My Favorite Bates.

I know how ridiculous it is that this one is my favorite, but I am mostly ridiculous myself, so it works. Psycho 3, 1986, directed by none other than Anthony Perkins (Norman)! I saw this as soon as it came out on video and I was old enough to start noticing things like music, lighting, and continuity in film. This being a sequel and everything, continuity was kind of big, although the conflicting tales of what really happened to Norman's father wouldn't matter until Psycho 4 came out a few years later. What I remembered most was seeing the previews for this on television and probably begging my parents to take me to the theater, which they did not do. There are three specific things from the trailer that I remember: The nun falling down the bell tower chamber as the bell rings, Maureen (Diana Scarwid, Isabel from Hydra Island on LOST!) hugging the pillar of The Bates House and calling up to the window, and Norman standing over her body at the foot of the stairs, yelling, "Mother!!" Man, I wanted to see this!

So given the fact that this is probably the most entertaining horror film from my list (not the best, not the scariest, the most entertaining) I'm going to break it all down old school and give it a proper play-by-play. We might be here for a while. . .

I love quiet girls with no self-esteem . . .

The film opens with a Virgin Mary statue and a blond nun-in-training shouting, "There is no God!" Her name is Maureen Coyle and she accidentally causes the death of another nun who tries to stop her from jumping off the bell tower. The sisters send her packing, and who does she meet out in the middle of the California Desert? Jeff Fahey. ("My name's Dwayne Duke, friends just call me Duke.") in a beat up old clunker. He gives her a ride, he tries to get in her pants, and she nearly jumps out of his moving vehicle to get away from him. Too bad. I found him as always, extremely hot. Pretty trashy, but hot.

Norman's story begins with him at home, poisoning birds outside the house. He's quite a dedicated and talented taxidermist, as you'll remember from the first film; he's apparently so into his work he doesn't mind using the same utensil to both spoon sawdust into the birds and smear peanut butter on his Ritz crackers. Nice. On his work table lies a newspaper clipping with Emma Spool's picture, she's missing, you see. Just as Norman starts to hallucinate that it's an old, dead arm he's sewing up instead of the bird, the bag that he used to transport it starts to shake and scoot across the table on its own. When he finds a live bird inside it that apparently survived the poison, he calmly walks over to it, catches it in his hand, and sets it free outside. Are we to believe that he's harmless, "as harmless as one of these birds?" Ha.

Duke pulls up in the clunker and ends up taking a job from Norman. At the diner where Norman, Emma Spool, and Mary Loomis all worked together, the Sheriff and the owner meet Tracy Venable, a writer doing a piece on the insanity plea who happens to be very interested in interviewing Norman. Just as Norman shows up to take in some lunch (chicken fried steak and a glass of milk), Maureen steps down out of rig outside. Norman is immediately disturbed by her resemblance to Marion Crane, from the first film, and thrown for an even bigger loop when he sees her suitcase initials, M.C. There are black and white flashbacks from the first film, Maureen drops her suitcase and falls ala Marion with her cheek actually touching the floor. This is extremely cheesy and there's funny record-skipping chipmunk songs going on during all of this, so it's cheesy and funny. Norman flees the interview and runs home. When he relays this information to "Mother," (yes, Mother is back and very vocal) she says, "You killed her. The slut deserved it. She's dead. And the dead don't come back." (!!!)

She seems more Catholic than Marion. . .

Maureen shows up at the motel; Duke apologizes for his forwardness and checks her in, Cabin One. Norman sees this, gets giddy, and stammers. Duke takes off for a night on the town; Norman stays for the night shift and sneaks into the motel parlor to spy on Maureen through the infamous hole in the wall. Returning with wig, dress, shoes, and knife in place, he busts into the bathroom to find that she's halfway completed the job Mother demanded of Norman--she cut her wrists with a razor. Music is chanty and actually scary.

Meanwhile, Duke tries his hand at romancing Miss Venable but she only wants him to spy on Norman. Soon enough he hooks up with an unnamed young lady and brings her back to his room at the motel. There are several things that are hilarious about this whole situation and what unfolds.

1. Girl can't get the ice bin open and Norman (back from visiting Maureen in the hospital) helps her. She invites him to join the party down in Duke's cabin. The thought of this chick, Duke, and Norman in a three-way is probably the most ridiculous thing, ever, but I'm sure stranger combinations have happened.

