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.
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