Psycho II (1983)
In 1980, the screenwriting team of Gary Travis and Michael January concocted an original horror film idea of a woman buying a house and coming to believe it’s haunted. It’s later revealed that there are others secretly living in the house trying to drive her mad. When Travis imagined the house looked like the Bates residence Psycho, he wondered why someone hadn’t made a sequel. Surmising that a Psycho sequel was a more marketable idea, they revised their story into Psycho II: The Return of Norman Bates.
Their story: Norman Bates escapes after murdering a security guard and setting fire to a Northern California mental hospital. Returning to his boyhood home, Norman finds that Lila Loomis, the sister of the woman he murdered twenty years prior, Marion Crane, has bought the house and the motel it overlooks as a way of overcoming her grief. Lila’s daughter and her fiancee visit. Lila experiences blackouts. Motel guests get murdered. Is Lila going mad or has Norman returned to his murderous ways?
They soon shopped their $9 million Psycho sequel through their production venture, the Picture Striking Company. Anthony Perkins was asked to return to his most iconic role. To sweeten the deal, they offered him the director’s chair. Vera Miles and Martin Balsam also were offered parts. Although Balsam’s character, Milton Arbogast, died in Psycho, he’d play Milton’s brother, the doctor treating Norman in the hospital. They also sought Jamie Lee Curtis to play Lila’s daughter, and Greg Meadows to play her boyfriend. Curtis declined, claiming her character’s murder in a hot tub was a dumb homage to her mother Janet Leigh’s murder in the shower in Psycho. Longtime production manager for Alfred Hitchcock, Doc Erickson, was tapped to produce.
Upon learning about the project, “Psycho” author Robert Bloch was incensed. No one asked for permission to use his characters. Bloch’s agent encouraged him to immediately write a follow-up book, “Psycho II”, beating them to the punch. While at a science fiction convention in Melbourne, Australia, Bloch discussed his next novel with Australian film director Richard Franklin, who was there promoting his Hitchcockian thriller, Roadgames. Franklin’s agent made phone calls about acquiring the film rights to Bloch’s book and discovered Universal Pictures’ contract with Bloch for Psycho included sequels.
Discovering this, Universal sent them a cease-and-desist letter. Travis and January hired copyright lawyers, who advised avoiding direct references to story elements or characters’ last names from the Bloch novel or Hitchcock film, After shortening their title to The Return of Norman, word got out that they lacked the film rights, causing the actors to drop out. They tried repackaging their idea as, The Return of the Psycho, but investor interest evaporated, forcing them to abandon it.
As a courtesy, Bloch’s agent submitted the “Psycho II” manuscript to Universal. Universal decided it wasn’t filmable. It didn’t feature Norman enough and took satirical jabs at Hollywood’s thirst for gore, violence, and sequelitis. They requested that he change the book to not be set in Hollywood but Bloch refused. They returned the manuscript, informing Bloch’s agent in no uncertain terms that they hated it.
In early 1982, independent film producer Bernard Schwartz brokered a deal between Universal and Oak Media Development Corporation, owners of the broadcast pay-TV service, ON-TV. Oak Media put up $18 million to produce four theatrically released Universal features that would exclusively run on ON-TV. MCA president Sid Sheinberg provided Schwartz with a list of potential projects. Selected first was Psycho II, something that could capture immediate public interest. Universal’s in-house market research revealed that 90% of American moviegoers over the age of twelve had heard of Norman Bates. The character was ingrained in popular culture. Universal suggested to Bloch he drop his novel and write an adaptation of their film instead. No can do.
Universal budgeted Psycho II at $5 million. Longtime Hitchcock associate Hilton Green, who’d served as Psycho‘s first assistant director, became line producer. For the director, Schwartz hired Richard Franklin, who he’d collaborated with on Roadgames. Franklin described himself as a lifelong student of Hitchcock. At twelve years old, he and a friend snuck into theaters five times to see Psycho. His love for Hitchcock inspired him to pursue film school at USC. While there, Franklin put together a Hitchcock retrospective, inviting Hitchcock himself to attend, and he did. After becoming friends, Hitchcock invited Franklin to the sets of his Hollywood films Topaz and Family Plot. Franklin’s breakthrough film was 1978’s Psycho-influenced Patrick, followed by Roadgames, an homage to Rear Window.
