SPOILERS AHEAD
When
Anthony Perkins was promoting his directorial debut, Psycho III, in the
US summer of 1986, The Late Show host David Letterman
quipped that the film's title sounded somewhat "like dog food".1 The
joshing may have been in good spirits, but it was a joke that couldn't help but
hold a contextual punch: for punters who, three years earlier, had balked at
the sight of a "II" positioned alongside the title of a revered film,
the addition of another Roman Numeral (and all that this implied) was something
to deride or pretend had not occurred.
Fortunately,
on an artistic level, Psycho III acquits itself well (and a joke on
canine culinaries would fit right in with the film’s mischievous impulses),
although in many respects the film needs to be taken strictly on its own terms.
The creative team of Perkins and writer Charles Edward Pogue have played
up the psychological angst and played down
the suspense, the latter of which was the principal hallmark of the 1960
original and its two-decades-later sequel, but surely would have proven a
case of diminishing returns by a third film. The trade-off, though, is a good
one, with the film transporting us beyond the arched window of the Bates
house to show Norman and Mother conversing, up close and personal, and engaged
in an ongoing, grasping, but fairly unequal, battle of wills. It’s all eerily
rendered by cinematographer Bruce Surtees, whose skill in painting with
darkness and shadows earned him, along with The Godfather's
cinematographer Gordon Willis, the moniker "Prince of Darkness". The
film also gives us a string of characters in desperate need of redemption, one
of whom is Norman. (The film's infamous opening line is "There is no
God!")
Notably,
also, the jolts of suspense have been largely replaced with the jolts of the
macabre: a hallucination of human taxidermy, a furtive kiss for a dead girl,
the dismemberment of a stuffed corpse, another man planting a kiss on Mother,
and so on. The film takes us into the more ghoulish details that the previous
films were suggestive of, rather than displayed – and it accompanies such with
the blackest of humour. If Psycho II was a tribute to the method
of Psycho, Psycho III harnesses the bold, direct, gleefully
macabre mindset of Hitchcock's Frenzy (1972). Granted, Psycho had
its thread of black humour, and Psycho II its in-jokes, but such
elements flow liberally through Psycho III's veins. (The story goes that
in 1983, Perkins, participating in an interview at London’s National Film
Theatre, chuckled away as a clip of Psycho’s infamous and much emulated
– and much spoofed – shower scene was shown;2 Psycho
III often plays like the 96-minute evidence of such offbeat mirth.)
Perkins
and Pogue, though, often use the jokes as a segue way to the melancholy. Black
comedy and sadness not only bounce off one another, but practically feed one
another's lines. The pitifulness of characters' predicaments may generate a
smile, but never a smirk – Perkins and Pogue have a clear feeling for
outsiders. It's a laugh of recognition at our own desperate little struggles.
And that we can locate our struggles in the struggles of a psychopathic killer
has always been one of the fascinating, if not confronting, conceits of the
Psycho films.
Which
leads to a central point of these reflections. Psychos II, III and IV: The
Beginning (1990) are typically appraised as potboilers that, while stylish,
do not hold a candle to the subtextual and thematic richness of the original.
But where the sequels (in particular III) resonate - and resonate
strongly - is in their implicit message: if we refrained from being so damned
crass and opportunistic with the more sensitive members of our communities - who are themselves barely keeping their own demons at bay - so
much of this tragic stuff wouldn't hit the fan. Yes, we may feel, both
logically and empathically, that the grief-stricken Lila Loomis of Psycho II
has reason to act to ensure that the man who took her sister's life so
violently is re-committed; but given what we already know of the demons
that afflict Norman, we also wish she could just sit with her feelings. And in Psycho
III, the desperate attempts for recognition that drive Jeff Fahey's
drifter, Duke, and Roberta Maxwell's reporter, Tracy, are easy enough to relate
to; but when seeking this through Norman’s notoriety, they overwhelmingly come
off as bullies. (When Mother spectacularly materialises behind Tracy – our
first real close-up of the embodied Mother, and what a great one! – it’s hard not
to be swept up in Mother’s mocking proclamation: “Why can’t you leave my son,
my poor Norman, alone?”) As Perkins has emphasised, the Psycho films are tragedies at heart, with Norman
"the Hamlet of Horror". Psycho introduced the idea of the
sensitive, feminine-identified man as dangerous, but Psychos II, III
and IV assert their own distinct identity through a genuinely
sympathetic rendering of the Norman Bates character.
