Psycho II

[00:00:04] Welcome to Movie Oubliette, the film review podcast for movies that most people have mercifully forgotten. I'm Dan. And I'm Conrad. And in each episode, we drag a forsaken film out of the Oubliette. Discuss it and judge it to decide whether it should be set free. Or whether it should be thrown back and consigned to oblivion forever.

[00:00:37] Movie Oubliette winner from the very beginning here in Melbourne, Australia. Oh my goodness.

[00:01:06] We focus on forgotten fantasy, sci-fi and horror films because we love toasted cheese sandwiches, hot showers in bathrooms with peepholes and dressing up as our mothers. Yes, of course. Hello, Dan. How are you? Yes. Very good. Oh, so what's this media empire you're creating? Yeah.

[00:01:32] No, I fell down a YouTube rabbit hole with these movie enthusiasts who are getting sick of streaming services, ramping up all of their prices and declining quality and reliability. So lots of people are building their own cloud service in their home. Wow. With lots of a big box of hard drives called a NAS drive server, whatever. Right.

[00:01:57] And using that to build their own Netflix using an app like Plex or there are a few that you can choose from. Oh. And you just, you know, like iTunes back in the old days, just rip all your movies, put it in there and now you've got your own Netflix scene. Just browse your own film collection and play them anywhere. Wow. I love a little tech project like that. So that's my next project I'm going to try. Oh, wow. That sounds great.

[00:02:24] Meanwhile, you're planning to watch every Best Picture nominee since the beginning of time. Well, Best Picture winner. Yes. Winner. Oh, okay. Yes. Yes. So it's just one from every year. So we have started. We've watched two so far. So the very first winner was Wings from 1927, which is a silent war movie set during World War I following a fighter pilot. And it's interesting because it's silent, but there are some sounds in it. Oh.

[00:02:54] So there are some sound effects when the plane's flying and the machine guns are going off, which is weird. It's like, how are they able to do sort of spot sound effects, but no dialogue? And then we've watched the second movie as well, The Broadway Melody in 1929, which has got sound, but it's really early sound. So everything is distorted. It's still pretty amazing, though, watching these movies because it's also black and white.

[00:03:22] But there are some scenes in color, but I'm not sure whether they've restored the color scenes very well because it's barely color. It's like, well, it's not black and white. It's not really color. You've got shades of green and orange. It's not. Yeah, it's like it's color kind of. So, yeah, it's interesting seeing the progression of cinema as a medium through all of these winners, which is, yeah, fascinating. Oh, that's exciting.

[00:03:52] Yeah. Well, keep us posted on how you do. All right. Well, moving on. Anything in the mailbag today? Oh, yes. We've heard from lots of people and lots of platforms. Daria got in touch on John Carter and she said, I once saw John Carter in a cinema where a gang of bikers were part of the audience. OK. The rest of us expected trouble, but it was just the opposite. They immediately fell in love with Woola.

[00:04:21] Oh, of course. How could you not? Well, exactly. They cheered whenever Woola was on the screen, protested when the Tharks beat him. And at the end of the film, they applauded and whistled wildly upon their exit and all the way down the street. They couldn't have been a better audience. Lots of fun. That's amazing. Great story. It's a great story.

[00:04:45] Daria also sent us a very long stern message telling us off for calling it a box office bomb because it really wasn't. It generated a lot of money at the box office. It was in the box office for a long time, but it was just Disney taking it out of theatres and doing a bit of accounting naughtiness so that they could write it off as a loss. So it really deserved better. So thanks for correcting us on that. OK.

[00:05:14] All right. We also heard from Nick Hardy, longtime listener. Oh, yes. And he said, if ever a film was let down by its title, it's this one. This is John Carter again. Oh, yes. OK. Yes. Yes. I 100% agree. I enjoyed watching it. Not a bad film, but not a particularly great one either. It's always nice to hear a couple of shout outs for the greatest fantasy film of all time on the podcast too. No, not Stargate.

[00:05:44] It's always great. It's always great. It's always great. It's always great. Of course. Of course. And finally, we heard from Wildstar Studios on YouTube. Oh, yes. And they were talking about the final countdown. And they said, your mention of the pointless mid-air refuelling scene reminded me of the Starfighters 1964.

[00:06:06] Unlike the final countdown, the Starfighters was made using lots of stock footage of F-104 Starfighters practicing mid-air refuelling, precision bombing, or just flying straight ahead. OK. Every shot is as blandly generic as an industrial film. Wow. The closest thing to an action scene in the entire movie is when one of the planes crashes in the desert due to bad weather conditions.

[00:06:33] There wasn't any stock footage available of a starfighter crashing, despite the fact that those death traps crashed all the time. So the entire event is merely talked about by what passes for characters. Oh, wow. God. It sounds interminable. Yeah, that sounds bad. And Wildstar Studios concludes by saying, Mystery Science Theater 3000 riffed the movie in the 90s. So I think I might have it in a box set somewhere.

[00:07:03] I might check that out. OK. OK. Whoa. Before we finish, Mailbag, I did have a message from one of our friends, actually. This is referring to one of our older episodes when we covered the lawnmower man. Oh, wow.

[00:07:21] Our friend Marie Claire said she's working on a job and he is in the cast, referring to Peter Brosnan, and can confirm he is as gorgeous and charming as ever. So. Ooh. Yeah. In the flesh. Marvellous. The Brosnan. He hasn't lost that James Bond magic. Oh, no. No, he's just, it's just gotten richer as he's matured. Yeah. Oh, that's always good.

[00:07:51] Yes. Thanks again, listeners, for getting in touch. We do love hearing from you. We do. OK, Conrad, the film for today. What is it going to be? Ooh. I shall go and check it out. I'm in a bathroom somewhere. Someone's in the shower, I think. They are. Oh, yeah. I better not disturb them. They really freak them out. God, the toilet's clogged with blood. Ugh. It's disgusting.

[00:08:21] Oh, gross. There's a hole over there and I think someone's staring through it. Oh, creepy. Get out. Get out. Yeah. I've got the movie. I'm coming back. OK. Hey, sure you won't have a sandwich? All right, Conrad. What is it today? Today we have a belated sequel. The 1983 American psychological slasher film Psycho 2. Ooh.

[00:08:47] It's directed by Richard Franklin, written by Tom Holland, future director of Fright Night, and stars Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, Meg Tilly, and Robert Loggia. Mm-hmm. OK. So what happens in the sequel? Well, 22 years after Norman Bates' impersonation of his dead mother had fatal consequences for his motel guests,

[00:09:12] he's released from prison because his psychiatrist, Dr. Raymond, has cured him of the insanity that prevented his conviction for murder. Mm-hmm. He's back home, renovating the Bates motel after firing the sleazy manager who turned it into a haven for sex and drugs, and working in a local diner with the kindly old Mrs. Spool.

[00:09:36] Norman also has a new friend, the winsome young waitress Mary, who moves into Norman's spare room when she falls out with her boyfriend. But pretty soon, murders start happening all over the place, and Norman keeps seeing his mother in every darkened corner of his gothic house on the hill. But who's behind it all? The disgruntled motel manager, Toomey?

[00:10:01] Lila Loomis, who's vowed revenge on Norman for killing her sister in the most famous shower scene in cinema history? Mm-hmm. Or is it Norman after all? And who is the old lady calling Norman claiming to be his real mother? Find out after the break. Yes, yes, yes. Oh. Cool.

