I finally saw this film in its entirity and came away thinking...well....it was no Psycho. (Not that I expected it to be.

I think the story was simply ok and the direction was...WHO IS THIS GUY ANYWAY??? I'd never heard of him before. And Meg Tilly? YUCK!!!

Anthony Perkins was (again) fantastic as Norman (of course, ANY role he had he WAS Norman). But watching this movie and him made me think he was holding back. I kept expectin him to go ballistic....but NO. The somewhat "twist" ending was interesting, and a little contrived (a la Friday the 13th). I mean as to whom was ACTUALLY doing the murders.

To me the best part of the film is the LAST 5 minutes or so but its a long wait till then.

Mr. Goldsmith seemed to be holding back as well. The score was to "light" and not gritty enough......for me at least.

Does anyone know of any backstory of Goldsmith's approach (if any)?

I've seen a couple different scenes of the film when it was on television and such, and the scenes I saw looked pretty good. The killing of the lady with the shovel was a total shock that caught me by surprise. Did they make, like, four sequels or something like that?

I watched PSYCHOs II and III back-to-back a couple of years ago, and found that II, which I loved at the time, is loosely crafted and rather arbitrary. Beautifully shot by Dean Cundey, however, and Goldsmith's score gives the film pretty much what it wanted. (Director Richard Franklin had considered using Herrmann cues from MARNIE, and even the unused TORN CURTAIN, but Verna Fields saw the picture and insisted that they should get an original score. Every composer in town wanted the job, as they say, but Goldsmith was the one who got it.)

I don't think this is one of Goldsmith's stronger works, even within the suspense genre at which he excels, but it has its moments; and Anthony Perkins, when he heard the piano demo played back, he actually burst into tears, thinking Goldsmith had completely understood the real heart of Norman's character. He wanted Goldsmith to score PSYCHO III, but there was a scheduling conflict (probably with POLTERGEIST II which came out the same season.)

NP: Titus (Elliot Goldenthal)
[This message has been edited by Bill R. Myers (edited 22 January 2001).]

NP: roomie has that maddening Bjork on the machine

Psycho III: if I remember it at all, it was OK.
[This message has been edited by Michael Ware (edited 22 January 2001).]

I think the score was fine. The synth boldly proclaims Goldsmith's intention that his score not to be compared to Herrmann's Psycho...and--as ML Ware added--it was appropriately sympathetic, sad. It's got one of those great, off-meter suspense motifs for the murder cues--the teen in the basement, Dennis Franz's character--and some nice, murky textural stuff to underscore Norman's decaying mental state. One of my favorite moments in the score is not on the album, the surging synth beats as Norman persists on believing he is talking with his Mother as Mary--Meg Tilly--stands before him, trying to talk him down. I don't remember the plot well enough to remember whether it could've been Mary's mother on the phone, or whether this was an instance where Bates was truly confused as he continues a conversation with "mother" when noone could've been on the line. At any rate, I'd go so far as to say Psycho II is actually moving at those times when Bates recognizes he may be becoming unstable and appears frightened. The original Pyscho showed us a Psycho; Psycho II gave us a Psycho with self-awareness...and examined his losing effort to hold himself together...before tragically, delivering him back into a blindly psychotic condition.

And could there have been a sweeter line than, "...you smell like the toasted cheese sandwiches my mother used to make..."

--Cooper

[This message has been edited by Cooper (edited 23 January 2001).]
[This message has been edited by Cooper (edited 23 January 2001).]

Thanks for the compliment, Howard. I've actually been a fan of this film for some time...and I jump at the chance to defend it under the usual hail of bullets and shouts of heresy when it's being weighed against the Hitchcock original. Sure, they asked for it, brazenly slapping a "II" onto a follow-up to an acknowledged classic. But a good film is a good film.

But dont you think it was a little contrived to introduce SO late that the woman we thought was "mother" was not his actual mother?

Well, maybe, but I think that actually enhacnces the sadness of the film, revealing how Bates was probably doing all right until he was victimized by these women who were hell bent on pushing him over the edge. In retrospect, we see Bates as an "innocent" who is thrown off balance and destabilzed by Mary's Mom, Lyla (...if that's what her name was).

Sure, the film turns out not to be about what we thought it was, but something more deeply affecting than that. Wouldn't the film have been more tired and predictable had Bates been the killer all along?

--Cooper

A. I said to myself that if indeed Norman was NOT the killer then it was either going to be Leila or Mary. Most likely I thought it was Leila because she seemed dead-set on getting him back in the sanitarium and could easily have justified her actions (in her mind) by killing for this end. I would end the film with Norman finally going ballistic and killing both of them (still appearing innocent to the police)with Mary and Leila having underestimated the REAL psycho in the house.

or

B. Mary would have been a more interesting killer. After all she was forced to put on the "cap and gown" as it were. A more interesting treatise of narrative would have been Mary becoming so sympathetic with Norman that she would have suddenly "snapped" and taken on the "mother" persona for him. Of course the believability alarm goes off then because Mary seems horribly well-adjusted at the beggining of the film. The story would simply have needed a little tweaking to make her sympathetic to the audience as Norman was to the audience in the first film. The end could be the same exact ending as II was written except without the "other" mother coming to visit and the shovel scene. Simply end it with Norman in the house "alone" and VERY insecure as to his sanity.
[This message has been edited by meegle (edited 23 January 2001).]

DH

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