I can definitely say I enjoyed this when I caught it on cable a couple of decades back. As a fan of Tom Holland’s Fright Night, I was interested in his earlier work as a screenwriter, and this similarly led me to seek out Richard Franklin’s Roadgames. I did not, however, continue on to Psycho III, in spite of Anthony Perkins’s place in the director’s chair. That always seemed a bridge too far.
I'm actually a pretty big fan of this one, I think it's a lot of fun. Miles's death scene is one of the most painful in the slasher genre, that got an audible "OH WHAT THE F..." out of me when I saw it a few years ago.
I’m pleased to see Robert Bloch get a name check, including his flawed but interesting sequel novel. Too many pieces on Psycho seem to assume that the movie leapt fully formed from Hitchcock’s forehead.
I recently revisited "The Color of Money" after watching Ethan Hawke's excellent Newman-Woodward miniseries and had some of the same thoughts: When Newman revived Fast Eddie, the idea of a major movie star returning to a role decades later was quite the novelty and was probably a big reason it sold tickets (Tom Cruise and Scorsese probably helped a bit). I was trying to think of an earlier example of this, and the only one I could come up with was Anthony Perkins in "Psycho II." Both of those movies now have far better reputations than they did upon release, and I'm sure that idea of gimmickry/cultural "taxidermy" also contributed to a lot of major critics -- including Siskel & Ebert, some of the loudest Scorsese champions -- looking down their noses at "The Color of Money." (And it may have even contributed to my memory of it being the rare Scorsese dud. It's so good!)
Of course, now that kind of casting happens CONSTANTLY. Wonder if Tom Cruise was thinking about his former "Color of Money" co-star when he signed up for "Top Gun: Maverick."
I think Psycho 2 might be the only piece of media from the 80s where psychiatrists declare a criminal cured and no longer a danger to others, and they're basically right. I mean, if I remember correctly he does eventually put on a dress and kill some people but they had to push him a lot to get there.
I remember thinking Psycho 2 was a really interesting movie made very weird by being a sequel to psycho. You could imagine the whole "town harasses reformed murderer released from prison" premise working better if the thing he had done was kill, like, two people in a fit of rage but instead it's a full on Ed Gein situation. It ends up being surprisingly sympathetic to criminals and the mentally ill for a movie of the Reagan era.
And I guess cross dressers too. That's another funny thing about this, it's a "man get's pushed to far" story where the violent alter-ego of the main character you're waiting to see emerge is dressed as an old lady.
Well, the Reveal does it again -- somehow Keith writes up something that burrows right into my old brain. I remember this movie so well, as it was one of the first scary movies I saw on HBO from home. But I saw it not 100% clearly; we'd just gotten cable and had a corded remote that was about the size of a trade paperback, with the top half displaying channels on a stickered grid and the bottom half push buttons like the kind in old car radios, except there were like a dozen of them. The top half had a rotating click switch so you could go from rows A to B to C, so I guess we had something like 36 channels? Anyway, long story even longer -- you could take two toothpicks and if you half pushed down the HBO button and the next button (or maybe the two buttons flanking HBO?) and jammed in the toothpicks to keep them both in place, the channel we were too poor to pay for would show! It wasn't the most stable connection, but I saw this movie that way, and for the rest of my life, whenever I hear Moonlight Sonata, I think of Psycho II and it makes me cringe a little.
Without question, this was the first Psycho I saw in the PCU (Psycho Cinematic Universe). And then I saw Psycho III, which I can hardly remember. I only saw the original a few years ago, but I have to tell you, I was kind of disappointed because I think I half expected (even though I know better) it to be scarier. Even though II and III were lesser works of art for sure, they did deliver the shocks. Like I can still remember Meg Tilly stabbing Anthony Perkins as he slowly closes in on her, stabs his fingers over and over again (palms open wide, you know, I swear - stab - I'm not - stab - gonna hurt - stab - you!), but he almost doesn't register any of it. Scary!
I have never seen the Gus Van Sant remake. Never really saw the point of it...
So happy to see Psycho II appear in the feed! I have a long-standing fondness for a good portion of this movie, particularly the "groaner" reveal and what follows immediately after - an act of barely blinking camp viciousness that I rewound over and over as a movie-obsessed teen in the 80's. There's no getting around that to some degree (foam prop aside) what seems to have happened, really happened, in what's effectively a oner. I still cackle at that bravura moment. Thanks for the article and a perceptive look at the context.
