Hello Halloween pals! It’s Slick Dungeon here, back again to review yet another of the movies in the Psycho franchise. In the fourth movie, which was actually made for television, we take a look forward and back as this is both a sequel and a prequel and, kinda confusing. Still, it’s a thing that exists and it’s Halloween-ish so I might as well give you my take on it. Be forewarned there are spoilers for this movie but then again, if you never see it, and you still read this review, I don’t think your life will be much altered one way or the other.

I Just Called To Say…

The central premise of this movie is a bit odd. A radio call in show is having a conversation about a rather controversial subject. Boys who kill their mothers. They have on a psychologist and a guest who killed his mother. It’s got a fairly Jerry Springer quality to it but whatever. The show is, I guess, standard for the time as people just call in and make comments. But this show gets interesting when perhaps the most famous mother killer of all time dials in. Yep, good ol’ Norman Bates has something to say.

There’s a lot that happens in the movie here but I’ll sum up this part pretty briefly. Norman has just found out that his wife is pregnant. Yep! He has a wife! When did that happen? Unclear. When did Norman get out of the institution? Also, unclear. This makes the timeline here pretty murky. To add to the complication, while he is on the phone, Norman tells us about his past and how he started killing in the first place. In addition to all that, he’s planning to kill his wife who had promised him she would never allow herself to become pregnant.

The best scenes of the movie are definitely the ones with Anthony Perkins as he still plays Norman Bates to absolute creepy perfection. The only real tension in the movie though, is if Norman will or will not kill his wife since we know the rest of the murders already happened.

How did Norman Get that Way?

The other half of the movie has Henry Thomas playing a young Norman with Olvia Hussey playing his deranged mother, Norma. Thomas does an adequate job with it but it’s not a stand out performance. Hussey is enjoyable but way too over the top.

We see lots of uncomfortable incidents between the two of them, which ultimately lead Norman to become the homicidal person he was destined to be. Norma makes Norman dress in girls clothes, is weirdly intimate with him far after she should be, and is utterly unhinged and violent a lot of the time.

The movie basically gets the story across, but I’m not sure demystifying Norman in this film helps all that much. Yes, we get some background but he seemed a bit creepier when we weren’t sure why he did what he does.

To get a much better origin story of Norman Bates, I highly recommend the show Bates Motel which had the room to lay the groundwork for the psychosis of Norman Bates. That show is able to subtly balance the awfulness of Norma and the nice guy who wouldn’t hurt a fly but still is capable of violence routine of Norman. It’s five seasons long though, so it’s a bit of a commitment. Still, it’s a far superior prequel than this one.

What Does Norman Do?

The last bit of the movie is Norman getting his wife to come over to his mother’s house where he plans to kill her. Dude, I don’t care if you are married to the guy or not, do not go over to Norman’s mother’s house. It will end badly.

Anyway, Norman is about to kill his wife but he sees his own reflection in the knife and hesitates. She convinces him that he is capable of love, he will love his child, and he should not kill anyone anymore. Norman does stop himself this time. Then he burns down the house but sort of traps himself in it. He’s confronted with the ghosts of his past (but only from this movie not from any of the others) but does make it out of the house. The next day at the burned down house he declares himself free.

Ah, but not so fast. He didn’t burn down the fruit cellar and we see the doors bang and we hear Norma’s voice yelling at Norman just like usual. We fade to the credits to hear a baby crying. We’re meant to assume this is Norman’s kid.

The Troubles with this Movie

While there is some good here, this movie needs a bit of work. Are there worse slasher sequels? Yes, by far there are. But, the fact we can’t really place the timeline here is problematic. If it’s after the events of Psycho III why does Norman never reference those events? If it’s during the time Norman was freed but still killing people, why was his wife never brought up in the other movies? It’s as if this movie wants to skip from Psyho to this movie. This is not the best technique if you ask me (I’m looking at you, Halloween franchise). And if that is the case, well, fine but at least tell us that going in.

The prequel part is not quite long enough to truly immerse us and the sequel part is mostly a phone conversation. And oddly, the phone conversation is much more interesting than the prequel portion. If they could have just decided either prequel or sequel here it would have worked better. For my money, I would have preferred sequel with Anthony Perkins as Norman because I can watch that dude performing that character all day long.

In Conclusion

In the end, this is a skippable film that didn’t need to be made. But if you want to find out a little more about Norman it’s worth a watch. Still, in my opinion, you are better off watching Bates Motel instead. Those performances are a lot more subtle and do a good job establishing a young Norman. But even with that show, there is still only one true Norman Bates and that is Anthony Perkins. Since this is the last film with him in it as the character of Norman Bates, you may want to check it out just to see that.

We’ve only got one more Psycho film to go and it’s a remake. Come back next time to see my thoughts on that.

Horrifically yours,

Slick Dungeon