Series: Psycho

Psycho II should never have been made. The original, crafted by a master, cut deeply into our collective pop-psyche, being all things to all people - and thus unique. Scholars loved its Freudian take on sexual paranoia (where a knife was no longer just a knife) and its narrative insurgency. Meanwhile mainstream cinema-goers had never before seen a film so delightfully lurid - focusing as it did on black negligee, flushing toilets and blood spiraling down the plughole. With Psycho, the modern horror film was born. A sequel then, especially one coming so many years later, shouldn't work. Yet somehow, director Richard Franklin defies expectations. Uniqueness is replaced by nostalgia, but this remembrance is used to open new doors, creating a twisting story that is at once evocative and seditious.(read more...)

After a surprisingly good sequel, Psycho II (1983), the opportunity for an additional follow up to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho was clearly present.  Why, Norman Bates himself, Anthony Perkins, took up the director's chair for the third installment of Norman’s sad and fearsome saga!  Having been Norman for nearly thirty years (and also having worked with such legendary directors as Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kramer, and Orson Welles), there was probably no one better qualified to helm this installment.  While Perkins does not rise to the cinematic heights of these screen giants, he and screenwriter Charles Edward Pogue (who later penned the screenplay to David Cronenberg’s The Fly), fashion a horror experience that, while far from perfect, inspires more than its share of jumps and chills.(read more...)

Writing a review lauding the merits of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is like writing an essay on why breathing is important. Or better yet, why sex feels good. Talk about begging the question. Anyone who watches Psycho brings his or her own insights, cinematic IQ, prejudices, fears, and collective memories into the interpretation. And like any classic film, Psycho resonates with new meaning every time one watches it. Perceptions change, interpretations mutate, and assumptions evolve. If one goal of a good film review is to recreate the experience of watching the film, then reviewing Psycho is the equivalent of reveling in cinematic ecstasy. So beware, here comes the swoon.(read more...)