My dearest readers, I bid thee welcome, for it is I, the Duke of DVD, once more standing firm at the gunwale of cinematic mastery. Legs spread, I weather the pitch and yaw of the stormy seas of forgotten film minutiae, striving evermore to land the white leviathan that is silver-screen awesome. Do not despair, gentle readers! Together we shall shed light on the deepest of mysteries, catching the rare glimpse of that pallid abomination that slides through the ice-cold, inky blackness.
Today I turn my head to the left, then to the right, pointing with a glyphed dagger to the eight cardinal directions, muttering the names of unspeakable monstrosities from beyond time. Today friends, we raise the spectre of one Alfred Hitchcock as we trample across his grave in an attempt to reconcile the greatness that is Psycho II. What perverse greed drove filmmakers, a full 23 years after the original, to exhume this moldering corpse, string it up on a rough-hewn pole, and brandish it around town whilst horrified on-lookers shrieked and cowered, stabbing their scabbed fingers at the air with arcane signs to ward off ill omens?
Let us find out!
After the wild success of Hitchcock's Psycho in 1960, one would think that a sequel would have been fast-tracked. Luckily for 1960's moviegoers, Hollywood wasn't suffering the collective head trauma that they are now, and the movie stood on its own. Modern-day Hollywood, as my astute readers already know, is currently being consumed by itself. Demented by pain and rage, it shudders and groans, passing sequel after sequel, remake after remake, through its long digestive tract before a final grunt plops the cinematic offal directly onto the faces of the modern movie-going public.
"You're not fully clean unless you're Zest-fully clean!"
Psycho was spared this fate for over two decades, until in 1982 Robert Bloch wrote a book called Psycho II, which basically amounted to a send-up of the slasher genre. Before you could say "Holy FUCK! What a great idea!", Universal had jumped all over the idea of reprising Psycho. Negotiations were quickly underway, with everyone down to the Universal janitors trying to get Anthony Perkins to sign on. It wasn't until other names were bandied about (namely Christopher Walken, how fucking great would that have been!?!?) that Perkins finally consented.
Luckily, the original Bates household still existed on the Universal back lot, so all that had to be done was to rebuild the motel out front. The movie was originally intended to be a made-for-TV film, but I guess wiser heads prevailed and it was released in 1983 to critical acclaim and box office success. The movie ended up grossing over $32 million, making it one of the top draws that year. How did lightning strike twice for this franchise, before completely running off the tracks for sequels 3 and 4?
First off, there's Anthony Perkins. Why he isn't more popular is a subject that I will not get into here, but if you just looked at his work in the first two Psycho movies, you would be at a loss to explain it. Perkins plays a supposedly-newly-reformed Norman Bates with an aplomb that is palpable. He owns every scene, his eyes constantly alive with whatever emotion is he supposed to be feeling. He chews through every scene of the movie this way, and it is riveting to say the least.
The movie opens with the original footage of Janet Leigh's death in Psycho. Once again we are reminded of how much of an utter fucking genius that ol' Alfred was. No frame is wasted, each shot composed and presented to give the utmost in suspense. The murky figure of Norman, wearing his mother's clothing and wig, seen through the shower curtain is simply chilling. The brutal stabbing, so much more brutal if one imagines seeing something like this in 1960, is simply stunning. The close-up of Janet's hand gripping the curtain, until she finally tumbles out, face pressing against the floor, dead, as the camera lingers on her eye, seeming to show us the final light escaping it. Stunning, and brilliant.
This segues us into the early 80's, and a middle-aged Norman Bates sits in court as the judge pronounces him fit to return to normal society, where men are allowed to dress up as their departed mothers in the privacy of their own homes, provided they keep the killing to a minimum. Present in the courtroom is Lila Loomis (Vera Miles), sister to Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), who causes a brief ruckus by loudly proclaiming that Norman isn't in the least rehabilitated and shouldn't be released. Nothwithstanding, the judge brings the gavel down, and Norman is free to go.
"Uh, doc, couldn't you have bought me more than Trix and canned beans?"
Norman is driven back home by his court-appointed psychiatrist, Dr. Raymond (played excellently by Robert Loggia). Now, folks, I may not be a noted psychologist, but long years of listening to the Vicar wax philosophic on such subjects as the proper way to don a pair of ass-less chaps have given me a near preternatural insight into the human psyche. It seems to me that if someone was raised by a tyrant mother, and then finally kills said tyrant, and then proceeds to murder other victims wearing his mother's clothes, shouldn't that person, as part of their treatment, be made to, oh I don't know... STAY THE FUCK AWAY from the house in which it all occurred?
