Jason Voorhees & the Black Hearts

 

I read about them wanting to do this documentary several years ago, but didn't think it would happen. I stopped keeping tabs on the news until recently, when I was like "Oh, yeah, what happened to them doing that?" I look it up and, to my surprise, Hearts of Darkness: The Making of the Final Friday was going to be hitting Blu-ray from Synapse Films in a month! I pre-ordered that sucker and seemed to have gotten it a couple of weeks early...

It's unheard of to have a full length documentary devoted to a movie as divisive as Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday. I've come to really like the movie over time, but...man, I fucking HATED it when it came out. And I wasn't that big of a fan of the franchise at that point to have been entrenched in my ways and be like "Boo, it was too different." I hadn't been allowed to watch the Friday the 13ths until that point -- only the network airings of them! But, man, did Jason Goes to Hell have a hype machine behind it -- I remember a lot of ads and tie-in comic books and coverage of it. 

Jason Goes to Hell was probably the first Friday the 13th movie I got to rent and see in its full, R-rated glory...and I didn't like it. It had nothing to do with the lack of Jason or Crystal Lake, but if I could choose a way to describe how I felt about the movie at the time, it would be "off-putting." I thought the heart-eating, body-hopping stuff was weird, I didn't like the music, I didn't like the way it was filmed. (There's something about the way a lot of '90s movies were filmed that I just don't particularly like the look of. A lot of them seem strangely TV-movie-like in their look.)

 And then, over time, I really got into the Friday the 13th franchise. I loved the Paramount entries, the earlier ones the most. And then it came time to rewatch Jason Goes to Hell, which I'd only watch bits of every now and then. My video store had the unrated version by this point, which I rented. And holy moly did that make a huge difference in how I viewed the movie.

I'm not a gorehound. I don't say that with any snobbery, it's just not something that's at the top of my list for what makes a good horror movie. I'm a big fan of the Terrifier movies, but their detailed kill scenes aren't what I find most interesting about them. John Carl Buechler was a talented make-up effects artist, whose work sometimes actually made me fill repulsed, but even if they let him keep his gore in The New Blood, that wasn't going to make that movie any less boring. 

So it's not necessarily the fact that the unrated version is gorier, but just that it completes the experience with Jason Goes to Hell. Because what's removed isn't just the gore of a kill, but entire sequences. You can easily edit Jason slashing with a machete, the victim screaming, and cut around the gore of the kill, but still imply what happened to that person. You can't edit around the disgusting, disgusting scene of Josh melting, so it was a sequence they had to lose entirely, but is so memorably fucked up and incredibly done and unique to the movie that it makes the movie lose something, it punches a hole into it.

Not just the unrated version, but listening to the commentary track by director-writer Adam Marcus and writer Dean Lorey greatly helped me appreciate the movie more -- their trying to explain what their objective was by making it so different, conveying what fans they were, and they were also a little self-deprecating when it came to how many new rules they came up with or how their reach might have exceeded their grasp in some areas. Besides being informative, they were funny and entertaining and it's one of the best commentary tracks I've heard. A lot of commentary tracks you'll forget as soon as they're over -- this one helped change my views on the movie. I went from hating the movie to being a fan of it! So a whole documentary about the movie, focused on Marcus? I knew I had to buy it.

The big thing I got out of the documentary was a bigger appreciation for KNB's creativity in how they approached bringing their effects to life. (I had no idea so much puppetry was involved.) It was good to hear from cast members who weren't part of previous bonus features or the Crystal Lake Memories documentary like Steven Williams (The Duke!), Michelle Clunie, Allison Smith and Kathryn Atwood. (Kari Keegan is, disappointingly, still a no-show.)

I think my favorite part of the doc was the featurette Never Say Dead, where documentary editor Eric Beetner interviews friend Adam Marcus and Marcus' wife Debra Sullivan and we learn more of Marcus' rise to Hollywood and see glimpses of his early works.

I would like to have been hipper and to have appreciated Jason Goes to Hell when it was new, but I at least did reach a point of liking it and being happy to see this documentary finally get made.

OverrateIT

I finally caved and watched the new It movie. I was hesitant not only because I'm so fond of the television miniseries from 1990, but I thought the movie had a suspicious amount of overhype and push. (After The Dark Tower bombed so badly it could be seen from space, I feel that the studio tried that much harder to make It succeed, and I feel like a lot of the positive criticism It received was artificial.) I tried to keep an open mind. People would always say an R-rated, full-length feature film could and should be able to do more than a made-for-TV movie in 1990. But did it?

To put it plainly, I didn't like it. For its long run time and focus on just one portion of the book, I found it incredibly lacking. It didn't have much heart or a soul. I'd like to say I couldn't call it a "bad" horror movie, because there's just a lot of terrible horror movies out there, especially from the past several years, but I never found the movie scary in the slightest. Not once. So, while not the worst made horror movie, it is, in a sense, a bad horror movie in that it's a horror movie that lacks terror, tension, suspense, eeriness. And you know something else? It's not exactly visually stylish. So it didn't make much use out of the millions it had for a budget; it looks more like something made for television than the 1990 miniseries people like to disparage.

I've always read horror fans who compared Pennywise to Freddy Krueger. (That's the dream team-up for a lot of fans.) This movie plays to me very similarly to the 2010 remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street in terms of seeming so hollow and trying so hard, but achieving so little. And it plays like A Nightmare on Elm Street movie if Freddy Krueger was very bad at what he does. The scenes where a character encounters Pennywise has the feel of one of the Nightmare franchise's dream sequences, but Pennywise is easy to shake off whereas Freddy would, at best cause damage, at worst KILL YOU! So, Pennywise feels ineffectual here.

