental health experts, chief among them Doctor Raymond (Robert Loggia). The decision goes over famously with Lila Loomis (Vera Miles, reprising her role from the original), sister and wife to two of the Bates Motel's former tenants. Her protestations fall on deaf ears. "Our courts protect the criminals and not their victims," she says. "And when he murders again, you will be directly responsible."

Norman returns home to find his motel run by Warren Toomey (Dennis Franz), a man of ill repute who's turned the family business into a refuge for prostitutes and drug addicts. It's economics, he explains, for lodging so far from the interstate. "People come here to party. They stay a few hours and then they leave." Norman Bates does not like to party. "You're fired. I want you out of here tomorrow." Toomey admonishes Norman to make him leave, calling the man a "whacko" and a "looney" in the process; it's a decidedly unwise request to a newly-released, serial-murdering mental patient, but Norman seems to take it all in stride. He starts a job as a cook's helper at the local diner and befriends pretty coworker Mary (Meg Tilly).

Almost immediately, strange things begin to happen, things that question how sublimated Norman's Oedipal struggles really are. He sees things no one else does, like mysterious figures in windows and notes left around house and workplace from his dead mother, each vision more threatening than the one that came before.

Then there are the phone calls from voices only he hears.

Then Toomey is murdered, done in by the brutal hand of a silver-haired, black-clad matron we've come to associate with a certain motel proprietor.

Yet things may not be that simple; we wonder whether Norman really has relapsed or some devious individual simply wants him to think he has. Indeed, perhaps Norman is slowly being driven insane by an unknown party - as a cruel joke or out of a misplaced sense of civil duty - in order to send him back to that padded cell where society assumes he belongs. We make our own monsters (once a criminal, always a criminal), so it's frustrating when they refuse to cooperate with our expectations. These special cases often need a helpful hand to realize their ultimate, homicidal self-actualization.

In many ways, the plot is a simple updating of George Cukor's Oscar-nominated Gaslight (starring three-time Hitchcock collaborator, Ingrid Bergman); that picture is quite clever, even if it's about nothing except its own byzantine plot machinations, Victorian ambiance, and killers driven by a lust for lucre and status. Psycho II at least tries to be socially relevant ("if Norman Bates is crazy," says the town sheriff, "there's a whole lot of people around here running him a close second"). Distressing then, that the manner in which it goes about it alternates between clumsy and ridiculous (Norman's monologue on cheese sandwiches would be one noteworthy example); it's the kind of film that would be good if it weren't so awful. The picture is populated by characters who act in the most logic-confounding ways, resisting empathy much less sympathy. Whole shots and sequences are cribbed from the original for filmic purposes unknown simply to demonstrate the director's proficiency at cheap, epigonic imitation. Richard Franklin is torn between making a sensitive picture and one that acquiesces to the sanguine wishes of its 80s slasher film audience. They wish to see the prodigal son return; return he does, even if it involves an absurd third-act twist and cinematic vandalization of a classic film's mythology.

To be fair, many of the incongruous performances, Meg Tilly's most prominently (Perkins actually stopped speaking to her on set after he discovered she hadn't seen the original film), make greater sense in retrospect. Like The Sixth Sense, Psycho II is largely built to be watched twice. Unfortunately, that necessitates watching it the first time.

Interesting footnote: The original Psycho is based on the novel of the same name by Robert Bloch. The author wrote a sequel to his work, also called Psycho II. Released a year before the film, it tells quite a different story. In the book (shades of Scream 2), Norman Bates escapes from a mental asylum and travels to Los Angeles, where a film studio is producing a film inspired by his exploits. Largely a satire of violent Hollywood slasher pictures, Universal hated the book and decided to develop their own story for a sequel. Bloch would also write a third book, Psycho House, where entrepreneurs turn the Bates Motel into a tourist attraction.

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