But this is the logic of film we are talking about, and so Norman is escorted right back to where it all began and unceremoniously dumped into the mouldy old house in which he was raised. Very quickly we are introduced to the seedy manager of the Bates Motel, who has been running the place in Norman's absence. The how or why of it isn't explained, but we learn that the motel is the happening spot for illicit affairs and drug deals, a fact which makes Norman a very angry boy. He fires the manager - played by a young Dennis Franz I am happy to report! - and tries to get his life on the right track.
"Are youse lookin' at my bum?"
This includes a sort of work-release program at a local diner. Norman is given the job of "cook's helper," which he takes to with relish. He meets the over-worked waitress of the joint, Mary (played by the scrumptious Meg Tilly). Norman comes to her aid several times, and ultimately gets her to come stay with him at his house after hearing that her boyfriend has kicked her out. This leads to what will become a long line of awesome Anthony Perkins-related scenes.
"Sorry, I really don't care for PB&J&Arsenic. Thanks anyway."
In the house, Mary and Norman sit at the kitchen table, and Norman offers to fix her a sandwich. This leads to Norman finding, get this, the exact fucking knife that he did foul murder with, just sitting there in the kitchen drawer! Uttering a line that is simply fantastic, Norman stammers out, "I am still getting set up here, and don't have much in the way of cuuuuuuuutlery."Mary begins digging around, finds the knife, and hands it to Norman, who shakily cuts her sandwich in twain. Brilliant stuff!
Everything seems fine to begin with. Norman seems well-enough adjusted, and despite the shock of finding his old murder weapon, not to mention a hand-written note from his mother from years ago (saying something to the effect of having dinner ready later), he is getting along with minimal problems. However, things quickly start to unravel. While working the orders at the dinner, Norman spins the order wheel around and sees a note from his mother! It reads "Get that slut out of my house! -Mother" or some such. Needless to say, he freaks the fuck out, but when his coworkers investigate, they find no note.
DAYUM.
Later, Norman starts receiving calls from someone purporting to be his mother, which Norman buys hook line and sinker. He starts a downward spiral, and we the audience do indeed believe that he is losing it--that is until a more nefarious plot is revealed. It seems Mary isn't just an innocent waitress, and is instead Lila Loomis's daughter, niece to the Norman-murdered Marion Crane! Knowing that the courts will not keep Norman locked up, they have taken it upon themselves to drive him insane enough to be recommitted.
Things start getting even more bizarre when it's revealed that not just Mary and her mother are sneaking around the house. A mysterious 3rd party is peeking through peepholes at Mary getting out of the shower (a few quick seconds of Meg Tilly nearly full-frontal was enough to send your beloved Duke into a turgid dream-world, until I found out it was a body double, which caused much wailing and gnashing of teeth!) and hacking to death teens who are foolish enough to use the Bates' basement as a make-out spot. Norman is insistent that his mother is still around, and we start believing right along with him, even knowing it really can't be true.
"Oh baby, your breast feels like a warm bag of sand... what's that sound? Sounded stabby..."
The good Dr. Raymond even takes Norman out and has his mother's coffin exhumed, basically shoving his face in it saying "There! Look! She's dead, ok?! Christ, for the love of..." Ok, so he didn't do that, but he should have. Meanwhile, the sheriff is getting increasingly suspicious of Norman. First, the vagina-bearing half of one teen couple survives and informs the sheriff that someone killed her boyfriend in the Bates basement. However, an exhaustive forensic investigation (read: the corpulent sheriff standing in the basement, looking around a few seconds, then pronouncing "Nothin' ta see here'a"), nothing is confirmed.
"I knew I shouldn't have tried to flush that tampon..."
Stabbed through the heart, and you're to blame...
They are still unable to pin any of it on Norman, though, who is looking ever-increasingly fevered and demented as all of this progresses. By the final act, Norman is sweating through his skin, jumping at shadows, looking around with the wall-eyed visage of a hunted animal cornered by fell beasts, and just generally looking uncomfortable. His only respite is with the phantom phone calls from his "mother." Unable to convince him that this is just Lila calling, Mary becomes frantic to prove to Norman that it is all a ruse. Unbeknownst to Mary, however, is that her mother Lila hasn't been calling. Who's ringing the phone, then?!
"You may be a psycho, Norm, but I'll tell you man-to-man: you got one HELL of an ass!"