Pennywise is a huge problem of the movie. Bill Skarsgård is just far too young for the ancient, evil, sadistic monster Pennywise is supposed to be. He has no presence, so you never feel the threat of Pennywise is conveyed. He's constantly looming, he can show up at any time, but throughout the movie, I kept feeling like he was just a lackey, and I was waiting for the real head honcho to show up. Skarsgård is just too young and doesn't have the acting credentials of someone like Tim Curry, so he doesn't give the character any weight. (Tilda Swinton was considered as Pennywise -- that would have been pretty interesting, I think she's an unpredictable performer who can do a lot with a little.) Instead, Skarsgård must rely too much on the make-up and effects to make Pennywise scary, and that fails, too. Pennywise's look here is just too extreme. They tried too hard to make him look like a "scary" clown to the point where he's NOT scary. The movie approaches each scare scene in the same way -- from the music tipping you off to jittery camera work, it's all calling out to you directly "Ooh, isn't this scary? You're meant to be scared right abouuuuuuuuut HERE!" and it just doesn't work. Some horror movies telegraph their scares -- this one might as well have had text on the screen telling you when and where you were meant to start getting scared.

Pennywise wasn't intimidating or menacing, no matter how giant or monstrous they'd make him via CGI. From even the trailers, I genuinely laughed at Pennywise. Not in a "Oh, he's a good, scary clown" way, but in a "they honestly think this qualifies as scary" way. As in, I can't get past the way he reminds me of Peter Sarsgaard's Hector Hammond character from that terrible Green Lantern movie. (Tell me I'm wrong, from the monstrous head to the high-pitched squealing.) They tried too hard...

Speaking of trying too hard, Richie Tozier. They wanted every line out of his mouth to be a comedic slaughter of vulgarity, but he just played like the worst comedian, sweating on stage trying to get you to laugh before you could rightly heckle him off. SO obnoxious. (Seth Green's Richie wasn't exactly a comedic genius in the original, but you didn't want Pennywise to show up and bite his head off.) The kids surprisingly weren't bad -- I didn't like Jaeden Lieberher as Bill or Finn Wolfhard's Richie -- but I felt like they were very interchangeable and not as distinct or defined as the book or miniseries made them. (Why change it from Mike to Ben as the one who documents the history of Derry and Pennywise? Not only does it make more sense for the character who becomes a librarian to be the one with that knowledge, but it makes Mike completely unnecessary in this movie.)

The biggest problem I had with the movie, though, is losing the magical realism. The kids are written as mini-adults who knew everything and could do everything. Part of the power of the story is that these kids band together and defeat this awful entity through unity and their faith. In the novel, in the miniseries, they have that innocence that allows them to IMAGINE and BELIEVE in things that aid them in their struggles. Their belief that silver will hurt IT because IT's a monster, or Eddie's stepping up to save Stan with his inhaler or Stan's Boy Scout mantras being used as prayers. That the kids are so bullied and beaten down by life, and that faith and imagination got them through, and it's something that greatly helps them overcome IT, something that they even retain as adults, it's just such a crucial, necessary part of what makes Stephen King's IT so powerful.

But, typical of the state of the world and especially Hollywood today, I assumed it was deemed too "cheesy" and jettisoned in favor of what we got -- vulgarity and fisticuffs and Bill arming himself to take on Pennywise with a bolt gun. (I'm surprised they just didn't give him a Smith & Wesson.) The final showdown with Pennywise is RIDICULOUS. I never thought these characters would confront a personification of fear by charging It and just trying to beat it up, like some schoolyard bully. And Pennywise is just kicking them back like he's goddamn Jet Li, and they're bouncing off the sewer walls like all of the CGI Agent Smiths from that terrible Matrix movie. And Bill gets in a couple of headshots with a gun! (How could the moviemakers not keep Pennywise's GREAT response to the Losers when they keep shouting "Kill It! Kill It!"? Pennywise is such a non-presence in this movie. What the hell have people been going on about?) Maybe this all sounded good on paper and looked cool on the big screen, but it's a failure dramatically. Try hard. (I also think it was a mistake to have Beverly have a vision of them returning as adults to fight It; that really robs Part 2 of the drama, where the kids were 75% sure they actually defeated It, knowing deep down they didn't, and having to overcome their fear to return to Derry. Now they already know. Where's the drama?)

If It can be summed up, it's "try hard." The scariest part of the movie was thinking about all of the ways they'll try harder in the sequel. They've already said they plan to make Mike a junkie, but what possible "edgy" direction can they come up with for the others to show just how screwed up they became? Will Bill go from a horror writer to a porno director? Will Bev be a prostitute? Will Eddie be a sexual predator? Will Ben be a serial killer, basing his crimes off of NKOTB lyrics? Will Richie become a politician? Another thing to consider: they probably think Skarsgård's youth will be an advantage over the older actors, but considering he couldn't be menacing enough to convincingly terrorize kid actors, he's going to be hilarious going up against actors twice his age.

On the bright side, this flick made me appreciate all that Tommy Lee Wallace was able to accomplish with the 1990 miniseries. I now like that movie even more than I already did.