Franklin’s next intended project was The Short Night, the film Hitchcock planned to make before opting to retire. Franklin hesitated when offered Psycho II, knowing critics would regard a sequel to a masterpiece as sacrilege, especially from an industry newcomer. However, he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make his first American film and he couldn’t stomach seeing the project go to anyone else.
Franklin wanted Psycho II to reflect the original rather than regurgitate it, bringing Norman Bates full circle. He also wanted to recapture the feeling he had when he first saw it at age twelve than as a film scholar. To avoid copying Psycho, Franklin studied older Hitchcock films. He strove to maintain a consistent tone with Psycho, in its blending genres that included gothic melodrama, tragedy, suspense thriller, macabre horror, and black comedy.
Franklin wanted audiences to watch the two films together and see them as one film. This meant shooting Psycho II in black and white. Universal refused but considered an alternate proposal of shooting in color for cable but releasing in black-and-white theatrically. Franklin dropped the idea after a rumor spread that Hitchcock shot Psycho test footage in color. Although false, the excitement among Psycho fans to see what the Bates house would look like in color would make a strong selling point for Psycho II.
Anthony Perkins wouldn’t sign without reading a screenplay. While scouring scripts of promising thriller screenwrites, Franklin’s lawyer handed him two unproduced screenplays from another client, om Holland. Franklin loved Holland’s storytelling sensibilities, met with him, and hit it off. They composed a checklist for what a Psycho sequel required. Foremost, Perkins must approve, so Norman must be the sympathetic protagonist, a tragic figure who can’t escape his past.
It also needed a twist ending to match Psycho’s reveal of Norman as the murderer and Mother existing only in his imagination. Hitchcock portraying Mother as a cackling hag always bothered Franklin. If Norman killed her when he was twelve, she’d have been much younger. One way it might make sense is if Norman’s biological mother was someone else, someone who might still be living. The twist in Psycho II is to set up Norman as the killer and then reveal it was Mother all along.
Holland’s script finds serial killer Norman Bates released from the California mental institution after 22 years. Lila Loomis, sister of one of Bates’ victims, is incensed that Norman has been deemed of ‘sound mind’ and freed. She is determined to prove he’s still a danger to society. Norman returns to his childhood home and Bates Motel and takes up a cook’s assistant job at a diner nearby, where he befriends a waitress named Mary Samuels (easter egg: Marion Crane was “Mary” in Bloch’s book and falsely signs the motel registry as “Marie Samuels” in Hitchcock’s film), offering her a room after her boyfriend dumps her. Norman starts receiving notes and phone calls from “Mother”, and glimpsing her around the house. When people begin dying, Norman wonders if he’s become his old self.
Perkins called Holland’s first draft a suspenseful page-turner. After receiving the blessing of Hitchcock’s widow Alma Reville and daughter Pat to return to the role, he agreed to return for $1 million, a price tag that would severely impact the movie’s success. Schwartz bluffed by saying Christopher Walken would play Norman for much less. Perkins agreed to less if he could co-direct, but Universal was adamantly opposed. Without other prospects, and opposed to someone else playing the role, Perkins swallowed his pride against the protests of his agent, accepting a lower salary for backend money.
Perkins took years to embrace the public’s inability to separate him from Norman. He scowled when strangers approached him in public to talk about Psycho. It wasn’t until his wife Berry Berenson mentioned that his glares further perpetuated a Norman-like demeanor that he tried a friendlier response. Perkins pondered that his career may never have flourished even without the typecasting. Instead of fighting the waves, he would ride them, and embrace Norman. He started feeling better, observing Norman as the “Hamlet” among horror roles, flawed yet complex and sympathetic.
Franklin wanted Norman to be like the house – completely unchanged since we last saw them – so audiences would recognize him as the same character from Psycho. Franklin also wanted to begin Psycho II with the shower murder scene from Psycho. Franklin wanted viewers to remember that Norman killed women while in drag. When Bernard Schwartz called Janet Leigh for permission to re-use the scene, she was thoroughly confused. ‘Bernard Schwartz’ was the real name of Tony Curtis, Janet’s husband when she made Psycho.