[00:10:35] And we're back to talk about the belated sequel, Psycho 2. Dan, had you... Actually, you said that you hadn't even heard of it, didn't you? I didn't know there were sequels for the longest time. I think it was... Amazing. I think you told me about the sequels. Like, I didn't know they existed at all. I just thought there was Psycho, and that's all there was. Wow. I had no idea that the sequels existed.

[00:11:01] And coming out, like, 23 years after the first movie is, yeah. Yeah. Very belated. It is. It's not the biggest sequel gap. I mean, we talked about that before when we did 2010. So there are things like Mary Poppins and Mary Poppins Returns, which is 54 years or something. And more recently, The Shining and Doctor Sleep, which is 39 years in the horror realm. But still, this is a long gap.

[00:11:30] And I think it's another case of... It's such a monumental film in cinema history that you think you can't do a sequel. Surely you can't. Yeah. Yeah. I do feel like it's definitely more of a sequel rather than, like, a soft reboot. Like, the Mary Poppins sequel, that just feels like we've just remade Mary Poppins. Yeah. With different actors. Like, it's the same movie. It is. Whereas this movie is... It's a sequel.

[00:12:00] It's a proper sequel. And having Anthony Perkins coming back as Norman Bates, that's a huge draw to it being much better than it could have. But if they'd recast, I don't think it would have worked. No. Not at all. It was very difficult, apparently, getting Universal to get behind the idea of doing a sequel. Oddly enough, it was sort of resurrected because of the popularity of the slasher genre that arguably it instigated.

[00:12:29] If you think of the early 80s, late 70s, early 80s, it's just rampant with Friday the 13th and Halloween. Yeah, of course. And so studios were looking in their back catalogue to see, oh, what could we do? And the idea of a Psycho sequel just seemed unlikely and beyond the pale. And could you do it recasting Norman? So I think they were only going to do it as a TV movie originally, straight to cable. Yeah. I mean, isn't the fourth one a TV movie? It is. Yeah.

[00:12:57] Yeah, that's the one directed by Mick Garris, I think. Oh, okay. Because I did watch Psycho before watching this. I just needed a refresher. Yeah. It's been a while. I know it's a classic. I have seen it a few times, but it has been a while. And watching it, like pretty much back to back, well, it's quite airy watching this movie because it's the same set as well. Yeah. And you've got Anthony Perkins. You've got Vera Miles coming back to reprise her role as Lila.

[00:13:26] Um, Loomis in this movie, not Crane. And also jumping from black and white to colour as well. So seeing the same sets in colour is quite remarkable. Yeah. To watch. Like I got goosebumps in the first scenes where they're at Bates Motel and you see the house in colour and inside the house in colour. It's like, wow, this is eerie. It's very eerie. It's pinpoint perfect. Yeah. And it becomes a character in this movie.

[00:13:56] The house is another character. It's the epitome of the house on the hill, the haunted house on the hill. Sure, sure. It kind of visualises the dark recesses of Norman's mind. I mean, the house just seems to be an endless labyrinth of back staircases and peep poles. And you're right, it's a character. And it is impressive the way they've meticulously recreated it inside and out.

[00:14:21] And apparently that's all because they went through the archives at Universal and the set architectural drawings are still there. So they just rebuilt it to the nail. But yeah, you're right. I mean, it is such a loving recreation of Hitchcock. And all of this is down to its director, Richard Franklin, an Australian. Yeah, I haven't heard of this director. This is the first movie I've ever watched of him.

[00:14:49] I mean, Patrick and Road Games has been on my watch list for a while, but I haven't seen them. I'm very surprised at the outcome of this movie. I mean, you get an Australian to direct it. And you think, oh yeah, like you said, this is just like a cash grab. We've got all the fans of Psycho. They're going to watch Psycho too. It's a slasher decade. Let's just throw in some cheap deaths in there. But it really isn't like that.

[00:15:17] It's a really well made movie. It is, yeah. Patrick, I think, and Road Games. Road Games more so is a psychological thriller. It's got Jamie Lee Curtis, Janet Leigh's daughter in it. And it visually is very much an homage to Hitchcock in much the same way as Brian De Palma's thrillers were.

[00:15:39] But apparently Richard Franklin as a young man had interviewed Hitchcock and was a huge devotee, a super fan almost. Wow. So he was the ideal person to visualize it. And there's one thing to say about this movie is the way that it looks. I mean, some critics said that it steals bits of Hitchcock and recycles them. But I do think he is using Hitchcock's visual language to build heighten and really turn the knife on the suspense.

[00:16:09] Yeah. Cinematography is outstanding. Like a lot of nods to Hitchcock with some of those sort of overhead sort of aerial shots when they're on the top of the stairs. And yeah, it's exactly like Psycho. But in a not recycled like, oh yeah, we're just copying Hitchcock. They use it in a way that's interesting. And there are little nods to Hitchcock in terms of like the shower scene is very similar.

[00:16:36] I think they tried to get the same shower head, but it was stolen or something. So it's pretty close. Yeah. Like when Norman is reaching for the key for Mary when she's staying with him and he goes to reach the key for the number one cabin. But it's obviously the one that the big murder happened in the original. I don't know, there's like little nods to Hitchcock or Psycho, the first movie that were like, that's very nice. I enjoyed that. Thank you. Yeah.

[00:17:06] But it's not hollow fan service. No. It all serves a narrative or thematic purpose. Exactly. Like you say with him, with Norman, who, yes, he's out of the mental hospital because he got an insanity plea. So he didn't go to prison and he's trying to rebuild his life. He's working at a diner. He's back at home at Bates Motel and he's refurbishing it and Mary shows up.

[00:17:30] His doctors warned him that he's going to have lots of flashbacks and memories and, you know, all of his traumas are going to come back here. So to be on his guard. And you can see that hesitance. So that moment when he goes to get the cabin number one key for Mary, something inside him wants to, but he's not going to. So he wants to put us somewhere else. So it's all for a reason, a story reason. Yeah.

[00:17:54] I mean, I think that's why it's different from all of these like modern legacy sequels that are essentially just soft reboots. They're like Force Awakens. It's just a new hope. Again, Jurassic World is just Jurassic Park. Again, they're the same movie. Yeah, they are. Repackaged with modern actors. This movie expands on the foundation that Psycho had with Norman Bates having this kind of split personality and sort of inner conflict.

[00:18:24] But he's trying to repress that. He's trying to control it and resist his urge. He's trying not to believe in his mother being alive or it's not the same movie again. No. There's like quite a few twists to the point where I was like, who the hell is the killer? Like I really had no idea. Because you think, yes, towards the start you think, oh, it's just Norman regressing and he's just doing it again.

[00:18:51] But there are some scenes where he's way away from where you think the killer is. Like the scene where Mary sees the eye or something, I can't remember. And he's downstairs. Like so there's no possible way he could be the killer. Yeah. Unless you're in Halloween 6 where that's teleporting. But apart from that movie. So like in this movie, there's like no way he could be the killer. So you're thinking like, who could it possibly be?

[00:19:20] Like you're just going through all the other characters. And so there are two big twists in this movie. The first one I did not pick at all. And I was like, yeah, that's good. That's really good. I did not expect that. Which is the identity of Mary. Yeah. Yeah. So she calls herself Mary Samuels. Samuels is the nom de plume that Marion Crane took when she booked into Bates Motel.

[00:19:47] So which seems like a bit of a silly thing to do because it could have given herself away. I know. I mean, there were a few scenes in this movie where I thought, why is this being accepted? Either by Norman. Like he just accepts that she's Mary Samuels. Like, come on. You know that Marion Crane wrote Marie Samuels in the guest book. You know that. Yeah.