Psycho IV: The Quest for Peace

The big attraction of this movie is Joseph Stefano, screenwriter of the original film, returning. Stefano didn't care for what the previous sequels did, so he ignores them, which is bad-ass. There's nothing to outright make the sequels obsolete, you can still fit them in if you choose, but this movie wanted to be and CAN be viewed as a direct follow-up to the original. There's only brief inconsistencies, including with the original, but no worse than the ones II and III created. These inconsistencies are really just a mark of what happens when sequels spiral out of control and you make sequels so far after the original.

Psycho IV is simple, but effective: Norman -- seen living in a nice house and shown to be married -- calls into a radio show, whose topic is matricide, to recount his story. Before I go further, I have to say that if you're watching these movies one after the other and take II and III into consideration, it's unintentionally hilarious just how many chances Norman's been given, despite proving he shouldn't be on the streets. But if Stefano intended for this to be like a Psycho II instead, a direct follow-up to the original, that's not an issue.

Norman calling into this radio show is a bit of a lazy way to frame the flashback scenes, and that's basically what the entirety of this movie is. I'm of the opinion that it's probably best to never depict Norman's past on screen, to leave it a mystery, to leave that ambiguity about the character. (So I have no idea how A&E's Bates Motel show has milked this exact set-up for four seasons now.)

I think probably the strongest part of the movie is the early hint that Norman's wife is pregnant and his confession to the radio host that he has no choice but to kill again, meaning his wife. So it becomes a bit of a tense stand-off, this radio host trying to keep him on the line and trying to prevent him from going through with it. I think this would have made a really good short story, and it's a more interesting part of the movie than the mystery-shattering origin story which is filmed in a corny way, as per the Mick Garris norm. Because this also brings back the sympathy for Norman that was obliterated in II and not even a part of III -- Norman fears he'll pass along his mental problems to his kid. His wife went against his wishes to not have kids and stopped trying to prevent it, so he's upset with her, and feels there's no way out but to kill her. After phoning it in for the last movie, Perkins' performance during this part is effective; there's pain and fear there.

I don't know if this is just something that happens in retrospect or if it was known and intended, but there's a sense of sorrow and finality hanging over the movie. I don't know if this movie was intended to be the end because of diminishing returns or if it might have had to do with Perkins' health, but there's certainly a sense that this is the final Norman Bates story, not only by having him relive his life, but ending with him burning down the Bates residence to be rid of his past. This adds another layer to Perkins' performance, and makes Norman's fear for his offspring, Norman's reluctance to kill again and Norman's all around skittishness and terror more haunting. The other sequels had these moments of "Fuck, yeah! Norman's back" when he gets up to old tricks again, but here in this movie he's terrified. He doesn't like what he was, and could still be. He doesn't feel like he can truly be cured, but he doesn't want to be a killer. II and III are outlandish, but here Norman feels like a person again.

The movie's not exactly scary or suspenseful, but I feel like story is more of its goal than being scary or suspenseful. It's certainly not suspenseful in the sense that most of the movie is devoted to the past, so there's no real stakes or danger -- you know Norman's going to kill, you know he'll get away. And the scenes set in the past are done in a bit of a hokey way -- while this movie makes the wise choice of bringing back Bernard Hermann's classic music from the original, it uses it in predictable, eye-rolling ways. (Norman's first kill? Accompanied by the classic music that screeches when Janet Leigh's Marion is killed. A lightweight mistake.)

I've said before that I'm not really a fan of director Mick Garris. His movies have a plainness to them, and his scare scenes play lighthearted to me, like a Tales From the Crypt episode or something. This movie succeeds on the script and most of its performances, from Perkins to Olivia Hussey, and CCH Pounder to Warren Frost.

Olivia Hussey's work here is overlooked. I think she does a great job in this movie, but it's become cool to trash her in favor of Vera Farmiga from A&E's TV series. I'm going to risk pissing off a lot of people, but "Mother" has always been kind of cheesily depicted to me. She always has that bad Aunt May wig, the overly large floral dress. Virginia Gregg's voice-over performance is a little too cartoonish. (I know I'm always going on about how I like the subtlety of the original, but I'm always surprised a sequel never had Norman actually wear Mother's corpse. That would have been grisly and over-the-top, perhaps, but creepy. Probably not something you could get away with in 1960. The sequels adhered too close to the original, right down to keeping the EXACT Mother look, which didn't age well and doesn't play in color. Try not to laugh when Henry Thomas is dressed like Mother, dubbed in a woman's voice saying stuff like "Drive, whore!" I don't think you're meant to laugh. There's a reason Hitchcock kept "her" in the shadows, and you only saw Norman dressed as her briefly at the very end.)

So here with this movie, and Hussey's performance, Norma feels like a full character, an unstable character who can be threatening in her fits of rage, but also at turns charming. So you can see, in a more believable way, that Norman inherited her illness as well as being effected by her abuse.

Norman's wife, Connie, was a nurse at the institution Norman was at. She knew all about him, and thought he was husband material? What's wrong with this woman? Also: super professional of you! But the actress is good and likable, so you worry about her at the end there, when Norman takes her to the Bates house, where he plans to kill her. She convinces him not to, to give their kid a chance, and he listens, before going back to the house and burning it down. Throughout the scene, he starts seeing phantoms throughout the house -- Norma, her boyfriend, the first girl he killed -- this was an interesting idea, one that probably read better than it plays. And *if* they knew it would be the last Psycho movie, wouldn't it have been neat to throw in something of Norman's most famous kill, and have a Janet Leigh look-alike?

I think a strong end to this movie would be for Norman to have listened to Connie and sent her away as he burned down the house, but he just stays at the house and lets himself die. Maybe they were hopeful Perkins would have been able to do more? Before the credits roll, they play a sound effect of a baby crying, so they were probably planning to at least pick up and do a "Son of Psycho" thing, which...thankfully they didn't end up doing.

