by Brock Holes
What better way to kick off Halloween season, and my tenure at Spoiler Warning than to review a bizarre and uncalled for sequel to a beloved classic? For this October column, I want to introduce the uninitiated to “Psycho II” (1983).
Directed by Richard Franklin and scripted by Tom Holland, “Psycho II” drops Norman Bates, (Anthony Perkins) into the world of small town California in 1983. What results is an interesting look at how peoples’ conceptions of violent crimes like Norman’s changed between 1960 to 1983. It’s also a time capsule for today’s viewers on how those ideas have evolved from 1983 until now, mostly unchanged. Notably, it’s been almost twice as long since the release of “Psycho II” than the time between the releases of the two films.
I won’t lie to you. “Psycho II” has a lot of strengths, but an elegantly unfolding plot is not one. Having seen this film multiple times, I still can’t summarize it coherently. Here’s a rundown of what you need to know about the plot. It’s 1983, and Norman Bates is declared “sane” and released back into society. He’s set up with a dishwashing job at a diner, where he meets a friendly younger woman named Mary (Meg Tilly), who he invites to stay with him in the empty mansion where his 1960 murders took place. Things get weird as Norman receives cryptic notes and phone calls, claiming to be from his long dead mother.
The rest of the plot is a series of twists and turns related to solving that mystery. To me, the most interesting one is the revelation that the source of the phone calls purporting to be from Norman’s mother is Lila Loomis (Vera Miles), the sister of Bates victim Marion Crane. Miffed that her protest against Norman’s release fell on deaf ears, Lila is intent on sabotaging his social reintegration. It is revealed that this is part of a premeditated plot to drive Norman insane and get him locked up again, in which she has also wrapped up her daughter, Mary (yes, the same Mary from before).
Given that many sequels, especially in horror, have little if any connection to their source material, be they anthology series or cash-ins on a franchise’s name, it’s not insignificant that Perkins and Miles are the only faces from “Psycho” we see in the film’s sequel.
With Perkins reprising his role as Bates, we can quite literally see the 22 years of institutionalization showing on Norman’s face. Incarceration is often treated, not just in horror movies but in a disturbing amount of popular media, like a neat bow on the end of a story, a sign that all is finally well. All is clearly not well for Norman, despite his freedom. Though “sane” in the eyes of the law, the psychological weight not just of his crimes but his social classification as a criminal has rendered him as helpless as he was before his time in the mental institution. Norman has been so thoroughly convinced of his own inherent evil that he stumbles over the word “cutlery” when he has dinner with Mary the first night she stays over, the knife he used to murder Marion clearly still on his mind.
As for Miles’ Lila Loomis (née Crane), her appearance is especially significant in that her character in the original film is pretty minor. If there’s any scene you remember Lila from in Psycho, it might be the (in)famous “psychiatrist scene,” where Norman’s pathology is laid out to her in direct, excruciating detail. In that scene Lila stands in for the public of the year 1960s, eager to learn more about the fascinating topic of multiple personalities. If Lila had a problem with that anachronistic take on what caused Norman’s murders, she didn’t say it then. Curiously, 22 years later, she describes the fact Norman was found not guilty by reason of insanity as “legal hocus pocus” when bursting into the courtroom to deliver her petition. Lila’s attitude reflects a perpetrator/victim dichotomy that would materialize, gain steam, and come to a head in culture over the span of Norman’s sentence. Like Norman, she’s learned to identify strongly with her role in that dichotomy. Unlike Norman, Lila is not helpless, but determined to make that dichotomy real, even if it means literally driving Norman to commit the murders she so stridently believes he’s fated to commit again.
CONCLUSION: I give it a 7.5/10. Definitely drags in spots. Worth it, entirely for Anthony Perkins’ heartbreaking performance and for the chance to reflect on the many crimes of Ronald Reagan, truly the scariest ghost of them all.
