Movie Review: Psycho III (1986, Universal/Scream Factory)

...ya' know?? Horror film franchises are very much like that old game played around the campfire, on a crisp and chilly night...you know, the one where one person makes up a scary story, introducing characters and situations, and forging a few lines of imaginatively wrought creeps and scares. Then, the story is passed onto the next person, who weaves further development and intrigue into the initiated proceedings, taking the characters and situations into...depending upon the person...equally imaginative directions. And of course, the story is carried forth by the next person...and the next person...and so on...until the last person in the circle, who hopefully takes everything that's been literarily place onto the table, and ties everything together, into a reasonably gripping finale. Again, given the level of creativity and imagination amongst the participants of this little game, the story may well have it's share of embraceable high points, as well as it's lackluster low points. We, the devoted purveyors of horror cinema, have engaged many a chapter in numerous movie franchises...as far back as the Universal monster classics of yesteryear, up to and including the contemporary horrors of today (...the Freddy's, the Jason's, the Leatherface's, and so on)...which utilize this very method of storytelling, with similar high and low points, depending upon the storytellers involved. And without exception, considering that ONE certain horror movie franchise, genuinely contributed in the inception of those aforementioned, as well as laid the seed, in which a certain splattery sub-genre in the horror film realm was eventually conceived...well, my fine folks, shall we look no further than ol' Norman Bates himself, in examining such hand-over-hand storytelling evolution...hmmmm?? Come on...let's go around the corner, just over there...where it's dark.....

...without going into further exhaustive praise over the film (...clearly, all possible literary angles and facets have been explored, by now), 1960's "Psycho" was quite daring, monumental and (eventually) quite influential, for it's time...without a doubt, without peers. Famed director Alfred Hitchcock, with the able-handed scribe of screenwriter Joseph Stephano, took equally famed author Robert Bloch's graphic and controversial novel, and wove a simultaneously horrific and tragic tale about a mentally disturbed young man, under the confining and manipulative throes of his overly-dominant mother...despite the fact that this woman passed away violently and mysteriously, some years previous. This classic tale culminated with Norman Bate's eventual submission into homicidally driven insanity, his capture and his criminal confinement...and rest, as they say, was motion picture history (...for an interesting and jovial look at the inception, development and controversy, regarding the making of "Psycho", this viewer highly recommends the recent and brilliant 2012 biopic, "Hitchcock", starring Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren). It would be a full 23 years later before the storyline involving Norman Bates would be carried forth into new venues, with "Psycho II"...a new direction, and in the deftly skilled hands of director Richard Franklin (...whose previous film, 1978's "Patrick" would go on to become a respected cult classic, onto itself) and writer Tom Holland (...1988's "Child's Play", 1985's "Fright Night", etc.), the return of Norman Bates proved to be a chillingly welcome homecoming, in an engaging, sharp-as-a-knife tension filled tale, involving Norman's release, and his attempt to rehabilitate himself and assume a normal life, once again...despite underlinging, hateful, vengeful and manipulative forces, who would see Norman forever re-interred into the confines of a mental institution...forces that would quite literally drive Norman once again over the edge...and beyond. A well received entry in the franchise, and a standout film, amidst what was becoming a tired and generic trend in the horror film genre, namely the 'slasher' film...hardly the level of Hitchcock, but deliciously respectable and chilling, nonetheless...it ended with ol' Norman...now quite 'mad as a hatter', as one character in the film, points out...setting up shop, once again...that is, until...

...in the maddening and agonizing throes of broken faith, a young nun, Maureen, in attempting to end her life by throwing herself from the mission's bell tower, inadvertently causes one of her superiors to fall, instead. Wrought with guilt and driven from the mission, Maureen tiringly treks the desert offroads, in search of peace and personal solace. Picked up on the highway by a grungy, fame-seeking drifter named Duke, she is later forcibly set adrift, herself...in a blackened night's pouring rain...when she refuses the advances of her road-bound 'benefactor'...

...Norman Bates, in assuming some 'normalcy' in his solitary life, living in his old homestead on the hill, and operating the motel, just beneath the home and just off the main highway, continues to debate with...and get cruelly lambasted by his deceased 'mother', whom he has once again kept carefully preserved in her lavishly antiqued bedroom, atop the main stairs, in the house. He hires Duke...who has waywardly driven up to the motel...as his assistant, in running the hotel. Leaving Duke to attend to the motel while he's away, Norman takes a trip to the local diner, where he encounters an angst and insistent woman journalist, who has stumbled into town, in investigating the mysterious disappearance of one of the town's residents; distracted by the shock of Maureen, who wanders into the diner, quite weathered and carrying a suitcase with the initials 'M.C.' on it (...'Marion Crane'??), Norman rushes out of the diner...

...later, Maureen leaves the diner, and in wandering further down the road, she comes upon the Bates Motel; seeing her quite fearful and taken aback at seeing him at the hotel, Duke is quick to apologize for his behavior from before, and offers Maureen one of the guest rooms; when Norman returns to the motel, he becomes suspiciously agitated at the girl being given one of the rooms...in fact, the very room where 'mother' once viciously dispatched Marion Crane. That evening, 'mother' creeps into Maureen's room...intent upon killing her; instead, 'she' finds Maureen in a filled and bloodied bathtub...her wrists deeply cut and bleeding. With her life's blood ebbing from her body, Maureen looks up and sees...not 'mother', but what appears to be the Virgin Mary, beckoning Maureen with a crucifix...

