Psycho II (1983)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s This About: Norman Bates is BACK! All the burning questions we all had after the original Psycho ended unsatisfactorily will now be answered! Will Norman kill again, or is there another psycho, too?

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• Psycho TWO! than I have Psycho ONE…
• My apologies to anyone who has never heard of the original Psycho, you’re going to be completely lost.
• I guess slasher villains were becoming a big thing so they decided to try it with Norman Bates?
• His mother is now gone from the house, so now Norman Bates is master.
• What the fuck is this old black and white garbage at the beginning. Give me some COLOR.
• Remember that Psycho shot-for-shot remake with Vince Vaughn? It’s ok, no one does.
• I’m kind of surprised they were actually able to obtain the footage of the shower scene from the original Psycho for this schlock. And it’s weird like hey here’s a master filmmaker’s most iconic scene, now watch this horrible nonsense.
• Written by Tom Holland! No, not that one. The Spider-Man one.
• Directed by Richard Franklin, who also directed another movie right after this one about a young psycho, Cloak & Dagger.
• Norman was legally declared a psycho, so they release him from jail, because since he’s a psycho, his murdering wasn’t so bad. Yay, American justice system! And I’m writing this right after the news broke that Ruth Bader Ginsburg died. We are all as screwed as Norman’s mother.
• So they just take him back to the murder house? This doesn’t make a lot of sense even by ‘80s standards. I guess there’s supposed to be some kind of message here? I never pick up on those things because I’m shallow and handsome.
• And Norman finds a note from Mother and hears her voice. Still seems fairly psycho to me.
• I’m almost positive this diner set is the same from Blood Diner and now I’m even more sad.
• Norman gets a job as a “cook’s helper” whatever that means.
• Meg Tilly! The lesser Tilly sister. She actually kind of looks like a young Norman. Which makes it all the more Tilly-lating.
  
• Anthony Perkins was great in Psycho but I don’t remember seeing him in much else but heard he was a fine classically trained actor, but so far he’s pretty mediocre in this.
• Dennis Franz is the manager of the motel! Psycho BLUE!
• Franz has turned the Bates Motel into a den for crackheads and whores. I mean, who would stay there otherwise after all the murders?
• So Meg Tilly’s boyfriend kicked her out so Norman invites her to stay at the motel but he has second thoughts because of all the drugs so he tells her to wait at the house and she does. Has she never heard of this psycho?
• It’s so weird all of Meg Tilly’s dialogue is dubbed and it’s more distracting than Peter Criss’s voice in KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park.

• Ok, let me try to break this scene down for you. Norman makes Meg Tilly a sandwich, and she insists it be cut like a 3-year-old, but Norman doesn’t want to use the butcher knife because, you know, but she grabs it out of the drawer and puts it in his hand anyway because she just had to have that god damn sandwich cut and apparently she couldn’t do it herself or find a smaller knife to cut a fucking bologna sandwich with.
• Norman tells Meg Tilly that he poisoned his mother as a boy and she gives just as much of a shit as I do about royal weddings.
• Meg Tilly looks exactly like Pat Benetar in this. Why didn’t they just cast Pat Benetar? Hell IS for Norman and children, after all.
• Jerry Goldsmith does the score for this, bologna sandwiched in between Poltergeist and Gremlins, and this sounds kind of like a combo of the two. What a run for Jerry. Although not quite up to the Bernard Herrmann original, it’s still very aurally enjoyable.
  
• People keep giving Norman butcher knives. Don’t they know he’s a psycho?
• Everyone but Meg Tilly is a flaming jerkoff in this, so obviously Norman will kill them all with his many butcher knives gifted to him by many people.
• Another note from mother on the diner spindle that says, “DON’T LET THAT LITTLE WHORE IN MY HOUSE AGAIN!” She has a point.

• There are so many butcher knives laying around, it’s like an SNL skit or something.
• This seems like it will be obviously that someone is just fucking with Norman’s head here. Probably Janet Leigh’s sister who was in the beginning when Norman was set free. And Meg Tilly is her daughter (granddaughter?) in on it with her.
• Ohhh Meg Tilly is taking a shower in Norman’s house. Who could have seen this one coming? Doesn’t she know he’s a psycho?
• Hey look, bare tits. I honestly wasn’t expecting that. Although surely a body double for Meg Tilly. Jennifer would have just gone for it.
• Dennis Franz gets stabbed in his fake face by some kind of psycho.
  
