Hello Halloween friends, Slick Dungeon here! Did you know there are sequels to Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece Psycho? Yep, that’s right, the story of Norman Bates continues decades later than the events of the original film. And, not only that but Anthony Perkins himself is back as Norman along with Vera Miles as Lila Loomis.

Whether or not this film ever needed to be made is highly debatable but since it’s a thing, I figured I would watch it and give my thoughts here. There will be spoilers in the review below but I won’t give as strong a spoiler warning as I did for Psycho. In all reality, you don’t need to watch this film but if you are curious about the fate of Norman Bates and Lila Crane (who apparently marries Sam from the first film at some point to become Lila Loomis) you should watch the movie first and then come back here to read the review. There’s a lot going on here so let’s get into it. Spoilers follow.

It’s Based on a Book Right?

Wrong. The first film, Psycho was, in fact, based on the book Psycho by Robert Bloch, the second film did not adapt Bloch’s novel Psycho II. That book was a scathing take down of Hollywood society and apparently Hollywood society didn’t want to, you know, put that up on a screen for everyone to see. Instead, they hired Tom Holland to write a screenplay which ultimately is nothing like the book. Still, this screenplay convinced Anthony Perkins to return to the series. Guys, we almost had Christopher Walken as Norman Bates. Christopher Walken! I like him as an actor but he is not Norman Bates.

Anyway, to even try to attempt a sequel, whether based on a book or not, seems like a huge gamble to me. After all, you can’t outdo Alfred Hitchcock so why even try? But try they did.

This film is in full color, except for the parts that flash back to the original film. And while there is a lot wrong with the movie, there is still some stuff here that is worth watching.

Wasn’t Norman Bates Locked Up?

Yes. But, he was put away in an institution, the very thing he railed against in the first film. The movie starts off with the audacity to show us the shower scene from the first film as if we had all somehow forgotten it. But the very next scene in the film has Norman in a court room. He’s dismissed on his own recognizance as a psychiatrist named Dr. Raymond (Robert Loggia) declares Norman returned to sanity. This is over the protests of one Lila Loomis. Lila is the sister of Marion Crane, the woman killed in the famous shower scene. And we know from the last name Loomis that Sam, Marion’s boyfriend, must have married Lila between films. Lila does have good reason to want Norman to remain put away and she does see him as a threat to society. But, we’ll get more into her deal later.

It’s been 22 years since Norman killed his last victim and presumably he has spent the rest of this time working on himself and trying to understand that he is not his mother. Dr. Raymond seems to be a firm believer that someone restored to sanity should have just as much opportunity as anyone else in society. Lila is more concerned with Norman’s victims. Dr. Raymond also points out Norman was found not guilty by reason of insanity so he has every right to live like a normal person. We can argue about how likely this is to happen in the real world but for the sake of the movie we can go along with the premise.

One thing to note here, which I believe is a mistake but might not be, is the number of victims ascribed to Norman in the courtroom. If we do the math of the last film, Norman killed his mother, her lover, two tourists, Marion, and the private investigator Arbogast. That totals six people. But in the courtroom scene Lila asks what about Norman’s seven victims. Either they miscounted, or Norman killed someone at the institution, or they found yet another body in the swamp. This seventh victim is not explained in this film so we have to leave it as is but I seriously think this was an unintentional mistake by the filmmakers.

Along with this release, Norman is expected to work at a local diner where he has been given a job. In addition, he’s able to have control of the Bates Motel once again, although, it is currently being run by the medical board in Norman’s interest. Legally speaking Norman is still full owner though, so he can hire and fire staff there as he wishes.

Dr. Raymond isn’t too keen on Norman moving back to the old place considering its potential for triggering Norman into a setback is huge.

Norman Makes a Friend

At the diner where Norman works, he covers for a coworker named Mary. She’s a bit frazzled and breaks a dish. Norman says it was his fault. Mary later tells Norman she’s recently had a fight with her boyfriend and has nowhere to stay. Norman owns a hotel, so being a nice, normal, guy he offers to let her stay there free of charge.