[00:20:10] Or like when Mary just accepts that he'd been locked away because he killed his mom and her boyfriend at the age of 12. And you're like, why are you staying with him again? Like, you should not be staying with this man. But she just accepts it. But it's because of the twist. Yeah. That you go, oh. Yeah. That's why.

[00:20:32] So she is the daughter of Lila Crane, who's now Lila Loomis because she married Samuel Loomis, who was Marion Crane's lover in the first film. So it's a bit twisty. So basically it's one of those situations where the two of them must have bonded over their shared grief. And you do see that in real life. Yeah. It's definitely plausible. People get together. Yeah. It's definitely plausible.

[00:20:57] So, yeah, Meg Tilly is playing Lila Loomis's daughter and the two of them are deliberately trying to undermine Norman's sanity, which is what really makes this interesting. It does. Because it's a soft reboot in the sense that they put Norman back in a sympathetic position again.

[00:21:19] Because one of the reasons why the original was so effective was because you have this guy who was a teen heartthrob, who is a deranged cross-dressing murderer, which was just so appallingly shocking in 1960. Sure. And you still sort of felt sorry for him once you figured that out at the end. But in this one, it's like, okay, well, how do we get him back to be sympathetic again?

[00:21:45] But he is so sympathetic because you just see a very deeply troubled, traumatized man who is being deliberately undermined by these two women, one of whom is just hell-bent on revenge and hell-bent on getting him back in custody again. Because she does not agree with the insanity plea, does not agree with him being rehabilitated, wants him locked away for good. Sure, yeah, yeah. So they're trying to stitch him up.

[00:22:15] And I'm not sure they wanted to kill people. I don't think they wanted to do that. But they did want to make him crazy. Yeah. First of all, I think that's brilliant writing. It's great. The fact that all of this really weird stuff starts happening to Norman where he sees his mother in the window of his house all the time. He gets these strange phone calls from his mother, supposedly. He has, in the diner, there is notes left on the pass from his mother.

[00:22:44] But they were all from Lila or Mary. And that's like, that makes sense. But all through the movie, you think, oh, he's going insane. Like, he's seeing things that aren't there. He goes into his mother's room and is all like, as if it's from the 1960s. Yeah. But, I mean, it's a little bit implausible, the fact that Mary completely dresses up the room so that he can go into it and lose his mind. Then she locks him in the attic and just takes it all down and hides it.

[00:23:12] I mean, surely that's not possible. One person doing that. You would be so exhausted by the end of the day. Yeah, she'd be sweaty at least. Yeah. It works. It works. But yeah, it's a really good, I don't know. I really enjoy that twist. And also the fact that Mary does actually start sympathizing with Norman and she doesn't want to do it anymore. She realized, actually, he's trying to get better. He's trying to resist any urge.

[00:23:41] Like, during the confrontation with Toomey in the diner, there's a knife just sitting there. And Toomey's really, really pushing him. And you think, oh, he's going to do it. But he doesn't. He doesn't want to be violent. He doesn't want to kill people. And so Mary does see that. And she realizes, hey, we should help this man. This is a troubled man. He didn't ever want to kill anyone. It's just his kind of mental illness taking over.

[00:24:08] And it's, yeah, when she realizes that he's locked up in the attic and there's no way he could have killed that teenager that goes down in the basement. There's a couple that sneak in and one of the boys gets killed. There's no way. And she's like certain that there's not an inch of murder in Norman whatsoever. Like, he's just troubled. That's all it is. Yeah. And it's just a great sort of pivotal part of the movie. Yeah, it is. I mean, it stretches credulity how much she trusts him.

[00:24:37] You're still right on that point. Because there are bits where like she wakes up in the night and he's pacing around her bed holding a knife. Yeah, I know. I know. And I mean, I guess it makes sense with the twist. It's the fact that, I mean, I wouldn't go home with like a 40 year old guy who'd just come out of a mental institution and stayed a night with him. Like that's, as a young woman. No. You wouldn't do that.

[00:25:04] But it makes sense because she's trying to, you know, push him over the edge. Yeah. The second twist. It works. Yeah. But it's a little far fetched. It's a bit of a retcon. Yeah. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Should we talk about it? We should talk about it. But please do not listen to this if you haven't seen the movie. Watch the movie. Because the final scene in the movie is just glorious. Yeah, it is.

[00:25:34] So, yeah, the final twist is that all this time he has been getting lots and lots of phone calls and notes from Lila Loomis and Mary Loomis. But not every communique he's getting from women claiming to be his mother is fake. One of them is coming from Mrs. Spool, the kindly elderly lady in the diner. I did not know who she was. No.

[00:26:02] In the final scene, because you did not see her for a good hour. No. And I don't even know whether we know her name up until that final scene. It's mentioned a couple of times. Isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. He's introduced to her, but you're right. I mean, an hour goes by before this character reappears. And also, so the big twist.

[00:26:27] This kindly old woman, Mrs. Spool, turns out to be the sister of Norma. So, who he thought was his actual mother. The sister, Mrs. Spool, was his actual mother that had given up her child to Norma to raise as her son. Yeah. How did this whole town not know she was Norma's sister? That's believable, though. Is it?

[00:26:53] Because if you think of a woman having a child out of wedlock in those days, because this would have been in the 1940s, I would guess. Yeah. So, a woman who has a child out of wedlock and also has mental health issues and goes into a sanatorium giving her child up to her sister to raise is not that ridiculous. Actually, it makes more sense that Norman is descended from somebody else who's had mental health issues rather than Norma.

[00:27:23] The reason it came to Richard Franklin when he was trying to come up with an idea for this sequel, a pitch for Universal, was Norman's mother is always depicted as this grey-haired old crone, which is far too old to be Norman's biological mother. So, his question was, who is his real mother? And that's where he came up with the idea of the younger sister who was locked up herself.

[00:27:49] And now she's free and she's been watching what's been going on in the town and she couldn't put up with all these people being so horrible to Norman. So, she started killing everyone. Yeah. I don't know. This is a twist that has come up in movies before and I don't believe it. I just can't believe a frail old lady running around stabbing teenagers and overpowering grown men.

[00:28:17] Like, it just doesn't... Like, it's the same reaction I got when I watched Friday the 13th. Spoilers here. The first Friday the 13th where you find out it's the mother and I was like, really? Yeah. Is that possible? Is this like 60, 70-year-old woman able to do this? How is she so fit and strong? It's just... I don't know. I don't know.

[00:28:42] For me, that was the only sort of weak part of the movie that kind of doesn't make sense. It's so typical of a sort of a whodunit slasher, though. It's the person you least expect. Yeah. The person who's... Old lady. ...introduced right at the beginning who then disappears and then it comes back right at the end. And after you've spent ages exploring red herrings... Yeah. ...down to the nth degree and then this character suddenly pops up and they had this whole secret

[00:29:11] connection to the main character you didn't know. I know. But, I mean, you can't beat that final scene. I know. What transpires after she sits down to his tea and confesses her murderous sins? Please. My whole mouth was just, like, wide open. Because I was like... I'm so pleased. Oh, my God. What? So, I mean, are we going to talk about it in the mood, please? Or do we want to talk about it here?

[00:29:42] It appears... Yeah. It appears... It comes up in the category. It goes without saying that it's my favourite scene. I have picked another one as a backup because I think you can't get away from just talking about this because it is so delicious watching Norman descend slowly into madness because of everything that's going on around him. Yeah. Which is entirely Lila and Mary's fault, but also the fault of his real mother who's murdering people, which makes everything so confusing for him.

