Psycho II
| Psycho II | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Richard Franklin |
| Produced by | Executive producer: Bernard Schwartz Producer: Hilton A. Green |
| Written by | Tom Holland |
| Starring | Anthony Perkins Vera Miles Robert Loggia Meg Tilly |
| Music by | Jerry Goldsmith |
| Cinematography | Dean Cundey |
| Editing by | Andrew London |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) | June 3, 1983 |
| Running time | 113 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | US$5,000,000 (est.) |
| Gross revenue | $32,000,000 (USA) |
| Preceded by | Psycho |
| Followed by | Psycho III |
Psycho II is the 1983 sequel to Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 classic Psycho. It stars Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, Robert Loggia and Meg Tilly. The film was directed by Richard Franklin and written by Tom Holland. The original music score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith.
It is unrelated to the 1982 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch, which he wrote as a sequel to his original novel Psycho.
The film did well financially (leading to two further sequels) and moderately well critically. Several critics[1] noted that the film worked hard to sustain the suspenseful atmosphere of the original. Inevitably, it was seen lacking the unique Hitchcock touch, with the plot weakened by the contrivance of leaving the door open for further sequels.
Psycho II was filmed at Universal Studios on Stage 24 from June 30, 1982 to August 1982.
Contents |
Tagline
- It's 22 years later, and Norman Bates is coming home.
Plot summary
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The plot summary in this article or section is too long or detailed compared to the rest of the article. Please edit the article to focus on discussing the work rather than merely reiterating the plot. (October 2008) |
Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) is released from the mental institution after being judged restored to sanity. Lila Loomis (Vera Miles), sister of Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) and widow of Sam Loomis (John Gavin), vehemently protests with a petition that she has been circulating with signatures of 743 people, including the relatives of the six people Norman murdered prior to his incarceration.
Lila vows to see Norman returned to the institution to pay for his crimes. Norman is taken to his old home, the Bates Motel and the mansion behind it on the hill, by Dr. Bill Raymond (Robert Loggia). The doctor assures Norman everything will be fine. He is introduced to the motel's new manager, a shady and sleazy individual named Warren Toomey (Dennis Franz).
The following day, Norman reports to a prearranged job as the cook's assistant and dishwasher at a diner not far from the motel. His coworkers include a grouchy waitress named Myrna (Lee Garlington), Mrs. Emma Spool, a kindly old woman, and Mary Samuels (Meg Tilly), a young waitress who is less than stellar at her job. Mary claims she has been thrown out of her boyfriend's place and needs a place to stay. Norman offers to let her stay at the motel, but extends his offer to his home when he discovers that Mr. Toomey has turned his beloved establisment into an adult motel.
Norman's adjustment back into society appears to be going along well until "Mother" begins to make her presence known. Norman gets mysterious notes from "Mother" both at the house and the diner. Phone calls come to the house from someone claiming to be Norman's mother. Toomey picks a fight with Norman at the diner after Norman fires him. Later, a figure dressed in a black murders Toomey as he is packing to leave the motel.
Norman starts to doubt his sanity when he begins hearing voices in the house. He enters his mother's bedroom to find it looks exactly as it did 22 years ago. A sound lures him into the attic, where he gets locked in. While locked in the attic, another murder occurs in the basement of the house. Thinking the house is still abandoned a teenage couple sneaks in through the basement window. While making out they soon realize there is another presence in the cellar. Suddenly the figure in black appears and stabs the boy to death. The girl escapes and later returns with the sheriff. In the meantime, Mary finds Norman sleeping in the attic. The door was unlocked.
The sheriff rings the doorbell and questions Norman and Mary about the alleged murder. The sheriff investigates the fruit cellar, finding it suspiciously neat and orderly. Norman is confused and wants to admit that something suspicious is going on, but Mary interjects and claims that she has cleaned up the basement herself. After the sheriff leaves, Norman is aghast. "Why did you do that? Lie to the sheriff?" he asks. Mary says, "I had to. They were going to arrest you!" Norman collapses into chair with his head in his hands and cries out, "It's starting again!"
All the evidence suggests that Norman is back to his old ways, but Mary is insistent. "It couldn't have been you. You're not like that anymore." Later, Mary is startled when she discovers someone looking at her through a peephole in the bathroom wall. She calls out to Norman. Norman is downstairs and out of reach. Mary draws a gun and starts checking the house. The presence of the gun both surprises and saddens Norman. "That's because of me, isn't it?" he says. The two are horrified to find a bloody rag that has been stuffed down the toilet. Norman appears confused. He thinks he may have committed the murder himself.
