15 - Psycho II (1983)

There used to be a lot of stigma around mental illness.  Nobody talked about it.  It was shameful.  If you had someone in your family who was crazy, you never talked about them.  Nowadays it's pretty common, and there's a ton of medications for it, but back in the old days it was straight into an asylum.  Asylums generally weren't very nice places, back then.  Electro shock therapy, experimental drugs, heavy sedation.  Supposedly, they are much better now, which is a good thing.  

Psycho 2 (1983) is a sequel to the original Alfred Hitchcock thriller.  Norman Bates was in an asylum for 22 years after the infamous shower scene in the original Psycho.  Now, he's out of the asylum and back working his Hotel.  There was a lot of fuss over Norman getting out, and a lot of opposition.  Maybe the stress was getting to Norman, because he's seeing things, hearing voices again.  It's his mother.  But Norman's mother is dead, isn't she?  She can't be bothering him again, driving him to kill.  It has to be someone else.  Norman's mother is, after all, dead...  Isn't she?

Psycho 2 was pretty decent, I caught it on Retroplex, one of the premium channels, on cable TV.  Anthony Perkins returns as Norman Bates.  He's a little twitchy at first, as might be expected for a recently-sane person.  Robert Loggia is Norman's Psychiatrist, Dennis Franz is Norman's Hotel manager, and Meg Tilly and Vera Miles play part of the supporting cast.  The acting was good, the effects were minimal.  I mean, he's basically just dressing up as a woman to kill folks.  It's nothing special.  It was a sensation back in the 60s, when Psycho came out, but it wasn't even that kooky back in 1983.  Decent sequel, but the pacing was a bit slow.  Lots of suspense, very slow build without much of a payoff, but still not a bad watch.  I remember enjoying this quite a bit in 1983 or 84, back when I was a teenager.  A sequel to one of the most famous horror films of all time?  A must-see, back then!  Now, it's more, meh.  Not a bad watch.  There was even a Psycho 3 (a little worse for wear) and a Psycho 4 that tried to explain Norman's origin story, which probably sucked.  I haven't seen it in years.

In other news, I have places to be, so bye for now!  :-)