Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990)

Trailer: 

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s This About: An old psycho named Norm reminisces about being a young psycho, also named Norm.

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

• Who is Norman Bates, and what is he a psycho for?

• If I recall correctly, Psycho III left off with Norman killing Jeff Fahey then killing Meg Tilley and his aunt was his mother but wasn’t and maybe I’m mixing them up.

• Directed by Mick Garris, so maybe this won’t be so terrible? Or this was his first picture straight out of high school.

• I’ve never understood CCH Pounder’s name, and I don’t care to.

• So this is a podcast but on the airwaves of a show about matricide, specifically by boys. It’s weird.
  This doctor wrote a book called “The Mother Killers: Boys Who Killed Their Mothers” which is the most redundant book title ever, next to Selina Meyer’s “A Woman First: First Woman.”

• There’s another mother killer on the show, but he doesn’t seem all that interesting.

• Is that John Landis in the booth? I don’t think he’s qualified to be a producer on this show, he’s only killed a grown man and two children.

• I’m surprised Norman called in, doesn’t seem like that show would be his cup of tea.

• Wow, Norman’s new house is way nicer than his old house.

• Young Norman is played by Henry Thomas and I hope E.T. plays his mother.

• I’ve never watched the show Bates Motel but I imagine it’s nothing like this.

• I guess this flashback is like the late ’40s/early ‘50s? If so, this girl is dressed like quite the trollop for those days. Maybe Mother was right.

• Oh look, bare boobs. I honestly wasn’t expecting that because it seems like this movie was made for TV. (edit: It was! Showtime, but still.)

• You know, Henry Thomas is probably just as good an actor or better than Anthony Perkins.

• Why is this girl so desperate to bang this weirdo?

• Mother tells Norman to kill the girl. She just does not care for whores one bit.

• Wouldn’t the girl smell Mother’s rotting corpse like right away?

• So the girl finds a bathrobe goes to the room in which Norman has already told her his mother was sleeping and sneaks up to the bed like she’s surprising him in the bed. Maybe she was too dumb to live.

• Wait, Norman is married? Wasn’t he very famous from all the murdering?

• Norman’s father was stung to death by bees? That’s hysterical.

• Olivia Hussey: still got it.

• She tickled Norman at the funeral and slapped him when he laughed. Maybe she’s the psycho here?

• Norman describes his mother’s hair as “hundreds of light years long.” Ok, I guess Norman isn’t into scientific units of measurement. Also, it seems like a typical length.

• Norman says, “Some days little boys can be giants.” What are you talking about?

• Mother was terrified of thunder and lightning like dumb puppy, so she yells for Norman to comfort her in the bed. First he has to take his wet clothes off. Second, he gets a boner. Well, so much for subtlety.

• So he runs to his room and finds his catalog of women’s undergarments, which are just drawings. Man, it must have been so hard to masturbate in the old days.

• Why is Norman’s wedding ring on his right hand? Wait, he’s wearing two wedding bands? What a psycho.

• Ironic that Mother hates whores and is being played by a Hussey.

• Ok this is full on softcore incest porn.

• Great, another boner.

• So to punish him, she dresses him up like a girl and locks him in a closet. I don’t see what the problem is.

• How long is this radio show?

• There’s a scene transition between a boiling pot of corn and Norman beating the dust out of a rug. That made no sense.

• Mother tells Norman she should’ve killed him in the womb. She’s right, that would’ve prevented a lot of deaths.

• The doctor wants Norman found and arrested, but CCH wants to listen and help him. What a dipshit.

• Oh his wife is a psychologist at the nuthouse where Norman stayed. What a dipshit.

• Mother brings home a gentleman caller and Norman spies on him in the shower. Hot stuff!

• Whoa, Olivia Hussey’s boobs. Unexpected. And still going strong all these years after Romeo and Juliet.

• So Mother just met this dude Chet last night and they’re going to get married? What a stud!

• Does he have a glass eye? What a stud!

• For some reason Chet boxes Norman in the front yard and punches the shit out of him.

• Norman said he has his mother’s seed in him. What?

• Norman is making out with an older woman and she says he has a tongue “like an elephant’s memory.” What? His tongue never forgets?

• So Norman chokes her from behind with a rope and screams in Mother’s voice, “Drive, whore!” Then they arrive at the old pond location. Did she drive there while being choked?

• He puts her in the trunk and pushes the car in the pond. Wouldn’t the car he pushes in the pond in the original hit that car?

• Considering the way she looked in Psycho Norman did a pretty shitty taxidermy job on Mother.

• Norman is going to kill his wife because she let herself get pregnant. Aren’t they both 137 years old?

• Oh nice, she didn’t tell him she went off the pill. Maybe she’s the psycho.

• If Norman didn’t want his psycho genes passed down, why didn’t they just adopt?

• It’s nice that the Bates’s kept a bottle of strychnine handy in the kitchen cabinet just for such an occasion as when Mother bones Chet too loudly.

• That whole poisoning killing of Chet and Mother was a bit of a letdown, if I’m being honest.

• Oh, she’s still alive. That’s what Chet gets for gulping that tea down.

• Oh, Chet lives just long enough to knock Norman to the ground one more time. I guess they just wanted a jump scare there?

• So one of the nurses who works with Norman’s wife tuned into that radio show, but didn’t tell her that Norman is planning to kill her? What a dipshit.

• Norman has his wife meet her at the old house, which isn’t weird. Does she not remember that he killed a lot of people there? And I thought he moved kind of far away?

• Norman goes in the closet and gets a hidden butcher knife. Why was it hidden? Why couldn’t he have brought a different knife? He’s only killed with a butcher knife a couple of times, so it’s not all that special. He can’t just strangle her? And it’s in pristine condition.

• So his wife almost makes it out the front door, but the wind I guess slams it shut, but she makes no attempt to open it. So she goes down to the basement. Great call. What a dipshit.

• She talks Norman down, and he’s not going to kill her now. Yeah cool this is just something she should let go.

• So he burns the house down, but runs into Mother and the others he killed along the way. It’s only the people from this movie though, it should also include Piper Laurie and Jeff Fahey.

• I only know a little about arson, but I don’t think you have to light one fire then go to different rooms and pour gasoline and light other fires. I think just setting the living room on fire would’ve been good. The rest would follow.

• The house doesn’t even burn down that much. Strong wood. Like when Norman was in bed with his mother.

Final Thoughts: And thus completes my heroic journey through the Psycho sequels (Psyquels?), and I’m shocked that they were all actually pretty good. And moreso, IV was probably the best of the bunch. I think the general consensus for years were that they were trash because how could you possibly churn out sequels to a beloved masterwork 20+ years later? And they are trash, but the good kind, like a half-eaten yogurt just sitting on the top. Ok, maybe not Psycho III so much, but it was still ok. This one doesn’t have a whole lot to do with the other two sequels, and is basically a continuation from the original, which was probably what they intended. So while it doesn’t hold a candle to the original, for a ’90s made-for-Showtime slasher it’s worth your precious time, Mother.

Score: 6.5 Tongues Like an Elephant’s Memory (out of 10)