...at the hospital, Norman nervously hovers concerningly over the dazed Maureen, attempting to comfort her, and offering her a free-of-charge room at the hotel, until she finds her footing. Although the town's sheriff is convinced that Norman is trying to get on with his life, and his association with Maureen is purely sympathetic and therapeutic for both of them, the investigative reporter is less than convinced, and through a chance meeting with Duke, who has expressed his own suspicions about Norman, the reporter attempts to persuade whoever she can, that Norman may not be as 'normal' as he pretends to be, or as normal as everyone seems convinced of him to be. When more people begin to mysteriously disappear, especially after the celebrative and drunken mayhem, occurring after a local homecoming football game, the grave suspicions being rampantly spread about Norman begin to take their toll, and all of the juxtapositioned characters in this tension-filled terror-play, come colliding together, in an awry of shocking developments, culminating with a showdown between Norman and his 'mother'. Will Norman succeed in purging his dominating mother from his life...or will he finally lose his mind, once and for all, now and forever...

 

...anyone ever see a movie for the first time, coming out with a dislike of the film, and over the years, reciprocating and coming to genuinely enjoy the film, more so than before?? Indeed, "Psycho III" didn't exactly throw most folks over, given a very poor box office reception, when it was released back in '86, but in speaking to folks, and in reading reviews of the film, over the years, "Psycho III" seems to have proven to be one of those cinematic guilty pleasures, which...much like this viewer...has since 'grown' on people. And much like that campfire game, previously mentioned, "Psycho III" assuredly takes it's developing premise and it's continued characters into rather interesting, clever, compelling and engaging realms, not considered before. Amazingly enough, the directorial reigns of this production were deftly welded by none other than Anthony Perkins, himself...in a way, not surprising, since Mr. Perkins has resignedly upheld the complex essence of Norman Bate's character, throughout most of his career, since his powerhouse performance in the original "Psycho"; indeed, one might be genuinely hard-pressed to coin an Anthony Perkins performance, since "Psycho", which doesn't have some measure of the Norman Bates character instilled into it. Welding an intriguingly complex and dark humored screenplay, written by Charles Edward Pogue (...who, in the same year, garnished critical appreciation for his written work on the same year's remake of "The Fly"), director Anthony Perkins keenly and lovingly embraces a measure of Hitchcockian muse, without outright copycatting him (...though, clever and amusing nods to the original film, can't be helped, and well...let's faceit, bring a sinister smile to the face), in engaging this production, though definitely upping the anty, as far as the killings and graphic violence...to be expected, considering the audience being pitched to, at the time (...though, despite the level of violence, this entry in the continued franchise, DOES outshine most of the 'slasher/splatter' films, rallyed, reveled and embraced in that genre)...

...of course, there's no denying the delectably skewed and unnerving rendering of Anthony Perkins' simultaneously slightly stutterous, nervous and easy-to-please Norman Bates...that disarming and innocent smile, welding a mere baggie of candy, in the onset...again, not surprising, considering Anthony's quite literally 'walked' in Norman's shoes, for quite a long time, having been unfairly, albeit resignedly stereotyped in the role. However, in taking the tragic and homicidal character of Norman into a much more complex and engaging arena, it is the well-rounded supporting cast, which shares in the macabre richness of the film. Actress Diana Scarwid (...previous, of the acclaimed 1981 bio-drama, "Mommy Dearest") gives the character of Maureen an almost uncomfortable measure of naivete, and yet, considering the sheltered vocation, which her character had originally planned to assume, Maureen also makes claim to a certain spiritual perception and instinct...as misdirected, naive and unsuspecting as it might be, in the course of this film's events. Actor Jeff Fahey, in the guise of grungy-looking good ol' boy, Duke, gives us a multi-faceted character, who might just be as mentally unstable as Norman, himself...an extrovert, to Norman's introvert; Duke's 'fame and fortune' seeking persona, clearly hides an ugly and quite creepy visage of both greed and perversity, which may just threaten Norman's twisted and sheltered sense of 'normalcy'. Rounding out this venerable and eclectic cast, there's Roberta Maxwell...proving effectively 'snoopy', as the reporter, bent upon proving that Norman still ain't all there; Hugh Gillin, in contrast and conflict to Maxwell's role, is the stern, no-nonsense Sheriff in these proceedings...and in being Norman's most vocally supportive and sympathetic supporter, despite the strange goings-on that develop, and yet, underliningly, keeps a back-minded earmark on knowing very well what Norman is capable of. And then, of course, there's 'mother'...and damned if she ain't up to HER ol' tricks, again...

...if there was a better time to re-discover and re-examine (...or even, discover, for the first time) the quite underappeciated "Psycho III", it would be now...and the fine folks over at Shout/Scream Factory does this horror/thriller classic right, with an exceptionally crisp print, visually and audibly (...though, some of the darker scenes in the film, still leave much to be desired, as far as being visually discernable). Nonetheless, despite the age of the film, it delectably succeeds in invoking some great chills...and is most assuredly deserved of a second look...Get 'em, Norman...er, I mean, Mother!!...