The movie culminates with Dr. Raymond, who is convinced that Mary and Lila are trying to drive Norman mad (which they are) and who jumps out and grabs Mary (who in turn has dressed as Norman's mother, complete with wig, in an attempt to talk Norm down from his insanity [WTF? Great idea, lady!]) and Mary shrieks then stabs the good doctor to death before she realizes who grabbed her. The doctor plunges over the banister with the knife protruding from his chest, and lands on a lower railing, directly on the knife, which is pushed further into his body! Brutal and brilliant, as well as well-shot!
"Sorry, there's no Hugh Jazz here... hey, wait a minute!"
Distraught, Mary runs downstairs to find Norman having a conversation with his non-existent mother still. He hangs up and tells Mary he'll take care of her while slowly advancing on her with a manic look in his eyes. Mary panics and stabs him, repeatedly, though they amount to stigmata-esque hand wounds and a few more shallow stabs on his person. She slowly backs in the basement, still stabby in her actions. She trips backwards over a pile of coal, and reveals the stabbed corpse of her mother!
Before you can say "How's your father?" she screeches at Norman and tries to run him through, only to be shot by Sheriff Portly! Norman, hands bandaged, is taken to the sheriff's department, where he is exonerated, sans trial, for any wrong-doing, by the lard-ass sheriff. He is then given a ride home, where he sets two places for dinner and waits. After dark comes a knock at his backdoor, which he answers. In walks a small-ish old lady, who informs Norman that he is indeed her true son, and that who Norman thought was his mother was instead this new lady's sister. Apparently Norman's real mother was too young, and about to be institutionalized, so she gave up Norman.
"Avon calling!"
Norman accepts this with surprising calm, as he fixes her some tea, poisoning her with the same stuff he used to off his first "mother." As she's starting to choke, he apparently decides that this is taking too long, and uses the coal shovel from the basement to bash her head in! He picks up her stiffening body and carries it upstairs, to his mother's room. The camera pauses with a high-profile shot facing downward to outside the door. We hear Norman reassure her that everything is going to be fine, and then we hear his new mother's voice, telling Norm that he's a good boy and to stay away from "filthy girls."
"I told you, no more fucking Brussel sprouts!"
The final shot of the movie is a fantastic frame of Norman walking away from the house, down to the motel. It is night and the sky is steel-gray; thunder rumbles in the distance. We see a lighted window at his mother's room, and her dark silhouette, watching, as Norman turns his head back to face the house. Fin.
Dearest readers, I must say, that this movie is completely awesome. Never in my wildest fantasies (and I've had some pretty wild fantasies, I assure you!) did I imagine that any sort of direct sequel to Psycho would be successful. And yet, here it is. Director Richard Franklin and writer Tom Holland pull off something that would seem at first glace to sucketh, yet pull it off they do. The visual compositions, which include a ton of off-angle, elevated shots, speak visually to Norman's state of mind. I also found it highly entertaining that not only did the producers keep you guessing as to what in the fuck is going on, but that even upon retrospection the killer identities is ambiguous at best. One can easily say that Norman's real mother killed Toomey and the kid in the basement, but did she really? It very well could have been Norman...
Anthony Perkins just nails the shit out of his reprized role, as I elucidated upon earlier. One interesting note is that due to Meg Tilly's young age, she was relatively unaware of Perkins' fame for his 1960 role as Norman Bates, causing her to ask what all the hubbub about Tony was, which reportedly pissed Perkins off to no end, causing him to cease speaking to her like some petulant child for the remainder of the shoot! Tony Perkins: a big girl's blouse when it comes to being a star.
There's no place like home.
In the end, this movie is most certainly greater than the sum of its parts. From the fantastic performances of even the most bitty of bit parts, to the reused house from the original, to the way each shot was composed with much forethought, Psycho 2 ranks right up there in the pantheon of brilliant sequels that not only add to the mythos created by their predecessors, but are also fantastic movies in their own right.
A standing ovation and 3 Thumbs Up, my friends. Stay stabby.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Psycho II (1983): Or, There's A Right Way And A Wrong Way To Have Mommy Issues
Monday, December 10, 2007
Amityville II: The Possession (1982): or, My Demon Brother
Like most kids growing up in the 70s (or at least most of those who were into horror movies), I was fascinated by the story of The Amityville Horror, the supposedly true story of the Lutz family and their trials and tribulations in the most maliciously haunted house in America. The bestselling book by Jay Anson was nothing less than a cultural phenomenon, scaring folks out of their bedclothes from coast to coast and even in foreign countries. The 1979 movie starring James Brolin and Margot Kidder was a massive box office hit. And the sinister "face" of the house has become iconic shorthand for everything a threatening, demon-possessed house should be. When a house that looks like that says, "GET OUT!"--brother, you better listen.
