Psycho II
God, this is bad, one of those pointless legacy sequels that promise to change things up, and then the final five minutes reset everything back to the start. It’s not as bad as Psycho, though.
It starts with a clip show from the shower scene from Psycho, one of those power moves, a statement that says “we have the rights to Psycho”.
Norman Bates has been in the loony by for more that 30 years, so they let him go now. He is completely free, his property and freedom restored right there. He gets back to his house and motel, but there’s some sleazeball running things there, renting rooms by the hour.
Bates is trying to re-enter society, so he goes to work in a diner, where he meets a girl with boyfriend troubles. She was kicked out by her boyfriend, so Norman offers her a room in the motel, a favour for a fellow worker comrade.
Alas, the room is a freaking crack den, it’s not ready for a proper girl. The sleazeball running the show also doesn’t take kindly to this interference, so he is immediately fired by the owner! She will sleep in the spare bedroom, pinning a chair to the door knob.
She tries and fails to leave that spare bedroom, but the world conspires against her, she is Norman Bates’ roommate now. Just in time for him to start hearing voices, seeing and talking to his dead mother, getting notes.
His new girl friend supports him, which is a massive red flag, all the way. The twists come through though: she is Marion’s niece. The sister is lobbying for Norman Bates to stay in the straight jacket.
Since the legal way is barred, they dress up as his mother, call the house, and overall spook Bates into killing again. Yes, Marion’s sister is just evil, there’s not even any incentive other than pure revenge.
The niece actually has to live with him in the house, and she even finds some Peeping Tom watching her bathe (who could that be!), but that makes her sympathetic to Norman’s plight, and she resists the scam her mother is pulling.
Some people are getting murdered, apparently, they are hated and the cops don’t think they are actually dead, maybe it’s a coincidence.
But it’s all BS, Norman is really murdering people dressed up as his mother. He talks to “her” on the phone and all, is full view of the girl! She’s had it, and dresses up as Norman’s mother (complete with knife), telling him to snap out of it! Norman doesn’t care, and she will accidentally kill the doctor helping Norman get back to society!
She is spooked, gets to the basement where she finds her own mother’s body, and lunges at Norman! The cops show up and shoot her dead. He got away now, squeaky fucking clean.
The woman from the diner was the mastermind all along. She really is Norma Bates, the true mother. The other woman was his aunt! She appears in the end, to be killed by Norman with poisoned tea (again).
At some point, Norman is stabbed in the hands and on his side, like Jesus Christ. Truly insane visuals for an actual psycho.
This is my place for ramblings about sequences of images that exploit the human visual limitation know as persistence of vision.