But when Norman gets to the hotel and sees the state it is in, he’s pretty pissed. The current hotel manager, Warren Toomey, has allowed the place to become a party hotel where guests rent by the hour, drugs and sex are commonplace, and it’s everything Norman (and his dead mother) would hate. Bates fires the guy and tells him to leave the next day.

The next day at the diner, Norman gets a note on the order wheel from his dead mother. He knows this must be some practical joke. And guess who one of the patrons was? Yep, Toomey, drunk and as unpleasant as can be. Naturally, Norman suspects this guy of being the one to leave the note. Norman’s definitely tempted by the sharp cutlery around the place but he does not do anything to Toomey.

The bodies start dropping again

The next time we see Toomey, he’s packing up his crap to leave the Bates Motel. But then a person dressed in black, wielding a knife stabs Toomey to death.

Mary and Norman get to know each other a bit better. Norman is still pretty damn creepy as he’s drilled a hole in the wall to the bathroom where he can observe Mary undressing, just like he does in the first film. We get a shower scene here that’s fairly uninspired, shows a lot more than we saw in the first film in the way of nudity, and ends without anyone getting killed. Still, really creepy that Norman is watching like that.

To make matters worse, Norman keeps getting notes around the house from his mother, and he’s even received a phone call or two from someone who is claiming to be his mother. Mary seems to be getting a bit nervous at this but she doesn’t leave.

One night, Norman looks in his mother’s old bedroom to find it restored to exactly how it was in the first movie. A sound in the attic draws his attention and he goes to investigate but someone locks him in there.

Meanwhile, a pair of teenagers are messing around in the fruit cellar where Norman’s mother’s body was famously kept. And, yep, one of them is killed. We can probably assume it wasn’t Norman considering he was locked up in the attic but we’ve had unexpected twists in this series before so who knows?

The other teenager escapes and she tells the sheriff. Mary finds Norman in the attic and lets him out but she says the door was unlocked the whole time. Norman tries to show Mary that someone messed with his mother’s old room but when he opens the door, it looks like it did in the start of this film, with all the old stuff covered up and put away. Either Norman is hallucinating or someone is pulling off a really elaborate stunt.

The sheriff shows up to question Norman, considering there has been a report of a murder. Mary covers for Norman and gives him an alibi saying they were walking in the fields at the time. Norman knows she’s lying for him but obviously if he tells the sheriff that he’ll implicate himself.

The First Twist

While the original Psycho has an incredible twist in it, this made things a lot more difficult for a sequel. First off, the audience is likely expecting something to be a twist. Reveal it too early, and it’s pointless. Make it not as consequential, and you’re going to be told you are poorly imitating the original. Don’t have any twist and then it’s boring. So, what does this film do? Basically it flips the protagonist and antagonist. In the first movie, the antagonist was definitely Norman Bates. But here, we’ve spent some time building up some sympathy for him. We’re meant to believe he’s at least trying to change, or has changed. Norman had an illness, and that kind of illness has been cured here so we want to see him succeed. But then again, this is a horror movie so we want to see him fail.

The first of the big reveals of this movie was a bit surprising but fairly logical. It turns out Mary is actually Mary Loomis. She’s Lila and Sam’s daughter. Lila and Mary have been setting Norman up for failure. They have been leaving the notes and making the phone calls. Mary even dressed up in Norman’s mother’s clothes at least once, to give Norman the impression she was in the window. And it was Lila and Mary who set up the room, locked Norman in the attic, and restored the room once again.

Why are they doing all this? Lila’s convinced Norman will never change, and if she can set him off again, he’ll be locked up once more. Of course, she doesn’t seem to care that this will mean someone is likely to die.

