My Review of Psycho II (1983)

 

Written by Tom Holland 

Directed by Richard Franklin

Norman: "I don't kill people anymore."

I've been meaning to rewatch this series and review the sequels for a while. Advance warning: I actually dig sequels to a movie that didn't need them in the first place. It's largely down to Anthony Perkins of course. 

Over twenty years after the events of the first movie, a seemingly rehabilitated Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) has been released from the asylum and needless to say, he's got quite the battle ahead of him. It's a battle from different sides.

For Norman, there's an effort on his part to atone for his actions by working in a diner and it's there where Norman struck up an unlikely friendship with young waitress Mary Samuels (Meg Tilly). Perhaps he saw Mary as a means of amending what he did to Marion all those years ago.

However in spite of his best intentions to get on with his life, others weren't so keen on letting him be. Former motel manager Warren Toomey (Dennis Franz) went out of way to antagonise Norman and later ended up dead as a result and worse than that, Norman was both seeing and getting phone calls from his "mother", which did a number on his sanity.

Of course the main reveals from this sequel came in pairs. First of all, it was disgruntled Lila Loomis (Vera Miles) who was behind Norman's distress for most of this movie along with the reveal of Mary being her daughter. Mary felt bad about her part in Norman's downward spiral but it came at a massive to both of them.

As for the real big twist. No, it wasn't Norman eventually snapping and reverting back to his dependency on his mother. Instead it was the reveal of Emma Spool (Claudia Bryar) being supposedly Norman's real mother and the actual killer in this movie. I'm not sure I liked that reveal in itself but the aftermath of it certainly ended the movie on a macabre note that worked for me.

- The book Psycho II came out a year before this movie was released with an entirely different plot and outcome for Norman.

- Anthony Perkins son, Oz played a younger version of Norman during the movie as well.

-  This sequel would've been a TV movie had they not gotten Anthony Perkins to play Norman Bates again.

- Chronology: 22 years since the events of the first Psycho movie. Sam Loomis died between movies.

Psycho II easily could've been a disastrous sequel but it more than acquitted itself. Both Anthony Perkins and Meg Tilly (who apparently didn't get along) are excellent and play off each other so well. There's a tragedy in Norman trying his hardest to be good, nearly succeeding and slipping back to his old ways. 

Rating: 8 out of 10