Psycho series

(On DVD, August 2021) Considering that Psycho II was a sequel released twenty-two years after the nigh-untouchable Hitchcock original, considering that it was made at the end of the slasher boom of the early 1980s, considering that horror sequels at the time were at best uninspired rethreads, it’s perfectly understandable not to expect too much out of the result. It may also help explain why the sequel is far more interesting than expected. As it begins, even the large time-skip between the first film and its sequel is an integral part of the plot: Norman Bates (played by Anthony Perkins looking as if he has barely aged during the interim) is released from prison after purging a lengthy sentence and demonstrating good behaviour. His release is not well-received at all by the families of the victims, and yet he goes back home to an eerie house and a decrepit motel. A few scenes later, it becomes clear that some characters have a vested interest in flipping the protagonist over the edge into homicidal mania, even as he resists and reminds himself that he’s a reformed man. It’s that kind of somewhat unusual plotting dynamic that raises Psycho II over the morass of slashers whose popularity was waning at the time. The filmmakers were able to go beyond just offering a rethread of the original, and staked out their own territory, interesting both as a sequel but also as variation on a subgenre where you actually have some emotional stake in the protagonist’s moral struggle. (And I’m skipping over some of the wilder third-act revelations, not strictly necessary but also interesting in their own right.)  It helps that Perkins remains a likable boyish actor — you want him to avoid murdering anyone else, even as the logic of the genre clearly leads somewhere else, including a rather great final image. I expected the worst and got a nice surprise — I’m still not a fan of slasher, but Psycho II is more ambitious than the vast majority of them, and does not completely dishonour its lineage.