Psycho II
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| Psycho II | |
|---|---|
 Original film poster for Psycho II |
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| Directed by | Richard Franklin |
| Produced by | Executive producer: Bernard Schwartz Producer: Hilton A. Green |
| Written by | Tom Holland |
| Starring | Anthony Perkins Vera Miles Robert Loggia Meg Tilly |
| Music by | Jerry Goldsmith |
| Cinematography | Dean Cundey |
| Editing by | Andrew London |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) |  June 3, 1983 |
| Running time | 113 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | US$ 5,000,000 |
| Preceded by | Psycho |
| Followed by | Psycho III |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Psycho II is a 1983 sequel to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. It stars Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, Robert Loggia and Meg Tilly. The film was directed by Richard Franklin. The original music score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith. The film is marketed with the tagline "It's 22 years later, and Norman Bates is coming home."
It is unrelated to the 1982 novel Psycho II by Robert Bloch which he wrote as a sequel to his original novel Psycho.
The film did well financially (leading to two further sequels) and moderately well critically, several critics[1] noting that the film worked hard to sustain the suspenseful atmosphere of the original. Inevitably it was seen to lack the unique Hitchcock touch, with the plot weakened by the contrivance of setting up further sequels.
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[edit] Plot summary
Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) is released from the mental institution after being pronounced of sound mind. This is in spite of the protests of Lila Loomis (Vera Miles), sister of Marion Crane (whom Norman killed in the first film), and the widow of Sam Loomis, who was Marion's boyfriend at the time of her death.
Lila vows to see Norman returned to the institution to pay for his crimes. Norman is taken to his old home, the Bates Motel and house behind it on the hill, by his Doctor Raymond (Robert Loggia). The doctor assures Norman everything will be alright. He is introduced to the new "manager" of the motel, Warren Toomey, a shady individual played by Dennis Franz.
The next day Norman reports to a prearranged job as cook and dishwasher at a diner down the road from the Bates Motel. His coworkers include a grouchy woman named Myrna, Mrs. Emma Spool, a kindly old woman, and Mary (Meg Tilly), a young waitress who is less than stellar at her job. Mary claims she has been thrown out of her boyfriend's place and needs a temporary place to stay. Norman offers to let her stay at the motel, but extends his offer to his home when he discovers the motel is now a sleazy hookup location run by the equally sleazy Mr. Toomey.
It seems that Norman's life is going along well until "Mother" appears to make her presence known: Norman gets mysterious notes from "Mother" both at the house and at the diner. Phone calls come to the house from someone claiming to be Norman's mother. Toomey picks a fight in public with Norman at the diner after Norman fires him. Later, a figure in a black dress murders Toomey as he packs to leave the motel. The murder goes unnoticed by anybody.
Norman begins to doubt his sanity when he hears voices in the house. He enters his mother's old bedroom to find it looks exactly as it did 22 years ago. A sound lures him into the attic, where he is locked in by some unseen person. While he is up there, another murder happens in the basement of the house: two teenagers sneak into the basement to smoke pot and make out, but suddenly the figure in the black dress appears and knifes the boy to death. The girl escapes and later returns with the sheriff. In the meantime, Mary finds Norman sleeping in the attic, but the door is unlocked. The sheriff rings the doorbell and questions Norman and Mary about the alleged murder. The sheriff investigates the fruit cellar, but finds it suspiciously neat and orderly. Norman is confused and wants to admit that something suspicious is going on, but Mary interjects and claims that she has cleaned up the basement herself. After the sheriff leaves, Norman is aghast. "Why did you lie?" he asks. Mary says, "I had to say something, they were going to arrest you!".
All the evidence suggests that Norman is back to his old ways, but Mary is insistent. "It couldn't have been you, you're not like that anymore." Later, Mary is startled when she discovers someone looking at her through a peephole in the bathroom wall. She calls out to Norman, but Norman is downstairs and out of reach, so it can't be him. Mary draws a gun and starts checking the house, but the gun saddens Norman. "That's because of me, isn't it?" he says. They are horrified to find a bloody rag that someone has stuffed down the toilet.
Mary says she's going down to check the motel, and one of the film's plot twists occurs. In the parlor of the motel is Lila Loomis — Mary's mother. She has been calling Norman saying she's his Mother, even going so far as to dress up as her and allowing him to see her in the window, before disappearing and adding to his frail mental state. Mary has been helping her, and was responsible for restoring Mother's room at the house and locking Norman in the attic, but Mary's growing feelings for Norman have been causing her to reconsider her actions. It also explains how she knows Norman could not have been responsible for the murder of any young boy in the basement of the house.
Meanwhile, Norman's doctor discovers Mary's identity and informs Norman exactly who has been living with him. He also orders Norma Bates' body to be exhumed, just to prove to Norman that she can't be the one haunting him. Mary admits to Norman that she has been part of Lila's ruse, but that Lila won't stop. "Why did you stop?" Norman asks. Just then the phone rings, and Norman angrily answers it right away, saying "Hello, Mrs. Loomis?" Suddenly Norman's tone changes and he says "I'm sorry...Mother." Mary gets angry and picks up an extension to confront Lila, but there's nobody on the line with Norman.