The movie could have used a stronger director, but it's all in all not as weak as I remembered it. I'd probably rank the series like this:

1) Psycho
2) Psycho IV
3) Psycho 2
4) Psycho 3

Psycho III: Back to the Minors

This is the movie I must remember when I think of Psycho's awful sequels. II tried, and IV is OK for what it is, but this thing's a lazy, slapped together mess and no one's trying in it. (The tell-tale sign of an actor who's bored with a role: when they start directing.) If Psycho II made things a little too Halloween-y at times, this movie's aim is far, far lower, and it ends up coming across as a sleazy, low-tier movie like Sleepaway Camp...II. It's lacking in scares, subtlety, characterization, suspense and quality -- this sucker slips into unintentional parody.

I always thought I remembered this movie having style, which made it stand out compared to II's reverence for Hitch making it rigid and IV's TV-movieness, but the style's really only in just the opener, which tries to evoke a Hitchcock eeriness. Taking place in a church, it focuses on main character Maureen, a troubled nun attempting to commit suicide by jumping; when another nun intervenes, she is accidentally pushed to her death by Maureen, who's given the old pink slip by the church. Like the plummeting nun, it's all downwards from here...

The script basically plays out like a '70s porno. Maureen hitchhikes, is picked up by a sleazy aspiring musician played by The Lawnmower Man. When The Lawnmower Man tries to make the moves on the ex-nun, she flips out and runs away into a storm. Lawnmower Man, meanwhile, winds up at the Bates Motel and takes on a job there. Ex-nun eventually makes her way to the Bates Motel and is too exhausted to run away once she sees pervy Lawnmower Man working there, so she takes a room (and he swindles her out of five more dollars than the room costs, which was nice of him).

The movie devotes a lot of time to the Lawnmower Man, for reasons unknown, and the way he swindles people and hits on any woman who comes on screen, dead or alive. (At one point, he steals Mother's corpse -- conveniently at a time the police were searching Norman's house -- and taunts Norman by giving it a kiss. The dude is really more demented than Norman.) Lawnmower Man's part is what makes the movie so sleazy, as we focus on him and his motel conquests. (One bizarre scene has him in his room with a woman he's picked up at a bar; he sits in a chair naked, with two lamps over his junk, moving them like spotlights on the woman, who's on the bed and making out with one of Lawnmower Man's many nude pin-ups he has on the wall. This is exactly the kind of big things Hitchcock must have predicted for Psycho.) What I find strange, other than devoting so much time to this pointless character, is in his final confrontation with Norman, the TV in the background is playing a Woody Woodpecker cartoon, so it gives his struggle with Norman cartoon sound effects, and when Woody does his trademark laugh, Norman thinks it's his mother and yells at her. It had to be somewhat intentional, but why make such a mockery out of things? Why didn't anybody put a stop to this ridiculous shit?

Anyway, there's also a side-story involving a very obnoxious writer who's initially interested in Norman to write a paper about the logic behind a supposedly reformed murderer reentering society, but just ends up with her trying to find the whereabouts Mrs. Pool, aka Old Lady Retcon from the previous movie. Lawnmower Man tries to pick up Obnoxious Writer from a bar and she's not interested until he gives her a book of matches with the Bates Motel's name on it. (Where does Norman get the money to print stuff like this? We know business is slow, as he tells Lawnmower Man when he's hiring him. And remember in the last movie, when Norman fires Dennis Franz for turning the place into a sleazy a-a-a-a-a-a-adult motel? Lawnmower Man makes Sipowicz's place seem like Legoland.) Suddenly, Lawnmower Man is Obnoxious Writer's spy for any funny goings-on at the Bates Motel.

Meanwhile, Norman is being his old twitchy, suspicious self. He flips out at the sight of Maureen, thinking she looks like Marion Crane. She even has the same initials. (Let it go, man!) The only thing they share in common is a short blonde haircut, but Maureen actually looks more like Anne Heche than Janet Leigh. I guess Norman saw into the dark, horrible future of the remake there, and that's what has him spooked. Maureen ends up deciding to slit her wrists at the Bates Motel, and ends up being saved by NormanMother, who's in her room to kill her. As her life is fading out, Maureen sees NormanMother as a vision of the Virgin Mary, and his/her knife as a crucifix, which...could have played better than it comes across. It doesn't work and seems laughable.

Norman ends up saving her and they try to make a romance between Norman and Maureen, which I think could have been interesting, if it had been the centerpiece of the movie and written by someone better. Maureen obviously has some problems (she sounds like she wouldn't mind finding Lemarchand's puzzle box), so it would have been interesting to see this star-crossed love between two mentally ill people pulled off in a more serious movie that knew what it was doing. Because why bother with Norman when we can focus on Lawnmower Man picking up chicks in bars and a bunch of rowdy people renting rooms at the Bates Motel, giving Norman a body count! Because Norman killing women pissing on toilets is what Psycho's all about. (He kills a random partygoer who's on the toilet! And this character, upon seeing NormanMother, even says "You almost scared the piss out of me." I would not have been surprised in the slightest if NormanMother had replied "Good thing you're on the terlet, then," before killing her. That's the level this movie is on.)

