Psycho III

From the uplifting to the fairly ridiculous, “Psycho III,” released in 1986, was the directorial debut of Anthony Perkins, as there was no one around who had more first-hand experience with the series or could possibly be called a greater authority on the character of Norman Bates. That being said, Perkins’s creative personality was looked after in teamwork with genius songwriter Stephen Sondheim that leaned towards the ironic, and by Perkins’ own late-life pass he needed the technical skill a “Psycho” movie needs as much as anything else.

The movie makes an outstanding first impression by introducing a different type of rebellion into the heat, with a woman screaming “There is no God!” over a black screen. Bill Chambers stated in his review, “What follows is a sequence that could be said to reference another Hitchcock, Vertigo, but is more immediately allusive of Black Narcissus as a nun falls to her death in a bell tower while trying to talk Sister Maureen (Diana Scarwid) out of killing herself.” Maureen runs the convent and gets a ride with Duane, played by Jeff Fahey, an opportunistic wanderer who will soon take over Dennis Franz’s old position as the Bates Motel’s desk clerk. Norman, meanwhile, is busy comforting his mother: The events of “Psycho II” are still fresh (Chambers states, “the continuity is impeccable despite the three-year hiatus, I should add, although this is clearly 1986 to the other film's 1983”), and the town is talking about the disappearance of Mrs. Spool, stimulating the curiosity of a Lois Lane named Tracy Venable, played by Roberta Maxwell (terrible), who, like Lila Crane before her, believes that Norman is a lost cause. Chambers says, “Unlike the late Lila Crane, her vendetta isn't personal, just tabloid muckraking.”

“Psycho III” is mostly the story of Norman’s problems getting it up. Disguising in the Mrs. Bates drag, he goes to murder Marion Crane’s mirror image Maureen where she bathes, but she already slit her wrist. Chambers mentions, “In a hammy contrivance, she hallucinates him standing there with a butcher knife as the Virgin Mary clutching a silver crucifix, and he spares her.” Later, Maureen offers herself to him (a coming-together of outsiders that works better on paper), and his whole body goes loose beneath her in one of those visual metaphors that’s not really a metaphor. Out of frustration, Norman, who’s already murdered Duane’s cute girlfriend Red, played by Juliette Cummins, out of jealousy, murders another girl named Patsy, played by Katt Shea, on the john, but Chambers mentions, “but the reckless disposal of her body in an icebox speaks to an unsatisfied ritualism in the act.”  When Duane discovers Mrs. Spool’s stuffed corpse and threatens Norman with blackmail, Norman proves powerless of seeing his death through to completion – Duane walks back to life while Norman’s driving his body to its swampy destination. In her following plays for Norman, destined Maureen is blocked from Norman by not just “Mother” but also the self-righteous Tracy Venable, who tortures Norman at the climax by out-nagging his subconscious. Chambers goes on to say, “And Norman concludes the trilogy by sneaking a memento mori into the police car with him: Mrs. Spool's hand. While it's easy to read the grin on his face as he privileges us with a glimpse of this souvenir as sinister, I'm inclined to see the hand as a visual representation of a kind of castration having taken place through the law's intervention, bringing Norman a profound contentment. "I'm free... I'm finally free," he says.”

The problem with “Psycho III” is that it’s at once unimportant and unusually ugly mouth taste about the success, if not the existence, of “Psycho II,” as its main goal is to reset the status quo by restoring Norman/Mother to the role of killer and undoing the Mrs. Spool stuff via beats of deep back-story. Chambers admits, “Indeed, in light of Psycho II's sophisticated anthropology and emotional heft, I might uncharitably call any return to the territory of Psycho a devolution.” That Perkins parodies everything - including his own performance, a hesitating self-parody attractively free of pathos – lends the picture a measure of energy, but it also implicitly endorses the idea that “Psycho II” needed a corrective by providing the comic relief on a triple bill. Chambers goes on to say, “Nods to Hitch abound, like the Frenzy-esque treatment of Patsy's corpse and the echoes of Marion Crane's tea-and-sandwiches with Norman in Duane's job interview, yet I'm willing to bet the moment labouring hardest to channel Hitchcock's expressionism is an angle looking up from under the floor that he never would have done on account of his disdain for the "impossible camera," planting the movie's tongue that much farther in its cheek. If anything, the way Perkins bathes the motel rooms in garish pools of colour suggests a greater artistic sympathy with the likes of Mario Bava--and that's not necessarily a bad thing, but alas, these tonal detours lessen the impact of the trilogy coming full circle.”

However you look at it, “Psycho III” is a mess. It’s like Perkins thought that the magic Hitchcock created back in the 1960 original movie, he could somehow recreate. I’m sorry Mr. Perkins, but this attempt failed. Why is it that people actually like this movie? There is absolutely nothing in this movie that I find in anyway likable. Well, besides Anthony Perkins reprising the role of Norman Bates, but that’s about it. Don’t see this one, but if you do, it’s on you.

If you could actually fathom the thought of it, filmmakers tried one more attempt at this series. How is it, you ask? Check in tomorrow in the continuation of “Psycho-a-thon.”