Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990) Review

Given the angle taken by the third instalment, it’s a wonder that Norman is out again so quickly given that he was incarcerated for twenty-two years prior to Psycho II. But here he is out again and phoning up a talk radio station letting the world know his violent past, calling himself Ed and chalking up a monster phone bill.

The talk radio show is covering boys that kill their mums so Norman is pretty much the guy you would want to call in. As Norman chats away we learn that he is now married to a therapist or whatever from his last spell in an institution – how is that ethical? And what’s more she is pregnant! Norman is not happy that his family madness gene may continue in the child, and is looking to celebrate his birthday by cutting wifey up in ‘Mother’s old house.

By having Norman talk about his relationship with his mother, we see Henry Thomas of E.T. the Extra Terrestrial (1982) fame playing Bates as his younger self discovering girls, stabbing, dressing up as his mother and dumping bodies in swamps. Thomas acquits himself well as does the always-stunning Olivia Hussey from Black Christmas (1974) as ‘Mother’, a role that could have so easily fallen into parody.

Something about the jumping back and forth and the movie’s framing proves a little wearisome after a while and the climax feels muted and a little redundant – rather like John Landis’ cameo as the radio producer. Director Mick Garris does his best, and given the possible constraints of making the movie for TV, it’s not as bad as the title would make you believe, perhaps by having the original’s writer Joseph Stefano inking the screenplay.

Anthony Perkins, who was dying of AIDS at the time of filming, passed away two years after the movie and would always to be best remembered for the role he still played with dignity through a so so franchise, that of mother’s boy Norman Bates.