Establishing exterior shots took place in Los Angeles, Bakersfield, Atascadero, and Central California, with the rest done on the Universal lot. As it had become a staple of the Universal Studios tour, the Bates Victorian house still existed on the Universal lot, rebuilt in a different location. However, the Bates Motel structure had been razed. About forty feet motel’s exterior was rebuilt using original blueprints, encompassing the office and one cabin. Albert Whitlock’s visual effects crew crafted matte paintings when needed to show the complete edifice. Franklin discovered that liberties were taken by Hitchcock in making the interiors larger than the exterior house could contain.
Perkins, concerned about his gaunt appearance, wore padded shirts. Although Universal nixed Perkins’s co-directing, Franklin allowed Perkins wide latitude to add character touches for Norman, including changing dialogue and scenes. Perkins invented a moment where Norman is gazing into a mirror as if for the first time, presumably spinning off from Norman’s inability to look at himself in a mirror for fear of what he’d become in Psycho.
Vera Miles returned to the Lila Crane role, now called Lila Loomis now, having married Sam Loomis, Marion’s former lover. Miles was initially worried that Psycho II would be another sick slasher film but found the Holland script tasteful, placing terror in the mind of the audiences rather than their eyes. Miles found it eerie to walk on the set meticulously recreated by production designer John W. Corso to look exactly as it did (but aged 22 years) using photographs and blueprints from the original film. Many of the original props were found in studio storage or were currently used in Universal productions. The original showerhead, used recently in John Carpenter’s The Thing, was stolen during preproduction. Set designer Jennifer Polito rented duplicate props and furnishings for what was no longer available.
Although she appeared in Franklin’s Roadgames, Jamie Lee Curtis declined the role of Mary, wanting to break out of horror. Many other actresses including Carrie Fisher, Kathleen Turner, Meg Ryan, and Linda Hamilton, auditioned. Perkins read with the two finalists, Lisa Eilbacher and Meg Tilly, and recommended Tilly.
After pursuing Simon Oakland to reprise his role as Norman’s psychiatrist, Dr. Richmond, he appeared to be in ill health so they cast Robert Loggia, coincidentally someone considered for Sam Loomis in Psycho, changing the name to Dr. Raymond. John Gavin was unavailable to return as Sam in his role as United States Ambassador to Mexico, so Lila’s character became a widow. Perkins’s eight-year-old son Osgood played a young Norman for a brief flashback. John McIntire was scheduled to reprise his role as Sheriff Chambers, but a miscommunication resulted in his unavailability, so they recast with Hugh Gillin as Sheriff Hunt.
Perkins grew fond of Kurt Paul, his stand-in, keeping him around on and off the set, allowing him to stay at his home during production. Some observed the relationship as a mentorship, while others felt there was more, especially when Perkins needled Paul for being gay, something the younger assistant persistently denied (as did the closeted Perkins). As a lark, Perkins had Paul regularly stand outside the Psycho house and wave to the cheering tourists who thought he was the real Anthony Perkins.
Like Hitchcock, Franklin asserted secrecy when making Psycho II. Only four complete scripts existed, locked in his office safe. Universal executives didn’t know what the ending was until the rough-cut screening. An early script ended with Norman coming home from the police station to find Mary in the rocking chair, now crazy and assuming the Mother role. This was changed during the production so that Mary is killed by the cops in an altercation with Norman. Tilly expressed relief because she didn’t want to be stuck making endless sequels, primarily because she hated her experience working on Psycho II.
Tilly grew up in rural British Columbia without a family TV. She’s never seen Psycho until she got the role or its impact on Perkins’ career. Franklin thought Meg’s naivety perfectly fit the nature of her character. Tilly observed that Perkins became disgruntled after they screened the dailies and she would be praised while he drew comments about seeming stiff and unconvincing. He rewrote dialogue for their scenes. Tilly didn’t know her new lines until the day of filming. She felt Perkins gave her difficult dialogue, including tongue twisters, to throw her performance.