• Is it too late for David Fincher to direct this?
• Norman sees his “mother” in the window even though it’s clearly not. Remember all those clear shots we got of Mother in the window in the first movie?
• All of these notes Mother is leaving have to do with Meg Tilly being a slut, but Norman was 12 when he killed her, was she calling his various 12-year-old girlfriends sluts back then?
• Two teens break into Norman’s basement to “make it” even though there’s a seedy motel 30 feet away.
• Now this girl is a definite slut, where’s Mother when you need her?
• “Hey baby, you wanna go bang in an old musty basement in a stranger’s house? You turned on yet?”
• “Mother” is coming at this boy with a butcher knife and he doesn’t really seem to give a damn. That’s what being stoned and horny does to you. At least the girl escapes to go bang in some other filthy basement.
• “It’s starting again,” Norman says. I wish something would start in this movie.
• SO Lila Loomis is Meg Tilly’s mom and Marion Crane was her aunt. I am so shocked at the moment I don’t know what to do with myself.
• So yeah they’re doing stuff together to drive Norman psycho so he’ll be re-committed, even though apparently they didn’t kill the horny stoner, even though I bet Lila did.
• The toilet overflows with blood and Norman thinks it’s from him cleaning up after the horny stoner was murdered and he flushed it down the toilet to get rid of it? Killing people is one thing but trying to flush a towel down the toilet is really psycho. It was probably just Meg Tilly flushing a used tampon.

• This is dragging more than a man in his mother’s best murdering dress.
• Robert Loggia is trying to convince Norman that Meg Tilly and her mother are screwing with him but he’s having trouble getting through. Has he considered the fact that they could be screwing with Norman and also, in addition to that, he’s a psycho?
• There seems to be a third party screwing with Norman. Or Norman is doing it and he’s psycho.
• So Loggia has Mother’s body exhumed to prove to Norman she’s dead? Seems a little extreme, and for what, exactly?
• Meg Tilly is about on the same acting level as John Murray.
• Why is this movie this long to reach the obvious conclusion it’s been building to for 90 minutes?
• Now Norman is fucking with them?? This is no good.
• I get the concept of this movie and it’s actually pretty good, it’s just that the execution is as bad as when I had a paper due my freshman year of college after I discovered beer.
• So Mrs. Bates wasn’t Norman’s real mother? What the fudge is fudging on here?
• Lila has Norman’s mother’s clothes under a stone in the basement and she goes to put them on but gets stabbed in the mouth by someone else who is dressed like Mother. How many mothers are in this?

• By the way, I get the butcher knife was Norman’s preferred weapon in the original but I think by 1983 Michael Meyers had claimed full ownership.
• How is there no blood on the floor of the basement after she got stabbed in the mouth?
• If you took a shot every time they said “mother” in this movie you’d have a great fucking time and be the King of Party Island.
• Why doesn’t Meg Tilly just split at this point?
• Meg Tilly accidentally kills Robert Loggia, then Norman goes psycho while Meg Tilly is dressed as Mother and the police come shoot her. She stabbed Norman 47 times but he’s good.
• The cops just let Norman go back home. Shouldn’t he be in the hospital recovering from his multiple stab wounds?
• Ok so the old lady from the diner is really Norman’s mother and Mother’s sister? Why is this happening.
• Oh she killed the other people. This is really stupid. But Norman poisons her then hits her in the head with a shovel and carries her corpse upstairs and talks in her voice. Why? I’m not sure. I guess because he’s a psycho.

Was it Entertaining:

Any Good Gore: A few decent face and body and groin stabbings, plus the bloody toilet incident that really wasn’t any worse than your average Applebee’s restroom.

Any Nudity: Just some quick Meg Tilly stunt boobs and at one point Mother’s dress shrunk in the wash and it’s so short you can see the bottom of Norman’s testicles.

Best Quote: “That’s just legal hocus pocus.” – Lila Loomis using terms that don’t really mean what she thinks they mean.

Best Scene: When Meg Tilly looks through the peephole and gets an eyeful of another eye. Not a bad little tension-filled scare.

Worst Scene: Probably the part where two teens sneak into the filthy basement to have intimate relations. Why there, in this creepy house that’s clearly currently occupied, instead of giving Dennis Franz five bucks and a peck on his pecker, baffles me and only seems to exist so they could have some kind of Friday the 13th-type slasher scene.

Final Thoughts: This movie is one of the most unnecessary sequels of all time and… not that bad? Sure it sags in a lot of places like a dead old woman’s bosom but overall it’s sort of enjoyable and decently done. Anthony Perkins does some weird acting but he’s creepy, and Meg Tilly isn’t getting nominated for any Oscars… oh, wait… but she pulls off a good, sympathetic character in this. Although the part where she got mowed down by police gunfire was neat I kind of wish it was Norman and she then became a psycho, too.

Score: 6 Bloody Toilets (out of 10)