However, Mary has had second thoughts here. She’s spent enough time with Norman to think maybe he has changed. And also, that it would be unfair of them to continue torturing him in this way. Mary tells her mother she’s not going to keep up the ruse.

Also, Mary knows someone else must be in the house because someone killed the teenager, yet the fruit cellar remained free of evidence. Lila asks Mary to just go along one more time but she refuses.

Dr. Raymond puts some pieces together and figures out that Mary is Lila’s daughter and the two are in cahoots. He tells Norman but, of course, Norman doesn’t want to believe his friend would betray him. He’s also sure he’s been hearing from his, “real” mother. He believes he was adopted.

Norman eventually confronts Mary who admits she was in on the scheme to put him back in the institution but tells him she’s done with all that. And she warns him her mother is not done so when he gets phone calls they must be from her.

More bodies drop

Lila Loomis retrieves the “mother” costume from Norman’s fruit cellar but as she is doing so, she’s killed by a female figure.

The police dredge the swamp and come up with Toomey’s car which will directly pin the blame on Norman. Mary tells Norman about the situation and encourages him to run but Norman knows he’d just get caught.

A call comes in and Norman picks up the phone. He has an eerily strange conversation about killing Mary, while Mary is listening. Mary picks up the other phone to listen in and no one is on the line with Norman. If the goal was to drive Norman back to insanity, it seems they were successful.

In a desperate attempt to gain control of the situation, Mary goes and gets the “mother” costume and tells Norman he’s not talking to his mother. Norman doesn’t seem to buy in to whatever Mary is saying so she runs up the stairs. There, Dr. Raymond grabs Mary. But, she’s startled and has a knife. She accidentally stabs the doctor who tumbles down the stairs and dies.

Now Norman is looking at what he thinks is his mother, standing over a dead body, holding a bloody knife. If he had any shred of sanity left, well, that’s all gone now. Norman tries to clean up the scene and put Mary in the fruit cellar. There, Mary stumbles over the body of her mother. She assumes Norman has killed her and so she tries to kill Norman with the knife she still has. But before she can finish the job, the police show up and shoot Mary.

The police have evidence of Mary and Lila arguing about how they are setting Norman up and they come to the conclusion that Mary was the killer. Norman is seen as the victim here, being framed by a family out for revenge, for a past misdeed. They obviously don’t have the whole picture and at this point, it’s not entirely clear to the audience who has done all the killing.

There’s another Twist

So, if you can’t outdo an original twist, and flipping protagonist and antagonist only goes so far, what more can you do? Throw in another twist of course!

As the audience we’re not sure if Norman actually killed anyone in this film. He probably couldn’t have killed the teenager since he was locked in an attic. But he definitely could have been the one to kill Toomey or Lila Loomis.

Turns out what we all thought was a complete delusion on Norman’s part was based in reality. A waitress from the diner, one Mrs. Spool, shows up at Norman’s house after he is released by the police. She tells him she is his real mother. Her sister was who Norman thought of as his mother. And Mrs. Spool had been in an institution herself. She’s fairly vague about why but we can infer it was violent and bloody and probably similar to what happened with Norman.

While the two are there, Norman offers her some tea which she gladly accepts. Mrs. Spool also tells Norman she did all the killing. She was just looking out for her son.

Welp, that’s certainly enough to set Norman off. He gives Mrs. Spool the poison tea, whacks her on the head with a shovel and kills her. Norman hauls that body up the stairs to the ol’ dead mother resting room, and boom, he’s back to the whole split personality bit. The movie leaves us there.

In Conclusion

There are some people who utterly hate this movie. And, of course, there are a few who absolutely love it. Ultimately, it’s not an essential film, or even an essential horror film, but it’s fine that it’s there. You can go your whole life and never watch it and you won’t suffer for it. But if you are a bit curious about Norman’s whole trajectory, it’s worth a watch. Just don’t expect it to be as brilliant as the first film. But then again, most films aren’t as brilliant as Psycho.

Horrifically yours,

Slick Dungeon