The love story goes nowhere, with Norman accidentally killing Maureen, and the final showdown being between NormanMother and Obnoxious Writer, who awkwardly unloads a heap of exposition about Mrs. Pool not actually being his mother, she's his aunt who just pretended to be his mother because she was jealous of her sister, Norman's real mother, and kidnapped him and...whatever. Does anybody care at this point? Norman "kills" the Mrs. Pool corpse, which could have been a strong image in a better movie, and is hauled away for the other murders. He remarks that, even if he's institutionalized for the rest of his life, he's finally free. It kind of would have been a nice arc if he came to this conclusion through the love of Maureen or something. Maybe by allowing himself to be with her and defying "mother" purges him of any "Psycho" inclinations, and maybe Jeff Fahey's nutty character kills Maureen and THAT breaks him. That might not be medically realistic, but it's not like these movies care, especially at this point. I don't know, but I guess they figured there's nothing like an irritating character doing a hyper info dump about the latest retcon to wrap up your movie. And then, ha-ha, Norman pulls out Spool's dead, severed hand as he's riding off to the nuthouse, trying and failing to recreate his creepy smile to the camera from the original film's ending. I guess he's just full of shit and thinking he'll get another sequel, no matter how bad this one's been.

That's another problem with this movie. While I didn't like Psycho II trying so hard to recreate shots and moments from the first one, they did it out of fear and respect for the first one. Here, it just feels cheap and lazy. They'll quote lines and repeat moments, but it comes across in a dumb, predictable and jokey way like a Family Guy parody, and not an homage or an unsettling case of history repeating itself.

There's a scene with Maureen and Norman at the hospital, shortly after her second suicide attempt, that sums up this movie. It goes something like this...

Maureen: I'm sorry for the trouble I've caused you. I guess I've gone a little mad!

And your response is "Don't say it, Norman. Don't do it, movie. Just don't. Don't say it. It's going to be cheesy. Don't do it."

Norman: We all go a little mad sometimes.

Motherfuckers! They went there. How lame. How clumsy. If this movie can be perfectly described in one word, it would be clumsy. A clumsy spoof of Psycho.

Psycho II: The Wrath of Ma

A sequel to what's considered one of the best movies of all time sounds like insanity, and while I'm not really fond of Psycho II, it could have turned out worse. The movie has some clever ideas -- maybe tries to be a little too clever -- and a lot of my problems are in the execution and in some of the casting choices. (Namely: Meg Tilly, who I think is miscast as Mary.) It's not entirely plausible, in my opinion, and not subtle, forgoing the thriller and atmospheric horror of the original in favor of a mystery-suspense plot that takes brief excursions into slasher movie territory. (I'm assuming Psycho II came about as a way to ride the popular Halloween slasher cash wave. Which is funny when you think of how Halloween wouldn't exist without the original Psycho.)

I think when Hollywood tries to make a sequel so long after the fact it should be approached with suspicion or even apprehension -- maybe the style of filmmaking has changed too much, maybe the actors have gotten lazier, maybe there's too much corporate greed driving it -- but Psycho II has an interesting premise which necessitates a lengthy passage of time. (Though, again, I'm not sure of its plausibility.)

After two decades of psychiatric care, Norman Bates is deemed well enough to release. While 22 years is a long time, and you might find it striking to see how aged Bates/Perkins looks, Norman's problems were so severe, you're wondering right off the bat how he could come close to approaching being healed. But, there he is, despite protests and petitions, being cut loose. Strike two for plausibility? That Norman's psychiatrist thinks it's suitable to take him back to the Bates house and motel on the Universal lot to live. There's exposure therapy, sure, but letting Norman out and taking him immediately to such a traumatic place for him? Bad news waiting to happen. Norman's even apprehensive and twitchy about being there, but the Doc is all "Hey, c'mon! It's home. You'll be comfortable here. Forget all of those bad memories, Norman! Hey, too bad the state has cut back on our budget so we can't have someone tend to you full time, as planned, but that would get in the way of your murderin' for our sequel!"

Strike three of plausibility is the idea of someone immediately scooping Norman up for work. While Norman was never convicted of murder (by reason of insanity), I know of the real life programs that give jobs to ex-cons, and while the character employing him says they're doing it out of Christian duty (but her real motivations come up later), I still don't really buy it. The very same day he's released, he gets a job. And it's a small town, so you know everyone has heard Norman's story. They've had 22 years to tell it, to gossip, to have it grow and mutate. And everybody's pretty much OK with him! A dude who kept his mom's corpse, dressed up like her, killed several people and buried 'em in a swamp...I don't think a lot of people are going to be eager to have their lunches cooked by him.

The main idea of this movie is interesting. On the surface, Norman seems better. He seems he wants to stay better. But someone is cruelly trying to manipulate him and push him over the edge. It's damned cruel, but it works with the whole way Hitchcock and Perkins were trying to make you pity Norman in the original. And the people trying to push him over the edge...Lila Crane, Marion's sister from the original, and her daughter Mary, who works at the diner and befriends Norman. (Though she's not Lila Crane anymore, but Lila Loomis. This movie marries her to Sam, which I think is a big mistake, just making Sam and Lila both look coldhearted. Like "Hey! Good thing Marion got killed, or else I couldn't have shacked up with you! Fuck Marion, who needed her, anyway?" If the original's screenwriter, Joseph Stefano, thought a romance between Sam and Lila was a plot turn best avoided, I think it should have remained avoided.)