[00:30:10] It's an amazing performance from Anthony Perkins, it has to be said. Yeah. But to see him get to the stage, he hasn't killed anyone. Oh, yeah. He's the only one who hasn't dressed up as his mother. Yeah. In the entire movie. And then he gets right to the end. This woman shows up saying, I'm your real mother. And he offers her some tea while he stood behind her in the kitchen and then smashes her over the head with a shovel. Yes. Yeah. And it's just so fucking shocking.

[00:30:40] It is. It's like, Jesus, where did that come from? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he does poison her at first as well. Oh, so there's like, I guess, strychnine in the tea. So she's like convulsing. Yeah. And you think, oh, this is it. That's how he kills her. But no, shovel to the head. You gotta make sure, right? Yeah. And this wonderful overhead shot with her on the floor with this chair collapsed around her just jerking while he sort of clears up. Yeah.

[00:31:10] Around her. It's just so disturbing and funny. I love it. But it's also like spine tingling. Like it's chilling. That final scene where he picks her up, like in the original movie, and he takes her upstairs and puts her to bed in her room. And you hear like the voice again, the mother voice, like telling him where to put her. And it's just like, oh, yes. Over 10 to psych her. Oh, yeah.

[00:31:39] So and then your last shot is him silhouetted against the darkening sunset with the house behind him and his mother up in the window and fade to black. And it's like, Norman's back. Yeah. So it feels like it's setting itself up to be a franchise, which, of course, it did end up sputtering out another film and then a TV movie for a fourth film. And then, of course, the famous remake. That's right. In 1998. Yes. The shot by frame by frame remake.

[00:32:09] Pretty much. There are some divergences. But yeah, pretty much. That's a fascinating one to talk about. In terms of that old adage that the thing that sort of has the most impact on the audience's impression of a whole film is what happens right at the very end. Even if you're not impressed with the rest of the movie, you're going to walk out of the theater thinking, wow. Yeah. Yeah. For now. I mean, yeah. Like I said, the weakest part was Mrs. Spool being the killer, but it was redeemed immediately

[00:32:38] by that final shot. Everything after that. Oh, thank you. If it had just, if the credits had run after Mrs. Spool confessed everything, I would have thought terrible movie. Yeah. But yeah. It definitely redeemed itself. It did. So shovel was Richard Franklin's idea. Tom Holland thought it was over the top. Tom Holland just thought, let him poison her with the same tea, the tin of tea that he keeps hesitating towards.

[00:33:08] Every time he makes somebody a drink, he's like, shall I kill them? No. That's how it was written. But Richard Franklin says, why don't we just braid her over the head with a shovel? Yeah, right. That'll shock people. And he's bang on. Well done, Mr. Franklin. For me, I think it's sort of a seminal moment in horror movie history. It's Anthony Perkins smashing that lady over the head with a shovel. It's great. It is great. It is great. Yeah.

[00:33:37] And also you mentioned he doesn't kill anyone apart from Mrs. Spool at the end. No. But yeah. And you have all these other kills. So you've got Toomey, the teenager in the basement and Lila. What's interesting, Lila's death, it's almost exactly the same as in the original. And the fact that it's in the fruit cellar, there's a light overhanging light. But in the original, she gets saved by Sam and she doesn't get killed.

[00:34:03] But in this movie, she's killed by Mrs. Spool dressed up as Norman's mother. Well, I guess she is. She is Norman's brother. But dressed up as the theatrical Norman's mother. And she does get killed in the fruit cellar, which is like, again, quite eerie. It's like, oh, wow. Great nod. Great nod to the original. Yeah. It's interesting that the victims are men mostly. So the doctor also gets killed. But that's Mary's stab scene. Yeah.

[00:34:33] So it's an interesting scene, that scene with Mary. So Mary's trying to bring Norman back. Norman's gone. He thinks he's on the phone with his mother, his real mother, not his fake mother that was buried in the ground, his real mother. And she's like, I'm your mother. Stop doing this. She dresses up as Norman's mother. And she's like standing in front of him saying, I'm your mother. Stop believing this. And then she takes off her wig. And he's gone.

[00:35:03] He can't get him back. And he's kind of approaching her. And then she just starts stabbing him. It's such a, I don't know. I don't know what to think about that scene. It's tragic. Yeah. It's really sad. Especially for their relationship. I mean, several people, for example, Tom Holland talks about it as being a romance. I'm never sold on Mary and Norman being in a sort of proto-romantic relationship at all. The age gap is too creepy. Yeah.

[00:35:31] And also, I don't, it's more like he's a, he's like a little boy trapped in a 40 year old's body. Like, I feel like she's almost comforting him or trying to help him as if he was a little boy. And so that scene, yeah, it was very tragic because she can't bring him back. And the only way to stop him sort of approaching her and getting to her is to start stabbing him. But he just, he's like gone.

[00:35:58] And he just, he just gets stabbed over and over again. And it's, oh, it's, it's really. In his hands. It's really sad because you thought you, you really like Mary. Like Mary is, yeah, definitely my favorite character in the movie. Like she is very, very relatable and likable. And the fact that she does realize that he isn't a bad person. She's trying really hard to help him. And then the police arrive and she gets shot because she's holding a knife. Yes. And dressed as Norma B.

[00:36:27] Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, they pin it all on her in the end. So what do you think about the level of gore in this movie? Because it's an interesting hybrid, I think. Obviously, it comes from the era where Friday the 13th was just trying to outdo itself with every sequel.

[00:36:51] With how gruesome and disgusting Tom Savini's gore scenes could be. The kill scenes could be. It was all about the kills. Sure, sure, sure. But at the same time, it's trying to still adhere to Hitchcock. It's still trying to be more about suspense and what you don't see rather than what you do see and disturbing you. So it sort of tries to do both. So you get flashes of knives going into things. But then there's a lot of visual rhyming instead.

[00:37:21] So you'll go to things smashing on the floor instead or things falling down the stairs. So it's trying to do both. I think it's a reasonable balance. But some of the stuff where knives are going into mouths and out of the back of heads. Yeah. Some of it feels a little bit tonally out of place for what's otherwise a fairly classy movie. I didn't mind it. Apart from the dummy victims weren't amazing. No.

[00:37:49] So it would be like actual actor and then it would cut to, yeah, that's definitely a dummy getting stabbed. I don't know. That's the only thing I can critique. Like I didn't mind it. It was almost like they decided, hey, let's make Psycho but for adults. So you have some nudity in the shower scene. Yeah.

[00:38:13] Actual nudity as opposed to in Psycho where it's just like, you know, it's out of frame or like you don't see anything in the original. You see blood in the original but you never see any actual knife going into things. Which you do see in this. So it's almost like the upgraded Psycho to, oh, this is an R-rated movie now. I didn't mind it. I didn't think it was gratuitous. I didn't think it was too far. No. Like it was, like most of the kills were quite Hitchcockian.

[00:38:41] The teenager killed in the basement felt very much like the shower scene almost. Like you don't really see anything. No, you don't. Although that's the one sort of diversion where it's just sort of, here's two random teenagers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That feels like very much of its time rather than really of a piece with the rest of the movie where all of the other characters who die are related to the main cast and the main plot. Yes. Yes.

[00:39:08] Rather than just here's two random people we can kill. Yeah. Yeah. I know. And I mean, what was she even doing down there? Mrs. Mrs. Like what? She's just like killing time? Yeah. Like just hanging out in the fruit cellar? I don't understand. I don't know. Just waiting for people to show up and dress up as her sister for some reason. Yeah. Yeah. There are some amazing shots in the movie. Yes.