In Psycho III, of course, Norman has an unlikely ally
in Diana Scarwid's fallen nun, Maureen. Maureen, likewise, has an unlikely ally
in Norman. Both are seeking redemption for past sins: Maureen knows this
explicitly, while we, the audience, can identify Norman's need through his
escalating tensions with Mother. (Note how Mother's increasing control over
Norman is suggested through the nature of the murders: the first attack is
frenzied, but the second is coolly, brutally deliberate.) The interactions
between Norman and Maureen are touching, although always laced with fatalism.
The wish for Norman to be left alone also extends to Maureen. Their version of
desperation is a heartening rebuke to the more predatory version on display
with Duke and Tracy, although in this scorched, cynical world, you always
assume Duke and Tracy's way will prevail (not entirely the case, as it pans
out).
Maureen's involvement at the Bates Motel – which comes after
we first meet her, to disorienting effect, in the Vertigo universe –
leads to the film's most memorable switcheroo on established tropes: Maureen
hallucinates that Mother, pulling back the shower curtain, is in fact the
Virgin Mary. It's the sort of moment where the filmmakers are veering so close
to melodramatic hilarity, like the aforementioned close-up of Mother, (and
another moment where the camera follows a crazed Norman for an extended period
of time) that the success and, phew(!), the daring of these moments is
quite the joy to behold.
It is in these moments more than any that you can celebrate
Perkins' directorial influence. He has the confidence with the material to take
it to extreme points. Some of the touches might have been too left-field to
attract the amount of bums-on-seats that had enjoyed the previous films.3 But you
at least have another authentic Psycho film. As for his
performance, you could entertain the notion that Perkins was evoking a degree
of the spirit of his manic, coke-snorting Man of God from 1984's Crimes of Passion; this is a supremely
jittery Norman Bates. More concretely, though, Perkins, as actor, is simply
responding to the scenarios of Psycho III's
narrative: it's as though the reinstitution of Mother in Norman’s life (and his
accompanying guilt, therefore, in failing the state) has twisted him into a
regressive state, even beyond the young man we met in 1960. This cowed older
man is almost comically incapable of not
drawing suspicion upon himself and, not-so-comically, his potentiality to hold meaningful relationships with the world of the living appears even more thwarted – which
makes his moments of connection with Maureen semi-triumphant. Whatever the tone
of his performance, Perkins is a fascinating watch.
The
spectre of Crimes of Passion is also felt in the visual glow of neon, so
vibrant in the Hollywood Boulevard of Crimes, and now casting a series
of peculiar glows across the darkness of a desert motel. (Cinematographer
Surtees' parched vistas are similarly striking.) The murkiness of Crimes,
meanwhile, is felt in touches such as the pornography adorning Duke's walls and
the character’s sleazy but humorous sexual rendezvous, and post-coital
argument, with the film's first victim. (For some, the "sleaze" was
off-putting, and felt to be a lowering addition to the Psycho legacy.)
Although Pogue had envisaged Duke as a red herring, the psychological
preoccupations of this instalment rarely accommodate anyone but Mother as a
suspect for murder; an impression solidified by composer Carter Burwell's
introduction of unsettling vocals and ethereal choirs to the Psycho
soundscape, effectively emphasising the "in his head" psychology of
the piece.
Psycho
III was released in the era of the slasher film, but Perkins by most
accounts was philosophical towards the studio pressures of the day, such as
“amping up” the visceral impact of the murders and adding a De Palma-esque
final stinger. The stinger – the revelation that Norman has not completely
separated with Mother, in both a literal and figurative sense – will I suspect
always be viewed as a cynical set-up for Psycho IV, particularly as it
seems to negate Norman's victory over his psychosis. But does it? Stroking
the severed arm might represent another grab at the macabre, and is certainly
played to unnerving effect, but Norman at least now appears on more relaxed
terms with Mother. Why should he give up her company entirely after the enormity of their
struggles? Has she not ever provided
comfort for a lost soul? We always make exceptions for the murderous Norman
Bates, and wish him well.
1 Anthony Perkins
interviewed on The Late Show with David
Letterman, viewed on Youtube:
Zschim, 07-07-1986 Letterman Sandra Bernhard Anthony Perkins, 15 June 2014, viewed June 10 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5FQCBMiL2M
2 Charles
Winecoff, Split Image: The Life of Anthony Perkins, Dutton: New York,
pp. 413-414.
3 Reflecting on Psycho III’s disappointing box
office, producer Hilton A. Green felt that Perkins “had brought out the darker
side too much”, or too much for the audience to accept it (Winecoff, Split
Image, p. 429).
LINK
Behind-the-scenes of PSYCHO III
Some PSYCHO sites of interest
THE PSYCHO MOVIES
THE PSYCHO MOVIES Facebook Page
THE PSYCHO LEGACY Facebook Page
"Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho" Facebook Page
Published 23 June 2016