Vera Miles returns as Lila, who's out for revenge, her and Mary playing tricks on Norman -- passing through his house dressed as his mother, leaving him notes, pestering him on the phone -- with the goal to get him to snap, so he'd be recommitted, with the key thrown away. Vicious, but you can imagine Lila doing something like it. (Another lapse of plausibility, though? I don't think she'd endanger her daughter by making her do these things. Knowing damn well what Norman's capable of, and after losing her husband, I don't think she'd just throw her daughter into the center of danger.) The joke's on Lila, though, because Mary ends up feeling sorry for Norman and rejects her mother's plan and tries to protect him.

Meanwhile, Norman slips more and more, insisting he's been talking to his mother. (The movie gets pretty repetitive, with all of the Norma mind-games going on and denials and mother this and mother that -- you have yourself one motherfuck of a drinking game here.) While Mary's certain it's Lila resuming her plan, she starts to suspect there's a third player when the little mind-games that have been played on Norman begin to escalate...with MURDER! It's an interesting twist, and the film makes it clear it's not just Norman picking up old habits, but it results in a sloppy retcon of a climax...

The seemingly kindly old woman who hired Norman at her diner ends up being Norma Bates' sister, who claims Norman is actually her son, and she had him out of wedlock when she was young and was a nut who was institutionalized so Norma raised Norman and...yeah. Retcon, and pretty much goes against any of the background info you heard about Norman in the original. And it's a retcon that doesn't even stick, it ends up getting retconned itself, so it becomes a nice mess. After Norman's been cleared of this movie's crimes, Mrs. Spool confesses to him that she was responsible. Norman's just listening casually and kills her, taking her corpse to Norma's room. I think it's meant to be a "fuck yeah, the Psycho is back!" moment, but it doesn't work for me...

And I know the point of the reveal is that Norman's snapped again, and it doesn't even matter who Norma Bates was, who his mother really was -- it's always been Norman and his mind's representation of his mother. There is no Mother, only Norman, and it doesn't matter what dead body is sitting in the Bates house as long as he believes it's his mother. But...it doesn't work for me. Part of it's the retcon, because I think the point could have been made without the "twist" that Mrs. Pool was his actual mother, but it's also the way it removes any ambiguity. If you're meant to pity Norman, and never be sure if his killing is his mental condition or not, this removes any doubt as he casually and deliberately kills Mrs. Pool for the sake of continuing his crimes. It just seems like there hasn't been any progression made, and that the movie just went in a circle and ended the character where he started.

And for as harsh as Lila's plan was, I think the movie goes overboard in how they handle her and Mary's demises. Lila, a character and actress from the original, is given a nasty, Friday the 13th-styled death, where she's stabbed through the mouth with a butcher's knife to the point where the blade pops out through the back of her skull. Grisly overkill, and the type of death that Game of Thrones uses to dispose of their nastiest characters.

I assume Mary's death is meant to be tragic and a Hitchcockian twist, in which she tries to convince Norman there's no Mother by again dressing like her. Once she discovers Lila is dead, she flips out and tries to defend herself with a knife, stabbing Norman, who is further cut by grabbing onto the blade. The police show up, with knowledge of Lila and Mary's plan and seeing Norman with what looks like defensive wounds on his hands, and mistakenly gun down Mary. This is going just one twist too far, and the way it's handled makes the police characters look incompetent.

The movie goes on about 25 minutes too long, takes one turn too many and yet somehow feels like it's just chasing its tail.

Psycho Analysis

What's there left to say about Psycho? Especially coming from a smart-ass like me, who respects Hitchcock, but isn't reverent of his work. Psycho is a legendary movie, considered not only one of the (if not the) best horror movies, but one of the best movies of all time, while also considered to be the godfather of slasher films and modern horror, inspiring numerous horror creators. The movie is bullet proof...but has had a couple of dents put into it. Unlike what Hollywood says, I do think remakes can negatively effect originals, and I think the 1998 remake taints the 1960 original a bit. I'm unfortunately going to talk about the remake while talking about the original in this post, and some of the quick fixes that the remake could have made, and maybe have been improved. I hope to go on to talk about the sequels, because I've long dismissed them as inferior, but I haven't watched them for a while.

I first saw the original Psycho in the late '90s. I've never really been a snob about older movies, I had been exposed to a lot of older movies, but I would still be skeptical when I'd hear people talk about how scary or disturbing Psycho was. I had seen things like The Birds and Vertigo and didn't find the former scary, and only eventually enjoyed the latter as a noir mystery. I hate to admit it, but I had that obnoxious youngster point of view of "How scary could that old B&W movie be?"

So I put off watching Psycho. And at the point I first saw it, it had already become a legend, so it was one of those movies I felt like I saw without having seen it -- you know the iconic parts, you know the twists, so there's no real urge to watch it. But you just always hear good things about it. And, at the time, I had a real fear of mental illness and psychological breakdowns, so I gave it a chance thinking maybe, if not actual scares, there would be something unsettling about it. And I had built in my head an idea of what Norman was like, and while it was more outrageous and monstrous than what the movie presents, there was a dread building the longer it took him to appear.

So, in the wee hours one day, I sat down and watched Psycho. And I was into it! It didn't make me hide behind my couch or anything, but there were some effectively eerie scenes and shots, it had great atmosphere, and it was, of course, well made and acted. And then shortly afterward that horrible remake hit, and I found a further appreciation for the original and how subtle it is. And it's important to remember its subtlety, because...