[00:39:36] I'm particularly fond of the shots of eyes looking through peep holes, for example. I think that's one of the best scares in the film. It's like J-horror. Yeah. Like I jumped at that scene for sure. Yeah. That's really disturbing.

[00:39:54] And of course the cinematographer is Dean Cundey, who I don't think it's a coincidence that all of John Carpenter's best films were lensed by Dean Cundey. Right. Right. Yes. Because if you see when Dean sort of disappears because he's like, he's with Spielberg, he's doing Jurassic Park or whatever. All of a sudden Carpenter's movies take a bit of a nose dive. Right.

[00:40:20] I think there are a number of factors, but I definitely think Dean Cundey is one of them. I think as a cinematographer, he was pretty incredible. They called him the Prince of Darkness at the time. And he does an incredible job, I think, of balancing the sort of gothic darkness and looming shadows and so on. But also wonderful richness of color, which, of course, the original film didn't have. So sort of visually designing it in color.

[00:40:49] There are just little things like with the costuming, like when Mary says that she's going to take a shower, she's wearing a blood red cashmere sweater. Oh, right. Right. Yeah. I don't know. The visual design of the movie I thought was really beautiful. Oh, definitely. And also lots of references to Hitchcock as well. Like the use of shadow was great because the killer was always in shadow. Exactly like in Psycho in the original film.

[00:41:17] And the house, I mean, if you look at it generally, the house is very dimly lit. Like every scene is very shadowy, but it works. Obviously, it's a movie. It's atmosphere. It's great. But Norman constantly looked a little bit creepy, even though he was being nice. And that's still with the cinematography. And it works. It works really well. Like the whole house felt, I would never stay in that house. No. There's a creepy, scary looking house. No, that's a no.

[00:41:47] No, definitely not. I mean, there's no reason for her to stay there. I mean, at least Mary, she's visibly hesitant about staying there and trying to make excuses and trying to leave. And then she eventually does. But then you find that she has a reason why she's doing it. But yeah, you're right. It's not great. Kudos to Anthony Perkins, though, for that central performance. He was persuaded to come back by the strength of Tom Holland's screenplay and Richard Franklin's

[00:42:15] intention that it was about giving Norman an arc again. It was about exploring him from a sympathetic angle and with more complexity and nuance than perhaps it could have been in the 80s. He could have just been, you know, some drooling maniac from the get go, like, you know, a new Michael Myers boogeyman. Yeah. And nothing else. Yeah. Which, of course, he wasn't going to be interested in. I think he probably was hesitant because the original film did typecast him.

[00:42:44] I think he was definitely struggling to get romantic leads after that, for example. Oh, really? Oh, okay. Yeah. Kind of derailed his career. And I think he was worried that this would sort of even further typecast him. And unfortunately, I think it did. I don't think he did much after this apart from more psycho sequels and even trashier stuff. Yeah. I mean, I have regrettably not seen Anthony Perkins in many movies.

[00:43:11] He's like, I think it's only the movies that we've done on the podcast, apart from, obviously, Psycho, the original. Yeah. The Black Hole and Winter Kills. Oh. The other movies I've seen Anthony Perkins in, which is outrageous. Yeah. He was amazing. I think his character is very sympathetic because he has this kind of stutter as well when he's talking. He stammers a lot. He doesn't get words out as well as he should. There's one scene where he says cutlery in a really nice way. He's like, I don't have any cutlery.

[00:43:41] It's great. It's just great. It's just nice sort of subtle sort of inflection in his voice that really work in providing him as a sympathetic character. And the fact that he's so considerate and caring for Mary as well, which is really great. And I don't know what it is with movies justifying killers. That's so interesting.

[00:44:05] You have all these prequels or TV shows like Hannibal that you really do like the killer a lot. Yeah. I guess it's like our obsession with true crime and that sort of thing. You don't want him to kill, but you can understand him. No, he's a very tragic figure. Permanently. I like the way you describe him as being as a boy trapped in a 40 year old's body. Yeah. Obviously, he's been institutionalized, which wouldn't have helped, but he's always been very sheltered.

[00:44:33] I mean, you get that in the original movie as well. He hasn't had much experience of the world. Yeah. And he's just this wistful boy trying to do good in the world, talking nostalgically about his mother's cheese toasted sandwiches. Oh, that's right. And he adds in these funny little touches. Tom Holland mentioned that the scene where he's staring at himself in a mirror, strangely,

[00:45:02] and moving back and forth right before I think either the doctor arrives. Somebody arrives at the beginning of the scene. And for some reason, he wanted to start it with him staring at himself in the mirror. Right. And he said there's no plot or thematic reason for this. It's just Anthony's idea very much from his years working in Europe on art films, independent films. Ah, right. And the scene where he talks about his mother and the toasted cheese sandwiches was also

[00:45:30] the one thing that he asked Tom Holland to put in. Just another hint at the Norman's complex relationship with this need for maternal care, but also being abused and scarred by it. So yeah, he's a really complicated character. Perkins just nails being cute and shy. But also you're really not sure throughout the whole movie whether he's going to put the dress on and start killing people. Yeah. You really are not sure. Yeah.

[00:45:59] He's creepy as all hell. He just sits in that uncanny valley between, is this a nice guy or is he about to kill me? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Now it's time for Random Trivia. Yeah. Okay, Conrad, it's trivia time. What juicy morsel have you dredged from a swamp today? Well, I've got a couple for you. One of the ones is probably one that everybody knows, which is that when Norman has a flashback

[00:46:25] of poisoning his mother and he sees a reflection of himself in the heavily varnished bedroom door. Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You see him as a young boy and that young boy is Osgood Perkins, Anthony Perkins' son at the age of eight and now the director of films like The Black Coat's Daughter, The Monkey, Long Legs. Oh, really? Yes, that's Os Perkins. Oh, wow.

[00:46:53] I didn't know that he was a director in his own right now. He is, yeah. Yeah, so Os Perkins is playing his father, the younger version of Norman Bates in Psycho 2. Wow, that's cool. That's really cool. That's probably the most fun but probably most well-known piece of trivia from Psycho 2. Lesser well-known perhaps is Robert Block, the author who wrote the original novel on which Psycho was based.

[00:47:22] He did write a sequel, didn't he? Yeah. I didn't realise Psycho originally was based on the novel. Yeah. So it's, yeah, very much inspired by the real-life serial killer Ed Gein, of course, or Gein, I think you say, you're supposed to pronounce it. So I think Robert Block wrote the novel in 1982 and it was a diatribe about Hollywood because I think he didn't like Hitchcock's movie very much. Really?

[00:47:49] So I think, yeah, so it was Norman terrorising Hollywood but then he dies really early on. What? The novel was widely hated and it was decreed to be unfilmable so they did not do anything with it. Apparently it's terrible. Yeah. And that's that true, yeah.

[00:48:17] I did read, unfortunately, I don't know whether this is true, but Meg Tilly did not have a great time on this movie. Oh. And apparently she did not get along very well with, I think, the director, Richard Franklin and especially Anthony Perkins. Oh. So it doesn't show in the film, though. Like it feels like they really have sort of affection for each other character-wise, but

[00:48:45] unfortunately, apparently she did not like this, the production of this film. No. Well, Tom Holland mentions on the commentary track that Anthony Perkins asked for her to be removed from the film when they were halfway through their 32-day shooting schedule. Yeah, I read that too. Yeah, which he said, of course, was just impossible. You can't recast her at that point. So they managed to achieve some sort of detente and continue. Yeah, you're right. There's no evidence of it on screen.

