Psycho II

Warning: This book deals with events that began in the 1959 novel Psycho. So if you are unfamiliar with the story, either the novel or the film, please turn away because I will be dealing in spoiler territory.

Much to my misfortune, I have sat through all the Psycho movies. This includes not only the ghastly Gus Van Sant-directed remake, but also the three sequels to the original 1960 film. As you can guess, I’m not a fan of most of these (though I surprisingly enjoyed Psycho IV). They were derivative pieces of schlock that tried to cash in on what the original Psycho was. However, Robert Bloch also wrote two sequels to Psycho. Until now, I’ve never subjected myself to any of them. But I finally decided to take the plunge and try my hand with Psycho II.

In my defense, I was seduced by the plot idea. Psycho II deals with Norman Bates years after the events of Psycho left him psychologically traumatized. He has been institutionalized since, and has slowly but steadily been recovering. Only one day, he snaps and escapes the institution disguised as a nun. His psychologist, Dr. Clairborne, is worried that Norman will go on another killing spree. But his fears are unfounded: Norman’s charred remains are soon discovered in the car he used to escape. It seems that Norman Bates is truly dead… but if that’s the case, who was it who murdered Sam Loomis and his wife Lila, the two people responsible for Norman’s incarceration in the first place?

Psycho

The iconic cover with "cracked" lettering

Life isn’t easy when you’re running a motel in the middle of nowhere. And Norman Bates is doing just that with his life, stuck running the Bates Motel and taking care of his elderly mother, a monster in frilly clothing whose hobbies include psychological torture and preventing her son from having a life away from her. She will go to extreme measures to do this… even commit murder…

… which is precisely what Mother does when Mary Crane comes to the motel, fresh from stealing $40,000 from her employer. Mary is en route to see her fiancé, hoping that the money will help pay off his personal debts and get married sooner. But she decides to drop in at the Bates Motel, where Norman develops a boyish crush on her, even though the years of psychological abuse have left him afraid to so much as touch a woman. Mother doesn’t like this, and so when Mary goes to take a shower, Mother storms into the bathroom:

Mary started to scream, and then the curtains parted further and a hand appeared, holding a butcher’s knife. It was the knife that, a moment later, cut off her scream. And her head.

Why Couldn't They Make it Better?

Although the excitement I had initially felt upon viewing the trailer was gone, I was simply too interested to not see Hitchcock, a new movie starring Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren as legendary director Alfred Hitchcock and his wife Alma Reville. I had major fears about this film, having read the book on which it is supposedly based, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho by Stephen Rebello. Yes, you read that right. Supposedly based. Because I did not see a film equivalent of Rebello’s book. What I saw was speculative fiction that didn’t even have the guts to be entertaining enough to justify my $10.

But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. What I just wrote is unkind and unfair to the movie, and I could give it a humiliating review, but what good will that do? It’ll make me seem like an immature loser, and I’m sure Anthony Hopkins won’t lose any sleep over it. The above sums up my overall opinion for those of you who have never read Robert Bloch’s Psycho or who have never seen the Hitchcock film. If you are one of those people, I have two things to say to you:

(1) Shame on you! Go watch it now!

(2) Turn away now, because the rest of this review will assume you are familiar with the story. It’s too good for me to spoil it to anyone unfamiliar with it.

Dr. Hollywood: or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Misleading Speculative Fiction

Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho by Stephen Rebello is the book on which the upcoming film Hitchcock is based. Starring Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren as Hitch and his wife Alma, respectively, I was very excited when I saw the first trailer for the film. I then made the decision to read Rebello’s book before seeing the movie. That might have been a mistake… but more on that later.

As the title of Rebello’s book might suggest, this is an overview of the making of Psycho. Stephen Rebello begins at the most logical place: with a brief overview of the gruesome Ed Gein murder case. If you have no idea who Gein was, consider yourself lucky, because this might well be the most heinous killer I have ever heard of. The things he did with the corpses of his victims made me sick to the stomach, and I have no idea how I managed to get through such a brief summary of the case; I can’t imagine what a more in-depth look at the crime would read like.