Please Enter... the House of Sequels!

It started as a joke, one of those "wouldn't-it-be-cool-if" sort of ideas that you quickly forget about.  I don't remember what we were watching the first time I presented the idea to watch all of the greats, but I imagine it was during a viewing of one of the big boys. (I'd like to say it was Hellraiser, but that's surely hindsight bias).  The rest of the gang thought it would be fun, in the way that eating the giant steak in under an hour at the Big Texan would be fun. Everyone had a good laugh, and the idea got swept under the table until the next time we were watching a great, and I had forgotten that I had already brought the idea up before.

And then Salty brought over The List.

I'd like to say that it was inked in human blood and bound in human flesh, but in reality it was just pencil and stuffed in a pocket until it came to rest on my study table.  Written on a shopping list, it denoted every franchise and sequel (later modified by The Rules) that we would have to (HAVE TO) watch. It had everything, from venerable titles like A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th to complete shitpickles like Leprechaun and Puppet Master.  It was daunting. It was merciless (did you know that there's like 8 sequels to Children of the Corn?).  It was, once I saw the extent of what it would entail, the dumbest idea I've ever had.

So we decided to do it.

Now, here we are.  More than anything, this blog is a chronicle of our adventure.  We're putting this together to leave a record that yes, we did this ridiculous thing.  We want to have some sort of document that we can point people to when they say, "Did you REALLY watch Return of the Living Dead: Rave to the Grave?"  But we’re also doing this for you, those folks we somehow conned into reading this.  Some of these films you may have never seen before.  Or maybe it’s been 20 years since you’ve seen The Exorcist, and you kind of remember what happens, but you don’t remember how you felt about it.  Or, you want to read about some poor saps that had to sit through a series that has one decent film and a bunch of direct-to-video crapfest sequels.

Step inside the House of Sequels.  It’s kind of dusty, but we think we’ll be hospitable enough for you to want to stick around.

Psycho III - Not the Psycho Remake

Corey says:

Hoo boy, Psycho III.  

Psycho III starts off strong.  I mean, nuns dying in fucked up ways strong.  And then, it just goes sour.  Anthony Perkins just doesn’t cut the mustard this time around, making Norman Bates more like a parody of the psychopath.  Everything about his performance is exaggerated.  Oh, and remember all the crazy bullshit at the end of Psycho II? We’re gonna go ahead and retract that.  The one bright spot of this whole film is Jeff Fahey, who plays a total slimy dickball perfectly.  I would have rooted for him, but his character was such a piece of shit that I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Sorry about the short synopsis, but man. Seriously. Bring a six pack for this one.  You’re gonna need it.

Maire says:

Oh nuns! They do make for good expositions, don’t they? Even more so when it really doesn’t have anything at all to do with the movie. It’s like someone needed to slap together a back story on our heroine, and said, “Dude man, you know what I love, man? Nuns! Yeah man, nuns ... you gonna pass that?” And of course she has to fall from grace in some way or another. Lucky for our nun, she’s pretty bad at falling and ends up killing someone else instead of herself.

And that’s where our nun story line ends.

Seriously.

Why even have it? It’s a silly device. If you’re gonna go the nun route, go all the way, even if it veers into weird Omen IV territory*, at least you’re staying true to the start. Ok, so there is that "vision" of Norman as her savior, but still, you don't have to be a nun to have visions.

But enough about nuns, this is Psycho III! Even though it takes place only a month after Psycho II, this movie is so ‘80 it’s painful at times. That’s really what stood out to me. Oh, and all the dickbags. Seriously, why are people intent on screwing with Norman? “Hey, I know what we can do tonight! Fuck with the psychopath! Won’t that just be jolly good fun?!” Oh the hilarity that ensues!

*more on this in a later post! hint: it’s about the Omen IV.

Salty says:

Psycho III is the sequel that you want to see. Norman is still out of the cracker box for some reason and he is still at it (killing motel-goers that is), but that’s not all! He’s got a suicidal runaway nun as a love interest and she happens to look remarkably like Marion Crane (Remember? From the first one.). With more blood and nudity than is expected, the movie is more of an inverse slasher than a normal Psycho film. And, as a cherry to those of us that have decided to follow all the sequels, it essentially apologizes for the half-assed twist at the end of Psycho II.