2. In the short amount of time Duke has been at the motel, he has managed to decorate the walls with outlandish sex collages from porn magazines, which the unnamed girl seems to much appreciate. Seriously!

3. After their tryst has ended, things don't go well. The girl mentions that Duke made their encounter seem cheap. He tells her, "It is, but it beats a vibrator." She replies, "At least a vibrator gets me off!" and gives him the finger. Duke overreacts and throws her out. She meets her end in a phone booth.

Later, Norman escorts Maureen back to recover in Cabin One, F.O.C., of course. It's homecoming and the Bates Motel is a regular beehive of activity. Once Maureen gets settled, Norman tells her she'd look swell in the pink dress later and then hurries out of the room, giddy and blushing. They go on a date and get nice and liquored up. When they return, the homecoming party is still going strong but Norman tells Duke he can leave. Duke has been staring up at the house though, in a lightning storm, and something in the bedroom window has caught his eye. "Whatever you say, Boss," he says, sly as a fox. Norman and Maureen share an awkward makeout moment, and before anything bigger can happen, Maureen apparently passes out and then wakes up alone. Norman has fought off any sexual urges that might bring harm to Maureen, but then takes it out on an innocent girl from the Homecoming party, on the toilet! My favorite part of this whole encounter is the obviously male foot in Mother's black shoe and stocking, stepping over the threshold.

Miss Venable returns after doing her own sleuth work on Norman, Emma Spool, and family history, and decides to take Maureen out of harm's way. Maureen first alibis Norman when the sheriff shows up looking for toilet girl, but then leaves with Miss Venable, breaking Norman's heart. Norman is a little distracted through all this however, because Mother has gone missing. When he goes back up to the house to look for her, he finds a note that says, "Norman: I'm in cabin twelve (Duke's cabin). Come see me. Mother."

My friend Nik told me once that one of her favorite moments in film was in American Psycho, when Bateman exaggeratedly brings his arm up to take a drag from his cigar, just moments after whacking up Paul Allen with the axe. She didn't have to explain why she liked it, to me anyway, I thought it was cool, too. Certain scenes, certain moments just, I don't know, resonate. One of my favorites is in this film, when Norman, knowing full well that Mother could not have just walked herself down to Duke's cabin on her own, walks past each of the cabins, one by one, all the way to twelve. The music is right on, it's minor and kind of suspicious, the camera first dollies backwards off to his right, and then comes up behind him the closer he gets. The look on his face is half smile, half la-la land; the lighting is hazy and just odd. I love it every time.

NORMAN! 

So he gets to the room, and finds Mother placed in front of the television (Woody Woodpecker, of all things) and Duke is sweaty and huffy, with blackmail on his mind. And in case you, the viewer, perhaps missed the previous sequel or hadn't been paying attention, Duke presents Mother's face in all its glory so as to prove beyond all shadow of a doubt that she is indeed dead, and has been all this time. I love all the scenes in Duke's room because they're so random and ridiculous; Duke actually kisses Mother's corpse on the cheek. Norman easily overtakes Duke shouting, "No one must know about Mother or what she has done!" After a bit of a surprise rumble in the makeshift-coffin automobile, Norman again triumphs. So long, Duke.

Um . . .

Now. What happens next is really the only part of the film that I find scary. Oh, but before we get to that, Maureen shows up, professes her undying love, and Norman accidently kills her by dropping her down the stairs. That's where the "Mother!" shout that I saw in the preview comes in. After that, Miss Venable shows up, first at the motel and then the house. Everything is dark, and she's going into dark rooms with the camera right up behind, I literally felt like I was right there with her. Once she gets to the house and finds Maureen laid out in a shrine of candles, we finally get confirmation of Norman in Mother's clothing; it's both funny and gross because he's leering at her, just standing right behind her silently with an ear-to-ear psycho grin! "Why can't you leave my poor son, my Norman alone?" (in Mother's voice). They chase around the house and up the stairs, another one of my favorite moments is Norman-Mother straightening a framed picture that Miss Venable upset as he stalks after her, not missing a beat. Miss Venable flees into Mother's bedroom and sees Emma Spool, sewed and stuffed; Norman struggles with her a bit but eventually decides to throw in the towel. Sawdust spills everywhere at the hand of Norman's knife;  Mother is no more. . .