But while that phrase and other parts of the Amityville legend have become enshrined in the cultural haunted house nomenclature--the "Indian Burial Ground" explanation, for instance--the legend itself has not aged well. The "true story" of the book has been exposed as a hoax. The glow of the film's boffo B.O. has dimmed as subsequent generations discover that despite one or two effective set-pieces (the rocking chair in the little girl's room, the horrifying red-eye pig-squeal at the upstairs windows) the film is actually a plodding, boring, melodramatic mess. Yes, the film has found, much like its female lead, that the passage of time can be cruel.
But then there was its sequel, Amityville II: The Possession. Released three years after the original, this movie drops all pretense of creepy verisimilitude and goes straight for the gut, cranking up the paranormal activity, turning the perversity dial to eleven, and tossing enough goopy gore effects at the screen to satisfy even the most jaded Mad Movie Connoisseur. Where part one now plays as a staid, slow-moving relic in which nothing much really happens, A2:TP shows like a freight train on fire barreling past a malfunctioning crossing alarm in the middle of a schoolbus caravan. And like that train wreck, it's definitely worth a long, fascinated look.
Taking as its source another of the few effective set-pieces from the first film--the horrific opening murder montage when Ronald DeFeo systematically killed his entire family (including two young siblings) with a shotgun in the Amityville House before the Lutzes moved in--A2:TP opens with these previous owners taking possession (ha!) of their dream home. The family, inexplicably renamed "Montelli" for the purposes of this film, is made up of a high-strung religious mother (Golden Raspberry-nominated Rutanya Alda), an abusive greaseball father (prolific character actor Burt Young of the Rocky series fame), angelic tots Mark and Jan (Brent and Erika Katz), budding vivacious teenager Patricia (a scrumptuous Diane Franklin; see also the 1985 John Cusack comedy Better Off Dead), and sullen chicken-chested eldest son Sonny.
Jack Magner plays Sonny with effective wounded menace; early scenes where he angrily but powerlessly cowers before his slap-happy dad--even before they get into the house for the first time!--tell you volumes about his character and dramatic situation. Not since Oedipus has there been a young man more likely to murder his tyrannical father, and Magner inhabits the role admirably, getting just the right mix of beaten-down goodness and mind-twisting anger boiling just under the surface. While his loving sister and disturbingly affectionate mother anchor him to his control for the moment, you can tell he just needs a little bit of tipping to go screaming over the edge.
"Did you say, 'Ge Tout'? Sorry, I don't speak German."
Of course the house they just moved into specializes in pushing those teetering on madness over the brink, and wastes no time putting the screws to Sonny. The Montellis have barely set foot in the house before the spirits who dwell there start acting out, announcing themselves with a self-opening secret door to the famous "Red Room" (and dumping sewage and flies on the hapless moving guy who invesigates it) and a ghostly grope of Mrs. Montelli, which lets Rutanya Alda start her hysterical crazy-eyed acting style early and stick with it throughout. In fact the speed and intensity of the haunting here is fairly shocking--you wonder how they were even able to buy the place without it spitting blood out the wall sockets and slamming windows on their noses during the open house. I guess, like Shirley Jackson famously wrote, "some houses are born bad." At least it's not boring.
We get a few more dysfunctional family-establishment scenes, all of them great. Sonny and Patricia share a strange moment in his room, as the younger sister pretty much comes on to her brother with a lithe ballet soliloquy. (Zang.) Later at dinner there's more slapping from Dad and screaming from Mom, with much crying and gnashing of teeth from all four children. Some ghostly knocking at the door leads Daddy to go grab one of his many shotguns (FORESHADOWING!) while upstairs levitating paintbrushes make obscene graffiti on the walls of the tots' room. When Dad threatens to belt the kids for the painting, Mom steps in and gets the strap for her troubles. When Burt chases her all the way down to the basement, spanking her all the way, Sonny steps in, grabs a rifle, and threatens to blow Dad's head off with it. Rutanya takes the gun and cries "What's happening to us?" But you can't help feeling what's wrong with this family was wrong well before they moved in.