Mary says she's going down to check the motel, and one of the film's plot twists occurs. In the parlor of the motel, Mary is surprised by Lila Loomis--who, it turns out, is also her mother. She has been calling Norman claiming to be his mother, even going so far as to dress up as her and allowing him to see her in the window. Mary, who has been helping her, was responsible for restoring Mother's room at the house and locking Norman in the attic. Mary's growing feelings for Norman, however, have been preying on her conscience leaving her to reconsider her actions. It also explains how she knows Norman could not have been responsible for the murder of the young boy in the fruit cellar.
Meanwhile, Norman's doctor discovers Mary's identity and informs Norman exactly who has been living with him. He also orders Norma Bates' body to be exhumed, just to prove to Norman that she can't be the one haunting him. Mary admits to Norman that she has been part of Lila's ruse, but that Lila won't stop. "Why did you stop?" Norman asks. Just then the phone rings, and Norman angrily answers it right away, saying "Hello, Mrs. Loomis. How are you today?" Norman's tone suddenly changes as he says "I'm sorry...Mother. I didn't mean to insult you." Mary gets angry and picks up an extension to confront Lila, but it appears there is nobody on the line with Norman.
Mary goes to Lila's hotel and they have an argument which is overheard by the hotel bartender. Lila, convinced that she is closer than ever to getting Norman recommitted, hurries over to his house. She sneaks into the cellar and removes her "Mother" costume from under a loose stone in the floor. About to don the trademark grey haired wig, she is confronted by the figure in black. She screams in terror and is stabbed through the mouth with a butcher knife--the blade coming out the back of her neck. Meanwhile, Mary discovers that Mr. Toomey's car has been retrieved from the swamp, with Toomey's body in the trunk.
Mary returns to the house and tries to get Norman to escape with her. "They'll lock you up again!" she pleads. Norman tries to get Mary to confess what she has been doing to him. The phone rings at the house and Norman answers and starts to speak to his "mother." Once again, Mary listens in and discovers that nobody is on the line with Norman. Norman begins talking about Mary to the voice on the phone and says "No. Mary's still here. I like her. Oh, no, Mother. I won't do that. You can't make me...kill her. Do I have to, Mother?" Terrified, Mary runs downstairs into the cellar, and quickly dresses up as Mother, complete with a large butcher knife, to confront Norman. Things rapidly spiral out of control. Norman refuses to acknowledge Mary standing in front of him in the costume, so Mary instead runs upstairs to the extension and tries to talk Norman into hanging up.
Losing sight of Norman, Mary is startled when someone grabs her from behind, and she plunges the butcher knife into...Dr. Raymond, who has snuck into the house via the back stairwell to expose Norman's tormentors. Raymond falls over the balcony, hits the banister on the staircase below, which pushes the knife in further and lands flat on his back in the foyer dead. Stunned, Mary runs downstairs and is confronted by a now deranged Norman, who promises to cover up for "Mother." "How many times have you killed, Mother... and how many times have I covered up for you?" he asks. She frantically tells him, "Norman, I am not your mother. I am Mary!" Totally panicking with guilt, she tries to keep him away with the knife, repeatedly stabbing him in the hands and chest. He even tries to grab the knife blade as she pulls it away in his grip. Aghast at the cuts to his hands, he still insists he does not want to hurt her. Norman backs Mary into the fruit cellar to hide her and in losing blood and breath, slips on a pile of coal, which avalanches falling away from the wall revealing Lila's body, which was hidden behind it. Mary, convinced that it was Norman who had been committing the murders, attacks him and is killed when the police enter and shoot her.
At the police station, the sheriff puts together an inaccurate account of all that has occurred. The bartender at Lila's hotel says he overheard Mary tell Lila to stay away or she would "be sorry." This causes the sheriff to believe Lila Loomis's murder was committed by Mary as well as all prior murders. The sheriff summarizes his conclusion, "If you'd seen Mary Loomis at the end, you'd understand. She'd gone mad, even dressed up like Norman's mother. And right up until the end, she was saying Norman was the one who's crazy!"