The sheriff comes to take Norman away, the film ends with Norman in the back of the squad car, stroking the corpse's hand that he managed to hide in his jacket, grinning, always grinning. (shudder).

I love it all. Not just because of my boy Jeff Fahey or the fact that I probably have some sick nostalgia at the character Dwayne Duke being a dead on representative for pretty much every douche I ever dated in my life before I got married, not really for any specific reason, I just dig it. A lot. It makes me smile. And if Anthony Perkins was still alive I would probably be his number one Twitter and Facebook stalker.

Yes, Norman, You Are Becoming Confused Again: Psycho 2

In one of my writing magazines there was a recent article about how to have a successful blog. Be useful and entertaining, it said. I wondered if I was either of those things, probably entertaining on my best days but useful? What is the use of this blog when there are millions of others like it?

THEN I WATCHED PSYCHO 2.

And decided that I am useful, useful in that I will blather on forever about films that probably no one else cares about. If I can point out one or two things that will result in someone else's enjoyment of a ridiculous film, even if it's really only one person, ever, I'll be happy. And also I realized that I write this blog basically for myself and maybe my brother, and if there's a great beyond, my old man, so while being useful has its rewards, being nostalgic is infinitely more me.

Psycho 2, 1983, directed by Richard Franklin. IMDB says: After twenty-two years of psychiatric care, Norman Bates attempts to return to a life of solitude... but the specters of his crimes -- and his mother -- continue to haunt him


If you make the commitment to watch this, think of it as something completely different from the original, like a crazy Cousin Eddie, maybe, and appreciate the comedy. The script is not good, it's kind of atrocious, actually, but if you can forgive it these things, sit back and giggle a little, you'll probably have an okay time.


Things that make this a decent sequel: The characters are pretty well done; Lila Loomis (Lila Crane) from the original makes a return, played by the same actress, Vera Miles. She's quite bitchy. Mary (Meg Tilly), Doctor Raymond (Robert Loggia), and whoever that sheriff was were all stellar.


DENNIS FRANZ as replacement motel manager Warren Toomey. Gets his own paragraph, that's how much I liked him. Just trashy and gross, but well done. After Norman fires him and he comes to the diner and starts talking smack ("Last time I eat here!") and then shows up at the motel to pick up his things, shouting and kicking up dirt ("Hey, Psycho, I want you to know I'm movin' out!")? I thought he was a nice, sleazy, comic relief. Things don't end very well for him, however.


Good use of transitional items from Norman's past: His hand hovers over cabin one when Mary comes to the hotel, he opens the silverware drawer and a large butcher knife is laid right over the top, the special tea brew that he used on the old lady is still in the cupboard in a decorative tin, etc. These things are as obvious as a smack on the head with a shovel (ala Emma Spool) but I think they all work. Inserting black-and-white flashbacks together with the items would definitely have been pushing it, this is how they related random objects to the plot in The Ring and it sucked big time---they didn't do that here, thank God. Anthony Perkins's Norman is twitchy, stammering, and just sort of dingy most of the time, but I think it works as a mental patient's normal reaction to entering society after being in the clink for so long.


Norman plays the piano! The notes left about, signed, Mother! The glance he gives the butcher knife at the diner when Toomey berates him! "I'm starting to become confused again, aren't I, Mary?" Nice little random items. And the Bates house really never ceases to thrill me, I love how they still call it "the fruit cellar!" Why not just cellar, or basement?


Things that are kinda lame: Again, the script. Most of the dorky lines fall on Meg Tilly ("just because two people sleep under the same roof doesn't necessarily mean they've made love. . . ") 


Lila Loomis is really abrasive and reactionary, always stomping off and flying off the handle. Tone it down a little, Vera.


The ending is decidedly ridiculous. But you see it coming.


I probably saw this at way too early an age, like everything else on this list, but my most memorable viewing of this was with Charlie, my brother, and Erica, my best friend who lived across the lawn from us. We watched it on a summer night and then made poor Erica walk home ALONE in the dark (nice friends!). I didn't find out until later just how scared she had been, and for good reason. There are three scenes from this film that literally chill my bones: (honorable mention goes to faux-Mrs. Bates hovering in window).