I can definitely say I enjoyed this when I caught it on cable a couple of decades back. As a fan of Tom Holland’s Fright Night, I was interested in his earlier work as a screenwriter, and this similarly led me to seek out Richard Franklin’s Roadgames. I did not, however, continue on to Psycho III, in spite of Anthony Perkins’s place in the director’s chair. That always seemed a bridge too far.
From the recent Harper's Index:
Percentage of the top twenty-five box office hits of 1981 that were sequels, spin-offs, or remakes : 16
Of 2019 : 80
https://harpers.org/harpers-index/
I'm actually a pretty big fan of this one, I think it's a lot of fun. Miles's death scene is one of the most painful in the slasher genre, that got an audible "OH WHAT THE F..." out of me when I saw it a few years ago.
I’m pleased to see Robert Bloch get a name check, including his flawed but interesting sequel novel. Too many pieces on Psycho seem to assume that the movie leapt fully formed from Hitchcock’s forehead.
I recently revisited "The Color of Money" after watching Ethan Hawke's excellent Newman-Woodward miniseries and had some of the same thoughts: When Newman revived Fast Eddie, the idea of a major movie star returning to a role decades later was quite the novelty and was probably a big reason it sold tickets (Tom Cruise and Scorsese probably helped a bit). I was trying to think of an earlier example of this, and the only one I could come up with was Anthony Perkins in "Psycho II." Both of those movies now have far better reputations than they did upon release, and I'm sure that idea of gimmickry/cultural "taxidermy" also contributed to a lot of major critics -- including Siskel & Ebert, some of the loudest Scorsese champions -- looking down their noses at "The Color of Money." (And it may have even contributed to my memory of it being the rare Scorsese dud. It's so good!)
Of course, now that kind of casting happens CONSTANTLY. Wonder if Tom Cruise was thinking about his former "Color of Money" co-star when he signed up for "Top Gun: Maverick."
I think Psycho 2 might be the only piece of media from the 80s where psychiatrists declare a criminal cured and no longer a danger to others, and they're basically right. I mean, if I remember correctly he does eventually put on a dress and kill some people but they had to push him a lot to get there.
I remember thinking Psycho 2 was a really interesting movie made very weird by being a sequel to psycho. You could imagine the whole "town harasses reformed murderer released from prison" premise working better if the thing he had done was kill, like, two people in a fit of rage but instead it's a full on Ed Gein situation. It ends up being surprisingly sympathetic to criminals and the mentally ill for a movie of the Reagan era.
And I guess cross dressers too. That's another funny thing about this, it's a "man get's pushed to far" story where the violent alter-ego of the main character you're waiting to see emerge is dressed as an old lady.
Well, the Reveal does it again -- somehow Keith writes up something that burrows right into my old brain. I remember this movie so well, as it was one of the first scary movies I saw on HBO from home. But I saw it not 100% clearly; we'd just gotten cable and had a corded remote that was about the size of a trade paperback, with the top half displaying channels on a stickered grid and the bottom half push buttons like the kind in old car radios, except there were like a dozen of them. The top half had a rotating click switch so you could go from rows A to B to C, so I guess we had something like 36 channels? Anyway, long story even longer -- you could take two toothpicks and if you half pushed down the HBO button and the next button (or maybe the two buttons flanking HBO?) and jammed in the toothpicks to keep them both in place, the channel we were too poor to pay for would show! It wasn't the most stable connection, but I saw this movie that way, and for the rest of my life, whenever I hear Moonlight Sonata, I think of Psycho II and it makes me cringe a little.
Without question, this was the first Psycho I saw in the PCU (Psycho Cinematic Universe). And then I saw Psycho III, which I can hardly remember. I only saw the original a few years ago, but I have to tell you, I was kind of disappointed because I think I half expected (even though I know better) it to be scarier. Even though II and III were lesser works of art for sure, they did deliver the shocks. Like I can still remember Meg Tilly stabbing Anthony Perkins as he slowly closes in on her, stabs his fingers over and over again (palms open wide, you know, I swear - stab - I'm not - stab - gonna hurt - stab - you!), but he almost doesn't register any of it. Scary!
I have never seen the Gus Van Sant remake. Never really saw the point of it...
So happy to see Psycho II appear in the feed! I have a long-standing fondness for a good portion of this movie, particularly the "groaner" reveal and what follows immediately after - an act of barely blinking camp viciousness that I rewound over and over as a movie-obsessed teen in the 80's. There's no getting around that to some degree (foam prop aside) what seems to have happened, really happened, in what's effectively a oner. I still cackle at that bravura moment. Thanks for the article and a perceptive look at the context.