Psycho IV. Mick Garris. 1990. ⚁

Oh, the soundtrack is by Graeme Revell? I’ve got a couple of SPK albums… they’re… uhm… well, I don’t listen to them a lot.

Still, perhaps that means that the soundtrack isn’t the same boring stuff as usual.

[half an hour passes]

Well, the soundtracks seems… OK? Not very special: The normal dramatic violins all over the place. (And violas.)

The structure of this movie is pretty interesting: It’s based around a radio talk show, and Norman Bates calls in and spills all the beans to CCH Pounder, the host of the show. So we get the backstory told in flashbacks, and we’re wondering how this is going to tie up to the present (because it really has to): Is the psycho CCH Pounder has in the studio going to turn violent and kill the psychiatric experts? Is Norman just killing time until he’s gonna stab somebody? What?

So it’s a good idea, I think, but… it’s pretty boring. The guy who plays Young Norman is OK, but the things that happen to him are pretty tedious.

Spoiler: It turns out to be the mother’s fault.

[forty-five minutes pass]

So this movie is just an excuse for watching Young Norman inexpertly kill a bunch of women at length? I’d worry about Mick Garris after watching this.

[the end]

OK, this is really a ⚀ movie, but it’s a modest made-for-video movie, and you have to give these things some leeway. For what it is, it’s not as bad as it could be. CCH Pounder is good, and so is Perkins, and … it’s not a good movie by a long shot, but it certainly could have been worse.

Psycho III. Anthony Perkins. 1986. ⚁

Oh, Perkins got to direct this one?

I think I probably saw this on VHS back in the 80s, but I’m not sure. Psycho II was surprisingly fun, so … perhaps this one will be, too? But I’m not holding my breath.

[half an hour passes]

Oh, this isn’t very good. (I know! You’re shocked, too!) It’s been thirty minutes of manoeuvring people into position so that the movie can start, really, and I’m guessing the er meat of the movie is going to be Perkins running around stabbing these people?

I checked whether Perkins had directed anything else, and indeed:

It’s Psycho meets The Naked Gun. That sounds just awesome.

[twenty minutes pass]

I think Perkins is aiming for a kinda … frothy, absurd horror thing: Like Little Shop Of Horrors, perhaps? A kinda 60s horror comedy kind of thing? And there are scenes that work on that level, but the pacing is just way off, and the funny bits aren’t funny enough.

[the end]

There’s some scenes here that a fun to watch, but … this is not a good movie.

Psycho II. Richard Franklin. 1983. ⚃

The odd thing about a sequel to Psycho is that it took over two decades for it to happen. Hitchcock died in 1980, though, so perhaps they couldn’t get any traction for it before that?

I did see this one on VHS back in the 80s, and I remember it being… a better than average 80s horror movie? The reason I’m watching it now isn’t because of any great nostalgia towards it or anything, but I somehow bought a Psycho box set (with all the five? six? movies).

And since there’s nothing horrifying going on in the world, I might as well start watching now. (I skipped the first one, because I re-watched that some months back.)

[forty minutes pass]

Hey, this isn’t bad. I mean… it’s no Psycho, but few movies are. This is pretty tense and well made. I mean, they managed to make a scene where Perkins I mean Norman no I mean Perkins was chopping some iceberg lettuce exciting. That’s good editing.

[forty minutes pass]

Uhm… it’s OK, I guess? But some of these scenes are getting pretty tedious. They had a good thing going, but then there was a couple of boring scenes, and then I lost interest. That’s the problem with movies of this ilk (what species of deer is that, anyway?) that it doesn’t take much to spike the interest.

With just a bit of editing… just dropping, say, ten minutes… this would have been a really fun little movie: It’s got a pretty interesting plot, as a slasher movie goes, performances that are just the right side of scenery chewing, and doesn’t annoy in any way.

[the end]

That was a good twist at the end there, I think? I mean, the many twists.