I then read the book by Robert Bloch. The book comes across to me as a sleazy pulp -- it's one of the rare instances of a movie greatly improving on the book. And, in the book, Norman was the biggest serial killer cliche you can imagine -- kept to himself, lived at home, in his 40s, fat, balding, four-eyed, alcoholic, cross-dresser, peeping tom, porno addict, into the occult, etc. He really just checked off every box possible in the Skeevy Stereotype Cliche List(tm). Now, the movie obviously keeps a couple of those ingredients, but goes against the expected by toning down the character and casting Anthony Perkins, who had been known for playing nice, average guys. And you can't overstate the importance of Anthony Perkins' casting and performance, because rather than overplay Norman as a repulsive creep, there's a sympathetic quality to his performance, a youthful joy and a likability which the sequels will get mileage out of and would be complete failures without. Perkins was Hitchcock's choice, and it was an inspired one.

Perkins' Norman is immediately friendly and seemingly well-meaning; sure, he's awkward, but that's chalked up to the motel not seeing many customers and his being isolated. There's a few moments of oddness, like he can seem defensive or irritable, but I find pretty much every character in this movie acting a little odd. And, at any rate, he's not acting like an out and out creep. I hate to bring up the remake, but that was a big problem with Vince Vaughn -- from the first frame he's in, he's just a weasely little creep.

(Imagine if, instead of being a lazy, pointless shot-for-shot remake of Hitchcock's film, the remake had decided to be closer to the book. With apologies to Jason Alexander, I pictured him as Norman when I read the book. Imagine Jason Alexander as Norman -- I think Alexander could have actually turned on the charm and thrown you off. I don't know why Hollywood always mistakenly thinks Vince Vaughn is a good dramatic actor. In fact, I feel like a lot of the remake's problem lies in the casting. Gus Van Sant tried too hard to cast people who had the most buzz at the time, all to make his movie "hip," rather than who would be good for the role. The remake would still be pointless, but I think a different cast would have helped somewhat. Or maybe even just shuffle around some of the people. I'll get to more of that in a second.)

Even when you rewatch it or already know all of its secrets, you just feel a pity for Perkins' Norman, as he cleans the scene of Marion's murder in a panic. You watch that scene initially thinking he's covering for his mother, when he's really covering for himself, but Perkins sells the way Norman is disgusted, pained, shocked and saddened by Marion's death and his "mother's" crime. While Norman has a split personality, and therefore is unaware of what he does as "mother," it's kind of interesting to watch this movie and pick apart dialogue, like when Norman is talking about his mother, think of it as him talking about himself. (Like when he knowingly describes what it's like inside a psychiatric hospital.) He's cleaning up his own crime scene, but the film lingers on that scene, and wants you to be as nervous as he is about the possibility of being caught. This movie would not work without Perkins. Hitchcock's a manipulative bastard for wanting you to root for Marion ripping off that guy's money and wanting you to sigh in relief when Norman disposes of bodies.

One interesting aspect of the Marion character, that I don't think I've seen many people talk about, is the way that her conversation with Norman influences her decision to return to Phoenix with the money. Norman's talking about the traps you'll find in life, Marion realizing the trap she's set for herself; she thinks stealing money and running to Sam will guarantee a life of happiness, when she'll be trapping herself and Sam in the paranoid lives of criminals, never comfortable for they're always be looking over their shoulders. So, she decided to do the right thing and face the consequences, seeing the light in a conversation with the man who will shortly end her life and prevent her from carrying out that decision.

Marion's a sorrowful character, stuck in a rut and not wanting to let a good thing and better sounding life get away from her. So when she sees a door of opportunity, she dashes through it, another man's money in her hands. Janet Leigh was only around 33 at the time of this movie, but she makes the character come across as older, beaten down. Unhappy. And because of the film's time period, and the societal judgments and taboos of that era, her desperation to marry Sam instead of all of the sneaking around makes more sense.

Marion's story just doesn't seem to work as well in that remake, between the modern setting and the technological advances in police procedure making her caper and motivation seem a bit unbelievable. And Anne Heche is horribly miscast; you don't like her, she doesn't convey the unhappiness or desperation. Just a terrible casting choice. Heche was 28 at the time of the movie, when Marion should have been a little older...I think it would have helped if she and Julianne Moore swapped roles, Moore as the more mature Marion and Heche as the young, rebellious sister Lila, searching for her missing older sister and not taking shit from anyone who gets in her way.

I always thought John Gavin was a problem as Sam; he's just a stiff, awkward performer, like when an athlete takes a stab at acting. (I can't believe we were close to having Gavin as James Bond.) You don't really get the impression he even worries about Marion that much, which is how viewers (and sequel writers) make the leap that he ends up with Lila, which just makes Sam seem like a bastard. Viggo Mortensen's not much of an improvement in the remake, but here's another time when maybe the remake should have swapped cast members: I think Mortensen would have been a more interesting, chilling Norman than Vaughn. Let Vaughn play Sam, that would have been against type at the time. And lastly: replace William H. Macy with Robert Forster as Arbogast. Forster, hot off of Jackie Brown, was wasted as Dr. Exposition in the final act, while Macy looks and sounds like a kid playing private detective. See? Maybe the remake could have turned out slightly more watchable with just some cast swapping. The shot-for-shot approach was still an idiotic mistake, though. If you're going to "modernize" the movie and make it "hip" for the new kids, why would you just Xerox a movie from over 30 years ago? Either truly update it, adapt the book more faithfully, or take a new approach. (How about Norma Bates with a split Norman personality? What about a daughter with a father fixation?)

I don't care how Millennial and n00b it sounds, but it's hard to watch this movie now and not wonder how moviegoers at the time didn't feel massively cheated. You spend about forty minutes with Marion and she's disposed of, then you spend the rest of the movie with the murderer who's covering his ass.