1. The kid that gets offed in the fruit cellar. Two kids sneak into the house (to get high and do it) and someone dressed as Mother Bates surprises them. The sound of her clogs on the basement floor, the snappy way she looks over at them when she hears a noise (not to mention that disgusting, evil potato the girl picks up before they get busy) and of course the repeated plunges into the kid's back with the knife as seen outside the window---ugh. Why the hell would you sneak into someone's scary old house when there is a motel basically inches away? Yuck.


2. The Bloody Towel in the Toilet. This is memorable mostly because it just comes out of no where; Norman goes upstairs to wash his hands and all of a sudden, thick, dark blood comes bubbling out of the toilet and sink. When Mary comes up to find him this way, she tiptoes over to the toilet, plucks the towel out and then flings it into the sink, making a hilarious splat and then snarls, "Je-SUS!" This was another scene that Charlie rewound probably eighty times each time we watched it. So creepy but funny, too.


3. The Near Conclusion, Where Norman Smiles into the Phone. After he starts to go a bit looney again, Norman starts actually talking to a caller he believes to be his mother. Usually he answers the phone, hears who it is, SWITCHES HANDS, and starts telling her how happy he is to talk to her. The creepy smiling happens toward the end, and more than once, I believe. Maybe it's meant to be a tribute to the original conclusion, Norman's creepy smile in the police room, but it gives me goose bumps. Yuck.

So it's campy. Definitely eighties, and definitely something that would make Hitchcock roll over in his grave, but it's not all bad. I had to watch this on VHS (thanks, Nik) in broad daylight, but it was still a good time. There's not nearly as much comedy as Psycho 3, COMING UP NEXT, and regrettably there's no Jeff Fahey, but if you like scary movies, you could do a lot worse.

This is what is known as a HAIL MARY.

I am so tired I could die; it's 8:40 and all I want to do is crawl in my cozy bed and fall asleep dreaming of George Clooney, Brett Favre, Viggo Mortonson, Lucius Malfoy, etc., etc., but I AM COMMITTED TO MY OCTOBER LIST, by God, through loss of life and limb I will finish this. You'll have to forgive me if it seems a little rushed but October was a *smashing* month for my little Television Lady blog, so I'd be looking the proverbial gift horse in the mouth if I wasn't the last man standing at my own party. . . so you get it all, but you get it all at once. (thanks everyone who has read, enjoyed, commented: this has been great fun for me!)



1. The Birds, 1963, Alfred Hitchcock. This was my first viewing all the way through, and I had no intention of being rattled by it. But guess what? This film is severely disturbing and I was very bothered by it. Why, oh why, these birds? You never find out. I like that. In Terror in the Aisles, there's an interview with Hitchcock about suspense in film; he says something to the effect of, "you can't just blow your wad all at once, you have to make the audience wait and squirm a little and then, BAM!" This film was very much that way, you wait a hell of a long time for the BAM, but once it happens . . . (shudder).

Random questions:
1. Did anyone else get any lesbian overtones from The Schoolteacher? I thought it worked just fine, but when she said she had "dated" Mitch, it really threw me for a loop.
2. Can the birds smell them? I was screaming at everyone to go hide in a closet, completely enclosed.
3. Constant calling his mother "dear?" And the jealousy of all girls he brings home? Unresolved remnants from young Master Bates, perhaps?

2. Psycho, 1960, Alfred Hitchcock. First scary movie I ever saw (age six). My dad told me about it and I begged him to let me watch it when it aired on channel nine. He went out to his machine shop after dinner that evening and I hovered around the television, waiting for it to come on; once the music started I must have gotten some kind of clue as to what I was in for. . . I ran out to the steps and yelled for him to come in.

This whole film is tense. Marion steals the money, she lies to the cop, she dumps her car, she meets Norman. They have this really uncomfortable conversation (hello, A BOY'S BEST FRIEND IS HIS MOTHER) and well, you know the rest. I just clench and writhe every time. The most disturbing part of this film isn't the murder, it isn't the corpse in clothing, it isn't the superimposition of Mother Bates's face onto Norman's at the end, it's the way she just stomps out of that bathroom after she cuts up Marion. Just stalking right the hell out of there, like "well that little skank just got what was coming to her AND GET OUT OF MY WAY, I'm *STILL* PISSED ABOUT IT" stomp, stomp, stomp!