The film then moves to its final twist. That evening, a woman walks up the steps to the Bates' mansion. Bandaged from his injuries, Norman has boiled water and set a place for a meal when he hears a knock. He answers the door to find Emma Spool, the kindly woman from the diner. Mrs. Spool sits at the table and Norman gives her a cup of tea from the old tea caddy. She tells him that she is his real mother and that "The woman you believed was your mother was my sister." "I couldn't handle a brand new baby. I had some problems of my own and the state put me away for a while," she says, alluding to the fact that she, too, was once institutionalized. "By the time I had gotten out, you had already had your troubles. So I decided to wait for you." She reveals that she is, in fact, the one who committed the murders attributed to Lila and Mary by the sheriff. As she sips the tea, the audience is lead on to believe that it is poisoned but she reacts calmly, and it is revealed that Norman decided not to kill her...with poison.
"Are you sure you don't want a sandwich?" Norman asks her before unexpectedly killing her with a sudden blow to the head with a shovel. As she lies dying, Norman begins whistling, closes the kitchen blinds, and picks up her body to carry her upstairs to "Mother's" room. The audience hears the familiar voice of Mother, warning Norman not to go messing with "filthy girls" again. The film ends with Norman reopening the Bates Motel and standing in front of the house, waiting as "Mother" watches from the upstairs window.
Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Anthony Perkins | Norman Bates |
| Vera Miles | Lila Loomis |
| Meg Tilly | Mary Loomis |
| Robert Loggia | Dr. Bill Raymond |
| Dennis Franz | Warren Toomey |
| Hugh Gillin | Sheriff John Hunt |
| Claudia Bryar | Mrs. Emma Spool |
| Robert Alan Browne | Ralph Statler |
| Lee Garlington | Myrna |
| Janet Leigh | Marion Crane (flashback) |
Production Notes
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Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (April 2008) |
- Anthony Perkins originally turned down the offer to reprise the role of Norman Bates, but when the studio began tossing out other names, such as Christopher Walken, Perkins quickly accepted.
- The film was shot at Universal Studios in Universal City, California.
- The film begins with the original shower sequence from the original film.
- The town of Fairvale when Lila Loomis is tailed by Dr. Raymond is actually Courthouse Square, which is located on the Universal Studios backlot in California.
- The pseudonym that Meg Tilly uses in the film (Mary Samuels) is based on the pseudonym that Janet Leigh signs in with at the Bates Motel on her fateful night in the original film, Marie Samuels.
- The reflection of young Norman Bates in the doorknob when he flashes back to his mother's poisoning is Oz Perkins, Anthony Perkins' son.
- Alfred Hitchcock's image makes an appearance in the first shot of the unused room. Just before the lights come on, the famous Hitchcock silhouette appears as a shadow on the armoire. Hitchcock was known for making cameo appearances in his films, and though he died years before production began, was included as a tribute.
- Jamie Lee Curtis (daughter of the original film's star Janet Leigh) was originally considered for the role of Mary Loomis.
- Two of the actresses who starred in the movie, Vera Miles and on-screen daughter Meg Tilly, both retired permanently from acting in 1995.
- There was reportedly tension on set between co-stars Meg Tilly and Anthony Perkins after Perkins allegedly overheard Tilly questioning why Perkins was getting so much press attention for the film. This suggests that Tilly was oblivious to the global success of the original film.
- Mary Loomis is a reference to Sam Loomis, Marion's lover from the original film. Loomis' name was also used as Dr. Sam Loomis in John Carpenter's Halloween (and its sequels; two of which were also distributed by Universal). This was a reference to star Jamie Lee Curtis being the daughter of Janet Leigh, who went on to appear in Halloween: H20.
DVD release
Psycho II was released on DVD in Region 1 as part of a triple feature package with Psycho III and Psycho IV on August 14, 2007 by Universal Studios Home Entertainment.
See also
- Psycho (1960 film), directed by Alfred Hitchcock
- Psycho (1998 film), a remake directed by Gus Van Sant
- Psycho III, a 1986 sequel to the first and second films
- Psycho IV: The Beginning, a 1990 prequel to the first film
- Bates Motel, 1987 television movie
References
External links
- Psycho II at the Internet Movie Database
- Psycho II at Allmovie
- Paycho II at Rotten Tomatoes
- See a complete set of 8 American Lobby Cards from Psycho II
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