Did the audience start the movie, seeing its initial robbery plot and be like "Why's this called Psycho? Who's supposed to be the Psycho? What's Psycho about stealing some cash? That happens in every movie. Where's Anthony Perkins? He has top billing. Is Janet Leigh the Psycho? She seems OK. She likes to imagine detailed conversations on her drives a little too much, but she seems OK. Oh, here's Anthony Perkins. He's a little twitchy, but he doesn't seem like a Psycho. OK, he's a peeping tom, but that's not really Psycho, is it? Why's he have top-billing if he's just going to be a weird side character on Janet Leigh's road trip? What the...who's this old broad hacking into Janet Leigh? I guess we found our Psycho! Why don't they ever show her? Couldn't they cast her? That's weird. Why name the movie after a character you don't see? Wait, Anthony Perkins is covering up the murder. Maybe he IS the Psycho! Or a Psycho. What...what the hell am I watching here? Wait, there is no old broad, it's Anthony Perkins playing dress up? OK, he's the Psycho. What was all that stuff with Janet Leigh then, that average love affair/rip-off plot? I'll tell you what's Psycho, making us sit through that stuff. Takes 40 minutes to get to the actual Psycho! I'll tell you who the Psycho is, Alfred Hitchcock, that's the Psycho! What a weird movie."

What a weird movie indeed. And the sequels only get weirder. Stay tuned.

A BBB-Movie

When I saw 1988's Night of the Demons when I was a kid, I could tell even then that it was on the lower end of production quality. My family rented a lot of horror movies, and this one was a dud with my family, and my mom even coined a term for it. But, for even as cheap as I thought it was, there was something about it that stuck with me -- more than just the scares or good looking ladies (Jill Terashita spent years etched into my memory) or gore, it had an energy to it. When I went back and watched it when I growded up, I appreciated the movie even more.

The movie's just fun. It's an entertaining funhouse ride, but what's great is that it does manage to still have scary moments and take memorable, surprising turns. It's a Halloween party or haunted house attraction or spooky carnival ride in movie form. The premise of high school kids having a Halloween party at an abandoned funeral parlor always seemed to me like such a cool, fun idea. They tease each other with stories, the town folklore, of the place being haunted, but little do they know what they're in for. Further adding to the fun atmosphere of the movie is the way the cast seems to be having fun -- it's one of those movies that just looked like it was a blast to make.

One of the things I find interesting about the characters is the way that most of them are pretty antagonistic towards one another, but when hell's breaking loose, they do try to help one another. A hooligan like Sal would probably be about saving himself in another movie, but he does stick around to help out here. I remember being shocked by Sal's death when I was a kid -- I thought he was cool, and he seemed like he would have made it out alive. You also have Roger, who's initially depicted as being a bit cowardly -- he's the first to run, and in the middle of the movie, he breaks down in tears at the hopelessness of the situation, needing consoled by the heroine -- but he ends up stepping up and putting himself in danger for others in the end.

The real star of the movie, though, is Amelia Kinkade as Angela. The creepy, loner goth girl who's behind this Halloween shindig, she's the first to realize there's something evil and sinister targeting them, and that her innocent Halloween games are becoming serious, but she's just dismissed as being the kooky one who's into the occult. When she ends up possessed, she becomes the movie's biggest villain, and is rightfully made the star and face of the franchise. Even though the sequels don't live up to the original (and should be ignored), Kinkade makes Angela a memorable horror monster, at once having fun in the role but also still managing to actually be scary. (Steve Johnson's make-up effects are great; he worked on Fright Night, and you can kind of see Evil Ed's disfigured vampire form in a lot of the possessed character make-up in this movie.) Kinkade deserved better sequels and Angela might have been up there with the likes of Freddy, Jason and the gang.

(I have to take this time to mention the awesome VHS cover art. It's Kinkade in demon make-up, creepy and in demonic joy, holding an invitation to her party. The classic tagline is "Angela is having a party. Jason and Freddy are too scared to come, but you'll have a hell of a time." How awesome is that? I actually had no idea for the longest time that it was Kinkade's Angela on the cover, I thought it was just a random demonic monster not even in the movie. That's how cool the make-up is, how much Kinkade transforms herself.)

As a kid who always heard horror stories about the perils of Trick-or-Treating -- the warnings, like about checking your candy -- the end of this movie gave me the willies when I was a kid. It's meant to be comedic and over-the-top, but, still...that grumpy old bastard who wanted to give the razor-filled apples to kids getting a dose of his own medicine was a gory shock. That the razor apples are used by the guy's wife to make apple pie is pretty ridiculous; we know the wife wants the guy dead, so that explains how the razors survived the transition from apple to pie, but how'd he eat any of the pie without noticing the crisp, just-peeled razor deliciousness!?! Ah, whatever. It's still a funny and shocking "trick" to end this big old Halloween party...

"Halloween Party." It's what the movie was meant to be called before the producers of Mikey Myers' movies shot it down. But that's the perfect title for this movie -- it's a Halloween party in film form. That term my mom once coined for this movie, which she hated? I clearly remember when we returned this movie to the video store. As my mom handed our rentals over to Heidi, the video store clerk who I had a bit of a crush on, Heidi asked what we thought of the movies we rented. My mom was quick to start trashing Night of the Demons. "That wasn't just a B-Movie, it was a BBB-Movie; filled with butts, boobs and bad-acting." Well, to her it might have been a BBB-Movie. To me it's the perfect Halloween movie.