[00:49:15] They have a really affectionate relationship with each other. They do. They do. Not romantic, but nurturing. But yeah. Yeah. That's sad. Because she's a lovely actress, Meg Tilly. Yeah. Again, I haven't said anything. I think The Big Chill is the only other movie I've seen her in. And she was fantastic at this. Yeah. I remember her from a thriller called Masquerade, scored by John Barry. Okay.

[00:49:41] With Rob Lowe, where she's a millionairess and various people are plotting to kill her. Oh, okay. She's a vision of vulnerability, but then there's a twist at the end where she's smarter than she appears. So it's... Oh, okay. She's really good. I've always really liked her. And of course, her sister, Jennifer Tilly, has become more famous. Okay. I was thinking, I know Jennifer Tilly. Are they related? They are. Okay. Yeah. Right.

[00:50:09] Her sister, Jennifer, became more famous probably through the Chucky franchise. Right. Yes. Yes. Yes. Oh, no. I totally see it. They have the same eyes. Okay. Yeah. I have to say, it wasn't until I met you, I think, that you told me that Jamie Lee Curtis was the daughter of Janet Leigh. But also, I didn't realize until watching Psycho in this movie that Samuel Loomis is a character from Halloween, the Doctor. Yeah.

[00:50:38] Direct reference to Sam Loomis in Psycho 1. Doctor Loomis, yeah. I had no idea. I had no idea. Yeah. All these connections. I think Jamie Lee was up for the role of Mary in this movie, which would have been really weird. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no. Kathleen Turner, I think, was considered Carrie Fisher, I think. Oh. I think she auditioned for it. But yeah, there was something about Meg Tilly's innocence. I mean, she hadn't been in much at that point. Yeah, right.

[00:51:05] There was just something about her that was just so instantly lovable that they thought would serve the character well. So that you would be surprised when you found out who she really was and what she was up to. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course. We can't end discussion without talking about the music. It's Jerry Goldsmith. It's Jerry Goldsmith. Your favourite. And also, yeah, big shoes to fill after Bert and Herman in the original score. They were contemporaries for a while.

[00:51:35] They both worked on the Twilight Zone series together, Jerry being a good decade or so younger than Bernard. But yeah, they did cross paths professionally. So he would have known Bernard's style without a doubt. He would have known how to mimic it. But I don't feel like he really does. No, I don't think so at all. I find Herman does a lot of descending motifs. It's the same thing, just descending down the scale, which works really well.

[00:52:04] It's great for thriller. But there wasn't any of that in the score. And there's some electronic music in here. There's sort of some weird sounds coming out. Yeah. But not in an over-the-top, like sci-fi way. They kind of mix it well within the orchestra. Yeah, this is from Jerry's period where he moved away from experimenting with analogue live sounds in with the orchestra that was strange, as he did on Star Trek The Motion Picture with that blaster beam thing,

[00:52:34] the big polished artillery shell. Oh, okay. On Alien, where he had so many different instruments from all over the world that made that soundtrack really strange. This is where he moved into electronics in a big way. It was hit and miss, I think, during this period. Like some of them, like Explorers and Gremlins, I think sound amazing. Yeah. So that's 84, 85. This one, I'm not so sure about the electronics in this one.

[00:53:01] I think some of them are a bit sort of cheesy and out of place. Okay. You didn't mind them? I thought it was very subtle. Like it wasn't overtly electronic sounding. Some of it felt like he was trying to make it sound acoustic. It sounds very analogue, if anything. Yeah. It just has a kind of, quite a warm, woody, I don't know, tone to it. Yeah. It doesn't sound too sci-fi or anything like that. Yeah, I don't mind it.

[00:53:29] He used to double his woodwinds with synth pads quite a lot. And I think it was quite a lovely effect on his melodies. And the main melody for this one, which is another thing that I'm quite sad about, because, you know, that opening title from Bernard Herrmann on Psycho really pumps you up for the movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Really fast, ostinata-driven thing. Whereas this is more of a sad lullaby for Norman that's sympathetic.

[00:53:56] I mean, it's tonally and thematically, it's perfect for the movie, but it doesn't really get me juiced for the thrills ahead necessarily. No, no. It's a bit of a disappointment. I don't know. I don't think it's a disappointment. It's a departure. It's not... I'm glad he doesn't just recycle. No. Like Herman's motifs or like, you know, the string stabs and stuff. I'm glad that it's just not, oh, okay, we've got the shower scene music again.

[00:54:25] Like, because that has become ultimate cliche. Oh, yeah. It's a meme. Like, you can't... Yeah, 100% is a meme. There's no way you can have string stabs in horror anymore, because it's just laughable. How... Like, I mean, Psycho is just so iconic that you can't replicate that. It just feels cheap. Absolutely. No, he doesn't do that. And when he does score the action scenes, I mean, he's pretty full-throated and imaginative

[00:54:53] and wild with how he's scoring them. I mean, they do sound terrifying. Yeah. I think it's just some of the electronics, like the sort of... The sort of weird phase, sort of almost vocodery. It's not one of my favorites. I think it's one of his clunkier synth orchestra interpolations. Okay. I didn't mind it. I thought it was quite subtle. I think it was quite understated. It wasn't prominent.

[00:55:21] Like, I do feel like if you took out the electronic stuff, it would still work. I think the orchestra stands on its own. Of course, he did have to conduct the shower scene. He did have to re-record that score. Oh, you mean the very start? Yeah. They replay the shower scene from the original. Yeah, they do. Which is a ballsy move, having a pre-title sequence, which is the most famous sequence probably in cinema history. Yeah.

[00:55:50] Certainly horror cinema history. Yeah. He had to conduct a new recording of Bernard Herrmann's murder. Because, of course, the sound design on all of it is completely new. Oh, is it? Right. Because it needed to be stereo to match him with the rest of the movie. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. So, he did have to lift the baton and get the orchestra to replay Herrmann. Oh, okay. And do the eek, eek, eek. I think they were all rolling their eyes a bit when they did it. But, yeah. Yeah.

[00:56:19] They did do it again. Yeah. It was an interesting way to start a movie. Just replay the most iconic scene from the original in black and white as well. And then slowly transitioned to colour as the sun rises behind the silhouettes of the house. It's beautiful. It's very well done. Okay, yeah. Coming to you live from the Movie Oubli at Theatre, it's the prestigious Moobli Awards.

[00:56:49] It's the Moobli Awards. It's where we dominate our favourite whodunit parts of the film in a number of mummy issues riddled categories. Best quote. My favourite quote comes from a lovely side character. It's Sheriff John Hunt who dispenses a lot of rural working man wisdom. And at one point he says, If Norman Bates is crazy, there's a whole lot of people around here running a close second.

[00:57:20] It's really good. It's really good. And so true because everybody is dressing up as Norman's mother. Yeah. Yeah. It's ridiculous. It's three people, right? We've got Mary, Lila and Mrs. Spool. Yes. And never Norman. Yeah. Yeah. No. My favourite quote is from Mrs. Spool. Towards the start of the movie, before she's revealed as a big killer, when she's in the diner talking to Norman.

[00:57:48] And they're just seeing Mary get off the phone with her boyfriend. And Mrs. Spool says to him, boyfriend troubles, that poor child, heart of gold, but a head of wood. It's just... Best hair or costume? Well, the most obvious costume is the mother's costume. It's very iconic. But it's good to see it in colour. So it's blue.

[00:58:16] It's a long blue floral dress. And with the grey wig as well. But yeah, it's... It is. It epitomises psycho. It does. Yes. And everybody's wearing it. Yeah. But not Norman. Not in this movie. Not in this movie. No. My pick has to be a picture of sartorial elegance to me. The sleazy hotel manager. He's just got this amazing wardrobe.

