Psycho II (1983): A Killer Sequel

Psycho II is a killer sequel, expanding a universe that already felt complete and self-contained. Hitchcock films aren’t supposed to have sequels, not least by other directors… but that’s what they did, and it’s great. A character study of Norman Bates, it surprises in how well it picks up and runs with a story told in theatres more than twenty years before.

Part of what makes it such a good sequel is a surprising degree of continuity with the original. Anthony Perkins returns, and the film is directed by Richard Franklin — an under-appreciated Australian director who made the excellent, offbeat, Hitchcockian thriller Road Games (1981), and who happened to be a massive Hitchcock fan.

Unlike the original it is shot in colour, but it follows a very classical style of editing and photography. Tom Holland, who went on to direct Fright Night (1985) and Childs Play (1988), has screenwriting credits.

On the basis of this staff report, Norman Bates is judged restored to sanity and is ordered released forthwith.

Anthony Perkins slips into character as Norman Bates, after twenty-two years, like into well-worn slippers. Similar to what was done more recently in Twin Peaks: The Return (2017), the film takes the real-world gap between movies and runs with it, using it as the length of time Bates was confined in the mental…