Mary goes to Lila's hotel and they have a big fight that's overheard by a hotel bartender. Lila, convinced that she's winning the "good" fight, hurries over to the house for one final push over the edge for Norman. She sneaks into the cellar and removes her "Mother" costume from under a loose stone in the floor. However, she is confronted by a familiar figure in a black dress and is killed with a butcher knife through the mouth. Meanwhile, Mary discovers that Mr. Toomey's car has been retrieved from the swamp, with Toomey's body in the trunk.
Mary returns to the house and tries to get Norman to escape with her. "They'll lock you up again!" she pleads. Norman tries to get Mary to confess to what she's been doing to him. The phone rings at the house and Norman answers and starts to speak to his "Mother". Once again, Mary listens in and discovers that nobody is on the line with Norman. Norman begins talking about Mary to the voice on the phone and says "Oh no, Mother. You can't make me...KILL her..." Terrified, Mary dresses up as Mother, complete with a large butcher knife, and goes to confront Norman in the outfit. Things rapidly spiral out of control. Norman refuses to acknowledge Mary standing in front of him in the costume, so Mary instead goes upstairs to the extension and tries to talk Norman into hanging up.
Losing sight of Norman, Mary is startled when someone grabs her from behind, and she plunges the butcher knife into...Doctor Raymond, who has sneaked into the house to expose Norman's tormentors. Stabbed, Raymond's body falls over the balcony and lands in the foyer. Mary runs downstairs and is confronted by a now deranged Norman, who swears to cover up for "Mother". "Norman, I am not your mother, I am Mary!" she frantically tells him. Norman backs Mary into the fruit cellar and falls onto a pile of coal, knocking it lose and revealing Lila's body. Mary, convinced that it was Norman who had been committing the murders, attacks him and is killed when the police enter and shoot her.
At the police station, the sheriff puts together a fairly inaccurate account of the what we know has happened. Both women were trying to get Norman to go crazy so he could be put away again, but they fell out. The bartender states that Mary told Lila to stay away or she would be sorry. This statement allows the police to view Lila Loomis's death as a murder done by Mary and that all the other murders were done by her as well. The sheriff laments "If you'd seen Mary Loomis at the end, you'd understand. She'd gone mad, even dressed up like Norman's mother. And right up until the end, she was saying Norman was the one who's crazy!"
The movie then goes on to its final twist. It is night and a woman walks up the steps to the Bates's home. Norman has boiled water and set a place for a meal when there is a knock; he answers the door to find Emma Spool, from the diner. Mrs. Spool sits at the table and Norman gives her a cup of poison tea. She tells him that she is his real mother and that Norma Bates was her sister and his aunt. "I was too young to have a baby, besides I had problems of my own," she tells him, alluding to the fact that she as well was institutionalized. "You had already been put away by the time I got out. So I decided to wait for you." She reveals that she's the one who has been killing anybody who would make trouble for her son. As she sips the poison tea, she begins to gag.
Norman suddenly kills her with a blow to the head with a shovel. As she lay dying Norman closes the curtains to the kitchen and then picks up her body and carries her upstairs to his room. The audience hears the familiar voice of Mother, warning Norman not to go messing with "filthy girls" again.
[edit] Cast
- Anthony Perkins....Norman Bates
- Vera Miles....Lila Loomis
- Meg Tilly....Mary Loomis
- Robert Loggia....Dr. Bill Raymond
- Dennis Franz....Warren Toomey
- Hugh Gillin.... Sheriff John Hunt
- Claudia Bryar....Emma Spool
- Robert Alan Browne....Ralph Statler
- Ben Hartigan....Judge Hartigan
- Lee Garlington....Myrna
[edit] Trivia
- The film was a surprise box-office smash, second only to Return of the Jedi for the 1983 summer season.
- The town of Fairvale when Lila Loomis is tailed by Dr. Raymond was the same town as in Gremlins (1984) and Back to the Future (1985). It is located on the Universal Studios Backlot in California.
- The pseudonym that Meg Tilly uses in the film (Mary Samuels) is based on the same pseudonym that Janet Leigh signs in with at the Bates Motel on her fateful night in the original Psycho film. She used Marie Samuels.
- The reflection of young Norman Bates in the doorknob when he flashes back to his mothers' poisoning is Oz Perkins, Anthony Perkins' son.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Psycho II at the Internet Movie Database
- Psycho II at The Psycho Movies website
- See a complete set of 8 American Lobby Cards from Psycho II
| Psycho series | |
|---|---|
| Robert Bloch's novels | Psycho • Psycho II • Psycho House |
| Films | Psycho • Psycho II • Psycho III • Psycho IV: The Beginning • Psycho (1998 remake) |
| Other | Bates Motel • Robert Bloch's Psychos • Norman Bates |