[00:58:45] I particularly like when he's in the diner and he's tormenting Norman and being rude to Mary. And he's wearing this black and white printed shirt with orange horses on it. Yeah. And grey checkered trousers and white leather slip-on shoes. What a stud. Yeah, I know. I mean, he is the most unlikable character in all of movie history. He is awful. Most 80s moment.

[00:59:15] I think the most 80s thing about this is the controversy around the insanity clause, oddly enough. Interesting. Yes. Yeah, there were a lot of movies in the 80s and 90s that had this kind of revolved around insanity or like, yeah, pleading insanity. But are they actually insane? Yeah, interesting. And I think it all stems from the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan in 1981. Oh, okay.

[00:59:42] Because in that case, John Hinckley, the man who shot him, was found not guilty by reason of insanity in 1982. And I think a lot of people were angry about that. So Congress changed the law in 1984. So you have to... The burden of proof is placed on the defense rather than the prosecution. And the bar is set a bit higher, I think. Yeah. So yeah. Okay. Very hot issue then.

[01:00:11] So it's interesting they chose that as the basis for Norman's release. Yeah. My most 80s part of the movie would be, I guess, the arcade game in the diner. Yeah. Like that's... Yeah. You know, that was like you had to have one in every restaurant or like... I mean, fish and chip shops growing up used to always have an arcade game. But in this diner, it's Battlezone and Pac-Man. Ms. Pac-Man, I think. Oh, was it? Oh, okay.

[01:00:41] Yeah. The sequel. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. It's Battlezone, the 3D first person tank shoot-em-up released by Atari in 1980. And did you spot who's playing it? No. It's the director. Oh, is it? Interesting. That's great. Favourite scene. I have quite a few, but I mean, I would probably pick the scene where Mary's investigating the hole.

[01:01:07] So she's in the bathroom and she realises there's like some light coming out from the hole in the wall and she finds it. She discovers that it's the mother's room. So she grabs her gun and goes investigating into the room. And it's just like a really tense, suspenseful scene. It's really nicely paced as well. Like you're really on the edge of your seat.

[01:01:31] And then when she discovers where the hole is in the mother's room behind one of the paintings and then she sees the eye, it's like, yeah, that's the best jump scare I've had in a while. Holy shit. It works really well. It does. I love that. I think Robert Zemeckis mimics it in What Lies Beneath Through a Garden Fence. I love that movie. Yeah. Yeah, I do too, actually. Yeah.

[01:01:59] No, it's a great, it's the best shock in the movie apart from the finale, which would probably be my pick for favourite scene. That is the epic shovel over the head. But if I had to pick another one, I think it's probably the scene where Norman is talking to his quote unquote mother on the phone and Mary is trying desperately to convince him it's not her, even dressing up as her in front of him. All of it is such a complicated dance of a scene.

[01:02:28] I love the blocking, the camera shots, especially the moment when the camera sort of pulls back from Mary and goes up towards the ceiling and she looks so small and desperate because she realises Norman's really gone now and she can't get him back. Oh, it's great. I love that. It's really good. Most cliche moment. Teenagers sneaking off to take drugs and have sex get murdered. Yeah, I know.

[01:02:57] I mean, it's textbook slasher, isn't it? It really is. At least it's the boy who gets killed and the girl that gets away in this one, which is quite refreshing because it's usually the girl that gets it, doesn't it? Usually. They both normally get it, I find. Yeah. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, what did surprise me is you've got a witness to a murder and no one believes the girl. No. Because they can't find the body.

[01:03:27] It's like, really? These crazy kids. Oh, I don't know. I don't know. Best special effect. I think you probably won't agree with me on this, but I did. I kind of thought the knife through the mouth of Lila was good. I mean, it's obvious that it's a dummy, but it was quite shocking for me. I didn't expect that. It was probably the most sort of retortous kill, I guess, in this movie.

[01:03:54] It did feel very slasher-esque, I guess, but I think it worked really well. It's overtly sexualized as well, I guess. You know, it's shoving an object in somebody's mouth. I guess so. It is pretty shocking. Yeah. It's one of those kills that you would really only see in kind of a slasher movie where they try to be a little bit creative. You know, special effect for you. My favourite actually isn't the makeup effects.

[01:04:23] It's Albert Whitlock's matte paintings. I really enjoyed them too, yes. He is a legend in the industry. This was really towards the end of his career. This was him sort of coming out of retirement to do people a favour. Okay. He worked on The Thing as well and did some beautiful matte shots for that in 1982. But for this, I think his most crowning achievement is when the teenage girl is running away from the Bates house after her boyfriend has been murdered.

[01:04:52] You get this aerial straight down bird's eye view that Albert Whitlock has painted most of it, except for like a little bit of sand in the middle that the girl is crawling along is real. The rest of it is this bird's eye view painted and he's painted it with wide angle lens distortion. Wow. And it's amazing. Oh. I don't know how he's done it. It's so audacious and it holds up on screen. It's even in 4K. Yeah. I was very impressed. Wow. Yeah.

[01:05:21] I need to rewatch that. I didn't even realise. Yeah. It's not real. It's a matte painting. It's online if you want to look at it. I might post it on our socials. All of his matte paintings are available online. Yeah. Yeah. Favourite sound effect. Clang. I mean, it's got to be... The shovel. Okay. Yeah. It's got to be the shovel. Come on. It is great. It is great. It's possibly one of the best sound effects in horror movie history, that shovel going over that woman's head, because they're not sparing with it.

[01:05:50] It's not comical. It's a beefy clang. Yeah. Yeah. It really hits her on. It is. Yeah. It is good. It is good. I mean, the sound I would pick... So this kind of relates to my 80s moment as well. It's the Pac-Man dying sound in the diner. The wee-wee-wee-wee-wee-wee kind of sound. wee-wee-wee-wee. Yeah. Because you've got... It's iconic. Yeah. You've got Toomey confronting Norman, and it's getting really heated to the point where some of the customers...

[01:06:20] Well, I think the mother is trying to get his son to leave, and so he dies in Pac-Man, and you've got that sound effect. It's just... It is very iconic, that sound effect. It is. You're right. Most funniest moment. So the thing that made me laugh out loud the most was the moment when, in an effort to convince Norman that his mother is really dead, the psychiatrist takes him to the graveyard

[01:06:46] and digs up the corpse of his mother and shows it to him. And I thought, do doctors really have that authority? Can you do that? To exhume bodies from the ground after 23 years. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I just... I was in hysterics. I thought, surely doctors can't do this. Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny, the reaction from Norman as well, because they open up the coffin, and

[01:07:13] then you're just like, oh yeah, she's dead. Yes. It's undeniable evidence right there. She's definitely in the ground, and not walking around giving him phone calls. My funniest moment is definitely unintentional, and made me very, very, very... subjective to me. But there is a scene where Lila and Mary are arguing in the hotel lobby, and then this ominous sound comes on.

[01:07:43] It's kind of this almost like white noise tone. And I thought, oh wow, Jerry Goldsmith. He's getting really experimental on the score. And then the next thing you see is just the cleaner, hoovering. And I just lost it. I thought it was part of the movie. I thought it was this kind of electronic tone, like sort of David Lynch level of sound design or score.

[01:08:11] But it's literally just the cleaner. Just vacuuming the carpet. I don't know. I lost it. That's definitely a damn moment for sure. All right. That's our mooblies. That's our mooblies. Hi, this is Lotta Losten, and you're listening to Movie Obliget. Yes, it's that time. Final verdicts.