Once Matt, to get a rise out of me, dressed up in some ridiculous jumper I had in the back of my closet, grabbed the biggest knife he could find, and just stood silently in the doorway of our old apartment with his mouth frozen in this huge, disgusting grin, just waiting for me to turn my head over and see. . .

ugh. But you must admit, Norman Bates is one of the absolute best time-withstanding villains. I know most people will not agree to this, but I think his portrayals in the sequels are just as entertaining and disturbing. I'll be getting to that on its own, soon enough.

The rest?

Dracula by Bram Stoker: Wonderful. I loved it. I think the thing I loved best was that Winona Ryder was not anywhere near it.

Alfred Hitchcock, Tales of Terror. Hitch chose the tales, he didn't write them. But they were wonderful, I loved them all, mostly.

The Thomas Mann Reader. This was probably my favorite book this month, but as I was getting pressed for time and these tales were not really related to Halloween, Vampires, Psychopaths, or things of this nature, I had to shelve it after only a few stories to try to keep on task. They were amazing and made me cry, though, I will definitely return to this, probably in December.

It's Psycho Two and Three tonight. . . Matt is growing quite annoyed at all the Dexters we've been missing, but has been very sportsmanlike in allowing me full control of the television. Plus his leg is still in a cast and he can't really do anything about it anyway. At least it's horror and not Traveling Pants, right Larry?

A few old Goodies

Best played-down performance, ever. DeNiro is a bit of a dolt, but Stallone more than makes up for it. I highly recommend checking out Cop Land if you haven't already.




Henry Thomas (ELIOT!) is quite good as the young Norman Bates in Psycho 4, The Beginning. Now, none of you Hitchcock purists need to get all up in my face about this, I'm not saying it's cinematic quality, but it is definitely cheese quality. I, for one, LOVE horror movie sequels, well, classic ones anyway. I first saw this business when it came out on HBO, maybe in the year 1988? Janet Leigh introduced it; it was very exciting for my brother and me. We also **thoroughly** enjoyed the previous two sequels, so we were pretty easy sells. There was an element this time around, now that I'm a mother myself, of sheer DISGUST at how Mother Bates (although being very caricatured about it) treated him, and how their twisted relationship almost stirred something emotional in me, especially as the young Master Bates is propping his strychnine-poisoned mother into the rocking chair to finish out her last breaths. Reliving it with the corpse in the rocker was a little more comical than emotional, but you get the point. Ahhhh! The Bates house is on fire! The shot at the end full on looks like a bad painting, but hey. I still had a good time.

MY scariest moments in horror films

1. Norman's face and mother's superimposed at the end of Psycho.
2. That creepy hall moniter in Nightmare on Elm Street, "Hey Nancy, NO RUNNING IN THE HALLWAYS...."
3. Emma Spool all hunched over coming to kill the pot smoking kids in Psycho 2
4. That crazed doppelganger chasing after the dude at the end of The Twilight Zone episode "Mirror Image."
5. The infected-s running up all of a sudden to the darkened house in 28 Days Later when they see the candle inside.
6. Mrs. Voorhees grabbing Kevin Bacon-bits from under the bed in the first Friday the 13th.
7. Mrs. Voorhees' fricking MOUTH chanting the words "KILL HER MOMMY! GET HER! KILL HER! KILL HER!!"
8. Amy and Paul in the cabin toward the end of Friday the 13th pt. 2...."Something doesn't feel right....something's wrong....THERE'S SOMEONE IN THIS ROOM PAUL, THERE'S SOMEONE IN THIS GODDAMNED ROOM!"
9. Norman dressed up again at the end of Psycho 3 with creepy grin at Tracy Venable, "Why can't you leave my poor son, my Norman alone?"
10. Norman taking out the rotting arm of corpse to caress in the back of the squad car at end of Pyscho 3
11. Rocking chair at the end of Psycho 4
12. Kid standing in corner at end of Blair Witch Project (which I found to be the ONLY scary part of this movie)
13. The end of Saw.