Sunday, April 21, 2024

My Review of Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990)

 


Written by Joseph Stefano
Directed by Mick Garris

Norman (to Fran): "Oh, I've killed before and now, I'm gonna have to do it again."

Into the fourth movie of this series and we got something that not only served as a prequel but also a sequel that only went and ignored the previous two sequels. Don't you just love it when a horror franchise does that?

Ignoring the crazy aunt that pretended to be his mother, we have a Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) who was released from the asylum he had spent a long time in calling a late night radio show, hosted by Fran Ambrose (CCH Pounder). This would be the main plot of this movie.

The radio show in question was about men who killed their mothers, a topic that Norman was well versed in and one where he was better to articulate than the experts Fran had on her show. Fran got so enamoured with Norman, the experts themselves were almost quickly written out of the movie to accommodate Norman himself.

Getting to the prequel aspect of the film we had a lot of flashbacks with a young Norman (Henry Thomas) and the toxic, co-dependent relationship with his mother Norma (Olivia Hussey). Throughout the flashbacks we had Norma emasculate her son incessantly, only for Norman to eventually snap and kill both Norma and her lover, Chet Rudolph (Thomas Schuster). To be fair, Norma had it coming.

Of course Mommy Dearest and her feckless boyfriend weren't the only victims of Norman's in flashbacks. Norman's dalliances with two different women, spurred his "mother" persona into murder. Then there was also the fact that Fran realised Norman was on the verge of killing again.

The would be victim being Norman's own wife, Connie (Donna Mitchell). Norman was tempted to murder his wife because she fell pregnant against his wishes and a reunion between the couple in the Bates family home really could've the same way as the sequels did. Norman came close to succumbing to his mother yet again before choosing a different path.

- The writer for this movie was the same as the original movie. However this aired on Showtime instead of being a theatrical release.
- Janet Leigh (Marion Crane from the first movie) did an introduction for the movie's broadcast.
- Anthony Perkins has a different pitch that was more akin to a black comedy that the studio rejected in favour of what we ended up.
- Chronology: 1940, 1949, 1951 and 1990. Norman's birthday factored into the movie, set during one night.

Psycho IV: The Beginning does feel like a marked improvement on the previous movie and managed to pull off the prequel with a sequel idea rather well. Anthony Perkins gave a strong final performance as his most infamous character with Henry Thomas, Olivia Hussey and CCH Pounder all providing fantastic support. It's a bit underrated this one.

Rating: 7 out of 10 

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