[01:08:41] Should a Psycho 2 be resurrected from its dark fruit cellar to be cherished as a great sequel to a classic? Or should it be stabbed a hundred times whilst smashing jars of jam and preserves to the floor and then be dumped in the swamp, sinking down to the bottom of the obet? Never spoken of again. Conrad, Psycho 2. Final verdict? Well, this won't come as a shock to you because I've been gushing about this movie all the way through.

[01:09:11] But yes, I think this is a legacy sequel, if it is such a thing, done right. It doesn't do fan service, but it does take all of the visual language of the original movie and remix it in a way that creates a new story. It does the writing by Tom Holland is a progression from the original story and builds on the

[01:09:37] characters and takes it somewhere very interesting that enticed Anthony Perkins to come back to deliver an incredible performance as Norman Bates. And it adds a little bit more gore, adds a bit more violence, updates it a little bit. It adds colour, of course, and the visual design is amazing, thanks to Dean Cundy lensing the movie. It's got Jerry Goldsmith scoring it. Not my favourite bit of clunky synthesiser work in there, but I still love it.

[01:10:05] But ultimately, it's fun. It's a wild ride. It's got some really good scares and it has one hell of a cherry on top in the form of a giant shovel over the top of an old lady's head and finishes with a deeply disturbing final sequence with Norman reinstated with his mother back in her bedroom. So, yeah, I mean, maybe it does sort of sully the original.

[01:10:32] Maybe it is a bit of a cash grab, but I think it was done with good intentions and artfully and it's still a great time when you watch it. So, I would definitely let it free from the fruit seller. Right, right, right, right. Well, I have to say this might be the best sequel I've ever seen to an original movie. Like especially such a classic original movie as well.

[01:10:59] Like I very much enjoyed this movie. It's respectful while expanding on its original. It's not copying its original yet still referencing and in the same visual style of Hitchcock, which was quite refreshing. Like it doesn't stray too far away. It doesn't become just another slasher movie. I don't know. It's just really well written, I think.

[01:11:29] Like that's what makes it so incredible as a sequel. Like it does explain a bunch, but it doesn't explain too much as well. There's still sort of a sense of we don't really know what's going on in Norman's head, which is great. I think Quentin Tarantino has stated this as he likes it better than the original as well. He prefers Psycho 2. I don't know whether that's true.

[01:11:59] Yeah. Really loved it. I really did love it. This feels very much like Psycho 1 without Hitchcock, which is quite a feat to achieve. Yeah. Credit to Richard Franklin. I think he did an amazing job. And Tom Holland. I mean, the movie is just far better than it deserves to be. I don't know why people didn't talk about it more. Like I'm just so surprised. I'm really, really surprised this isn't like heralded as a really, really good movie.

[01:12:27] Like it's shockingly good. Yeah, it is. That's all I have to say. It's well known, I think, amongst horror fans for sure. Is it? It's interesting. I think it's fairly well known. I mean, it was a hit at the time. So people may chafe at the idea of us saying that it's in the Oobliette because, I mean, it was made with very, very cheaply. Five million budget took 34 million at the box office.

[01:12:53] So it led to Universal green lighting another sequel almost immediately. Right. Okay. So it did well at the time, but I'm surprised. No, it doesn't feel as though people know about it. You know, when you get to a generation after my generation, people don't seem to realize that it exists. There's quite a lot of that. I didn't. I didn't know. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing.

[01:13:20] Well, so we're sold on it, but are the patrons? Let's check it out. Yeah. Hello, Gary. Hello. Could we have the patrons vote, please? Here are some pictures I found on Google for matrons vote. No, patrons vote. They set it free. Oh, okay. Yeah. So other people do know about this movie. They did or they enjoyed watching it.

[01:13:48] So it was, yeah, 75% to 25%. So three quarters of our patrons wanted to set this one free. Chazilla said, Psycho has many sequels and I haven't seen any of them until now. How could anyone follow up on Hitchcock's perfection? So I went in with very low expectations and I was pleasantly surprised.

[01:14:14] Franklin and Holland successfully took a follow up to one of the greatest movies of all time and made it their own. I found the story engaging with lots of tension and suspense and even a few laughs. Tony Perkins nailed it, as always, 23 years later. Still handsome with that devilish smile. Vera Miles played Obsession a little too well. Loved all her quips. And opening the film with the shower scene was genius.

[01:14:40] I was thinking about the shower scene as soon as you announce this on the pod. Best just to play it and get us right into Hatchplot's world immediately. Then we can just enjoy the film. Oh, nice. So nice to see somebody watch it for the first time amongst our patrons. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nick Hardy says, going to re-watch this week, but I remember this is a really decent movie. File it next to Exorcist 3 in the actually a good sequel to a classic movie.

[01:15:10] list. Yeah, really good. Yeah, amazingly good. And finally, Eddie Coulter said, set Norman free. Psycho 2 is a sequel that shouldn't work, yet it does with an amazing performance once again from Anthony Perkins and a clever script from Tom Holland. It serves as a prime example of how to do a sequel. Yes, yes, exactly. I feel like modern screenwriters should take note.

[01:15:38] Modern screenwriters should do a lot of things. Go back to school, I think, but yeah. Okay. So we're popping a wig and a dress on this one and setting it free. Off you go. Goodbye. All right. Conrad, what's up next? What's the film? Well, this is going to be exciting. So we are shifting medium. We are shifting decade.

[01:16:06] We are even shifting country. Next time, we will be looking at the Japanese animated science fiction film, Red Line. Oh, this has been on my watch list for a while amongst many, many other Japanese animated movies. So I'm keen to check it out. I'm very keen. Yeah. No, I'll be interested. I know nothing about it. Never heard of it. My Japanese anime knowledge is basically Akira.

[01:16:37] Right. Sort of it. Oh, okay. Well, at least you've seen that. What year did Red Line come out? It was 2009. Oh, okay. That's more recent than I thought. Yeah. Yeah. It's one of those years where you think, well, that's not that long ago. And then you realize it's like nearly 20 years. And then you feel old. Oh, yeah. 16 years ago. Yeah. That was a while ago. Yeah. It was. Yeah. So I'm looking forward to it. Yeah. I know nothing. Right.

[01:17:07] Yeah. And we'll have a guest as well. Yes. Who picked this movie. So it should be fun. Yes. Yes. So listeners, if you want to keep up to date with all the episodes and message us and comment on all the episodes that we release, you can follow us on all platforms as Movie Oobliet. And you can email us directly at movie.oubliet at gmail.com. Yes. And if you want to support us and keep us going, then head on over to Patreon.

[01:17:35] There's various different ranges all the way from a dollar just to get extra bonus bits all the way up to $10 to be an executive producer like Chazilla, Isaac Sutton, Dr. Doggy, Surge, iconographer, Ryan A. Potter, Evan Goodchild, and Nick Hardy. Mm. Yes. Thank you so much for the support. We do have merchandise on Redbubble and a YouTube channel.

[01:18:00] And please rate us and review us if you haven't already on Spotify or whatever you're listening to us on. It does help us out quite a lot. Mm. It does. All right. Another episode for 2025, Psycho 2. I'm glad I finally watched this movie. It has been a while. I think ever since we started the podcast and you mentioned it, I've been meaning to watch this movie. So I'm glad to take it off the list finally. So am I.

[01:18:27] And I'm glad that it made your jaw hit the floor for that shovel moment. Because I love it. Anyway, listeners, until next time. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye. We only... We only review the films. Others tend to forget. Come with us and don't call them the movie you be yet. Norman. you