Most of the family goes to church to meet Father Adamsky (James Olson), but Sonny stays home and starts getting messages through his Walkman encouraging him to kill baby kill! In one of the scenes that stuck with me in the 80s, Sonny reclines on the bed and his bare chest deflates dramatically, ribs sticking up and out, in a gross and wonderful practical effects scene. Guess he's possessed now, all right!
I've mentioned the perversity of the film, and those who have seen it will have no trouble remembering exactly what I'm talking about. We get another scene of Sonny and Patricia together in which Patricia talks explicitly about their parents' sex lives, how she doesn't think "Mommy likes to do it" anymore, and it makes Daddy mad. "I hear them arguing about it," she says. That's gotta make it hard to sleep. Diane Franklin plays the budding nymphette extremely well, and it's clear in this scene and others that her affection for her older brother is tinged with her burgeoning sensuality, lending an uncomfortable erotic undercurrent to their scenes together.
Later, fully under the demonic influence of the house, her brother suggests they play a game of "photographer," where he pretends to be the camera man and she the model. Patricia readily poses for him on the bed, and when he suggests she remove her nightgown, she all-too-readily accedes! Things quickly go from icky to creepy when her brother pulls a pair of her dirty panties from his pocket, explaining he got them from the laundry. Before you can say "Hotel New Hampshire!" Sonny and Patty have broken several BIG Old Testament laws, and the familial corruption is complete.
"Why are you looking at me so funny, bro?"
Meanwhile Mom has asked Father Adamsky to bless the house, letting the priest in on all the dysfunction going on at the Montelli abode and giving him the first glimpse of the evil spirit that's now directing Sonny's every move. His Godly Spidey-Sense tingles more when Patricia brings her sins to him at confession, saying memorably that her "friend" does these things with her just to hurt. "To hurt you?" he asks, concerned. "No," she replies. "To hurt God!" Ho-lee shit. Or un-ho-lee, in this case.
So we're about an hour in to a 100-minute movie when Sonny finally demon-Hulks out and takes the shotgun to the whole fam damily. We're treated to some pretty grody demon-transformation makeup as Sonny kills his parents first, chases down the younger siblings (a very chilling sequence), and finally penetrates his sister with buckshot, for a change. This sequence is very unlike the same one in the earlier movie, where it was an enigmatic plot point that DeFeo shot each family member in his or her bed, where they seemingly stayed put despite the multiple shotgun blasts in other parts of the house. Still, it works here, and the practical effects on Sonny's face are pure 80s-horror goodness.
With still forty minutes run-time to go we switch our focus entirely to Father Adamsky, who now wants to exorcise Sonny and the house. The narrative loses a little steam and believability as the priest defies his church superiors and the law to bust Sonny out of jail and take him back to the house for the ceremony. But things pick up again when Sonny escapes and the priest must hunt him down through the increasingly rambunctious house--slime down the walls, rivers of blood flooding the basement from the Red Room, and other surreal and strangely effective scenes of horrific haunting. It culminates in a priest vs. demon confrontation that features an incredibly graphic and goopy makeup effect for Sonny's "final transformation" and a straight-from-The Exorcist rip-off resolution that will still leave a Mad Movie fan with a smile on his face. The final shot of the strangely un-destroyed house with a "For Sale" sign swinging out front, like a trap re-set and waiting on the next victim, is a fitting conclusion to an hour and forty minutes of fun.
Though I remembered quite a bit about this movie from my previous viewings in the 80s (mainly the Exorcist-esque makeup and the incest subplot), there was an awful lot I'd forgotten that I found myself enjoying a lot this time through. The sheer energy of the haunting is a welcome change and keeps things from ever getting too boring, and the perverseness and dysfunction of the family (anchored by Burt Young's wonderfully slimy performance as the Montelli the Elder) are really something to see. Jack Magner is great as the demon-possessed killer, and Diane Franklin as the naive nymph sister is similarly affecting. I didn't even mind the departure from haunted house to exorcism territory, as it was just the kind of kitchen-sink cheese that lovers of 80s horror eat up with both spoons. At the end I found myself sated and content, and willing to pronounce this far and away my favorite of the entire Amityville series (though if you've seen any of the other sequels, that may seem like faint praise).
So 2.5 thumbs for this cool piece of fright film from the early 80s. If you haven't seen it in a while and are in the mood for some nasty, goopy nostalgia, you could do a lot worse than to give it another look.
But for the love of God: GET OUT...of the clothes hamper! She's your sister, dude!
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