When Tilly questioned why Perkins received special privileges, it ruffled his feathers. He demanded Tilly be replaced. After being told they’d shot too much to change now, Perkins treated Tilly more cruelly, playing mind games, and making disparaging comments about her appearance or her performance that shook her confidence, often resulting in her crying from hurt feelings. Some observed that professional jealousy drove him, bitter that a talented actress was stealing his limelight in a film he felt was his last shot to save his career.
Things came to a head when Perkins asked for a new scene, an emotional moment between Mary and Norman where he opens up about his childhood and many regrets about losing his mother’s love. As they performed, Perkins paused that Tilly took for not remembering his lines. Perkins gre incensed when she repeatedly broke the silence and he extended the pauses longer. One moment lasted so long Tilly felt she had to remind him of his line. This time Franklin unleashed on Tilly with abusive language, screaming that he hadn’t said cut and that she had ruined the Perkins’ crying scene. Tilly stormed out and contemplated quitting not only the movie, but acting altogether.
Psycho II contains narrative twists that will seem silly in retrospect, but as it plays, they’re effective. Franklin said the twists, each culminating in death, are more inspired by Sleuth than Psycho. Franklin knew he couldn’t replicate Psycho‘s shower murder montage, but he wanted the murders to evoke a visceral punch. While Psycho seemed restrained compared to modern slashers, in its day, it was considered shocking and gratuitous, so Franklin felt he could also shock audiences.
Franklin thought audiences might expect the sequel to resemble Psycho by switching styles midway. He pushed the style change to the third act by ratcheting up the violence. Though many critics complained about the tonal shift, Franklin argued that Hitchcock would have been disappointed if audiences walked out without feeling shocked at something unexpected.
The secret ending hidden features diner employee Emma Spool revealing that she’s Norman’s real mother. Like Norman, she’d been locked away in an institution in her early adulthood while sister Norma raised him. Norman was scripted to kill Spool by poison, as he did Norma, but Franklin decided to shock audiences by having her walloped on the head with a shovel using blunt force in one swift shot as a counter to the elaborate shower montage in Psycho. Unfortunately, the single shot was edited into three cuts because Perkins accidentally hit the light fixture prior to smashing the dummy that was supposed to match the shot using a live actor wearinghelmet under her wig that was hit by a light rubber shovel. The dummy was too visibly damaged to use again except by using a side shot.
They wanted to reuse Bernard Herrmann’s Psycho score but found it wasn’t the right tone. They applied Herrmann’s music from other Universal/Hitchcock films, but editor Verna Fields encouraged Franklin to use an original score. Franklin hired Jerry Goldsmith. Goldsmith paid homage to Herrmann but avoided borrowing from the Psycho score beyond the shower scene flashback. Unlike Herrmann’s strings-only composition, Goldsmith added synthesizers, oboes, and gongs. He provided an hour of music, including two Beethoven sonatas Norman plays in the Bates house.
Psycho II had the unenviable task of following up on a cinematic masterpiece. To avoid cheap slasher comparisons, the marketing campaign successfully promoted Psycho II as a quality film made by people who either worked on the original or were admirers of Hitchcock. It bested WarGames for second place in their debuts behind the second week of Return of the Jedi and scored $35 million domestically.
While a far cry from Psycho, it’s better than most slasher sequel imitators. It occasionally goes awry due to implausible developments, yet entertains through dark humor and a quality cast. The third-act gore gets nasty, featuring wince-inducing stab-and-slice moments. Franklin lacks Hitchcock’s visionary tendencies and ability to generate suspense though it’s commendable that he knows better than to try to outdo Hitchcock.
Psycho II is made for Psycho fans up for a continuation of the Norman Bates story. The scenes of Norman’s return are nicely handled, and Perkins’ performance — nervous, twitchy, stuttering, and hammy – maintains the fun tone.
Qwipster’s rating: B-
MPAA Rated: R for strong, bloody violence, nudity, sexual references, brief drug content, and language
Length: 113 min.
Cast: Anthony Perkins, Meg Tilly, Frank Loggia, Vera Miles, Dennis Franz
Director: Richard Franklin
Screenplay: Tom Holland