PSYCHO II (1983) - ***

It is 1983, and the slasher horror was still in full swing of its Golden Age. The genre foundation partly laid down by Tobe Hopper's THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, Bob Clark's BLACK CHRISTMAS, and Mario Bava's double header BLOOD & BLACK LACE and TWITCH OF THE DEATH NERVE were being fully exploited (i.e. ripped off). Major dividends were being made at the box-office for John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN, Sir Ridley Scott's ALIEN, and Sean S. Cunningham's FRIDAY THE 13TH, with Sam Raimi's THE EVIL DEAD an underground hit and Wes Craven's A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET only a year away. Nevermind the hundreds of awful clones that cluttered theatres and we still are stuck with, collecting dust at your local mom & pop video store.

Obviously Universal Studios noticed this and decided to cash in by producing a sequel to the grandaddy of all slasher movies, Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 classic PSYCHO. What surprised everyone isn't that it made a profit (only a moron loses money on a horror picture), or that Anthony Perkins and his struggling career returned as Norman Bates, but that PSYCHO II was actually....good? A surprise sleeper hit with both audiences and critics, PSYCHO II is a rare solid and competent genre sequel, and I mean rare as in how many good horror sequels do you know?

OK, maybe George A. Romero's DEAD pictures, perhaps too the fun A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3: DREAM WARRIORS, and also EVIL DEAD 2 if you can argue around the comedy. But what else? Exactly my point. Oh sure I know many folks out there are fans of franchises from NIGHTMARE to FRIDAY THE 13TH or the more recent SAW, but such nerd jihadists care more about Freddy, Jason, or Jigsaw and creative gore shots then the pictures themselves. I mean let's be honest guys.

Seriously, PSYCHO II should have blowed this side of Amy Winehouse given a line of cocaine, or sucked a golfball through a waterhose, because God knows we didn't need a PSYCHO sequel, nor was there any real rabid demand for it (unless I'm mistaken). Besides, what else could you do with the material?

That my friends is where I was proven wrong. Released after 22 years at the nuthouse, the poor guy just wants to go home, work his crappy job at the diner and be left alone to eat his toasted cheese sandwiches. He's paid his debt to society with most of his adult life, and the scorn of almost everyone in the county. The problem is, he keeps getting notes and phone calls from "Mother," despite the fact that we and he knows that she's as dead as fried chicken. People are being murdered again at the Bates Motel, and Bates is desperately trying to keep his hard-worked sanity intact...if it hasn't left him already.

If you think about it, this was a real risky move on Universal's part to turn Bates from a dangerous psychotic killer in drag to that of a tragic hero, because with every other slasher icon, we pay to see them do what they were born to do: Slice & Dice. Instead, this crazy(pun!) gamble pays off for two reasons. One, my theory holds that viewers don't necessarily have to like characters or their actions, but are willing to follow them as long as they are compelling people. I mean, after Janet Leigh's death in PSYCHO, Perkins afterwards became the sole intriguing player for us, even if we find out later what a sad sick bastard he was. With PSYCHO II, Bates is like a long-time abuser trying to stay sober despite temptations everywhere, except instead of booze or drugs it's murder. Even psychopaths have their 12 step programs.

Two, PSYCHO II works because of Perkins. If you ever catch his other screenwork outside of PSYCHO like say Orson Welles' criminally underseen THE TRIAL, you'll realize what a great actor Perkins was, and what a tragic waste of talent because Norman Bates typecasted him. Still, watch Perkins' awesomeness in PSYCHO II in the scene with Meg Tilly as she hands him a knife to cut some bread. He hesitates and struggles, but its such a great triumph of a close call for him. That simplistic scene probably read silly on paper, but Perkins makes it work as someone who simply wants to do good, and yet people won't let him. Later when Tilly is telling him about the "loud noise" made by her roommate and boyfriend, Perkins has such an awkward look to him. You forget that Bates is a boy who never quite grew up.

If we didn't care about Bates, the sequel is screwed no matter how much blood and titties fly out.

My favorite scene of his in PSYCHO II might have to be when he finds out that the Bates Motel manager in Lou Franz is using the joint to host drug hooker parties, and he's morally outraged, which Franz fires back: "At least my customers have a good time! What do yours get, Bates? Huh? Dead! That's what! Murdered by you, you loony! " Franz may be a fat asshole, but you know he's got a point.

PSYCHO II was shot by the late Richard Franklin, who also directed ROADGAMES which I haven't seen but people I know have praised it as an underrated thriller gem. Anyway, considering that he was following in the shadow of Hitchcock, I think he does a fine job in helming a compelling murder mystery, where Bates believably may or may not have lost his marbles again, which lags simply because it doesn't completely justify two hours. He does make some missteps by including the slasher genre staple of doomed pot-smoking kids caught at the house screwing by "Mother" and opening his sequel with Leigh's shower murder from PSYCHO, as if he was afraid that kids watching PSYCHO II wouldn't know of the original. Then again, as SCREAM reminded us, how many remember that Jason wasn't the stalker in the first FRIDAY THE 13TH?

But Franklin has one well-crafted sequence, where Franz is pricking around Tilly at the diner, as Bates watches intently while cutting lettuce. We then see another written message from "Mother" on the turn-table with other Orders, and as it creeps closer to Perkins, and Franz is stiring more shit up...good tension right there. Franklin also a ridiculously over-the-top kill scene with someone getting stabbed, then falling into a stair bannister which runs the knife through him. I still can't decide if it's retardedly stupid or so-bad-its-cool.

PSYCHO II doesn't reinvent the wheel or shake the pillars of the cinematic heavens, but it's a decent entertaining quality jobber, and you should see it if simply for the ending with the shovel that is just so shocking and nuts, yet so completely satisfying. If anything, PSYCHO II was a weird underlining theme under it. We Americans, and probably most humans in fact, are such revenge-driven creatures like the people against Bates, and yet only one person tries to follow the Christian culture's teachings of "forgive & forget."

If that message was applied instead of vengeance, Bates probably would have been normal for the first time in his life, instead of unfortunately becoming again the very monster that they were fighting against.