The best part of Psycho III is that the movie knows that you want to see Norman living the dual life: interacting with Mother and being Mother. Maybe it’s just me but I think that being chased by an adult man in a housedress is really scary, scarier than being chased by a man in a mask. A mask implies preparation, planning and a desire to escape conviction; a housedress implies that the killer doesn’t give a shit what he looks like when he stabs you, but like it or not you’re getting stabbed. A man who wears a housedress to kill shouldn’t be taunted or provoked. So, naturally, the hitchhiking wannabe country star (Jeff Fahey) hired to run the motel decides to taunt and provoke our transvestite protagonist.

Jeff Fahey is hard to dislike. Well, okay he’s actually really easy to dislike because he’s a huge prick and by the time he joins forces with a giant soul-sucking maggot – excuse me, I mean an up and coming journalist – you really want him to learn first-hand why he should give up bathing. Though, despite of his detestability, the image of Jeff Fahey sitting naked in his motel room waving lamps around in front of his crotch to set a sexy mood for his loose date (“sexy” being used here the same way an announcer at a gentlemen’s club with the word “beaver” in its name would use it) is a memorable film moment if there ever was one.

Sure the film is a little over-acted and ultimately ends in tragedy for everyone (what did you expect?), but by now I think we can feel pretty certain that Norman will be released from the asylum for another romp after a few years of good behavior.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆	☆	☆☆☆

Psycho II - The Re-Norman-ing

Maire says:

Ok, so let’s think about some things for a moment:

• (Un)Crazy guy is released after years of psychiatric care, so let’s send him back to his old house, where he kept his dead mother. That certainly won’t have any ill repercussions. 
• And let’s have a douchebag running the motel, cos it certainly won’t bother a meticulous personality like Norman’s. 
• Love interest? Yeah, that’ll go well.
• Surprise dickbag harassing Norman? Sure, why not?
• And just for fun, let’s play count the “Mothers”

Obviously hilarity ensues and they all live happily ever after. Oh, wait...


Corey says:

Hooray, Norman’s out of the nuthouse! And, he’s a... cook... at a greasy spoon.  Hooray!

One of the fun things about Psycho II is how Norman is pushed mentally.  It's kind of like a psychological version of Sam Raimi's penchant for throwing Bruce Campbell into bookshelves in the Evil Dead series.  You almost get the idea that the director and scriptwriter we're going back and forth:

"Ok, now Norman's a line cook.  How can we fuck him up?"
"I know! We'll make one of the kitchen tickets a vaguely worded threat that will dredge up mommy memories!"
"Awesome! Surely that will help show how deep and dark Norman really is!"

 On the bright side, Anthony Perkins is still rockin’ as Norman, even though some weird twists and turns really try to make this a bad film.  There are some great nods to the original film (Norman’s penchant for sandwiches and milk, for example), and the first ⅔ of the movie do a pretty solid job of pushing Norman close to the edge yet again.  Also, there’s an awesome kill involving a knife and a mouth. Then, the ending happens.

Now mind you, then ending of the film isn’t bad.  It’s just, well, not good. And after a neat little romp, it was really a letdown.  Don’t let that stop you from seeing the film though.  Just turn it off 20 minutes before it’s over and invent your own ending.  Just make sure that your ending involves an old lady getting whacked with a shovel. I assure you, it will be better than what actually goes on.


Salty says:

Either Psycho II is a horror movie that was made for the elderly or it’s supposed to scare people that are geriaphobic (this is a word that I have just made up that means “afraid of old people”). This wouldn’t be the first: I am convinced that Let’s Scare Jessica To Death is specifically designed to make you distrust anyone over 60, especially if they have band-aids on their necks (nothing to do with vampires). However the movie was intended, Psycho II pulls off some good stuff, but it does it slowly... old woman with a walker slowly. Lots of throwbacks to the original, lots of exposition, and the series of elaborate tricks designed by Marion Crane’s aging sister to ease Norman back into insanity takes more time than it takes my grandma to describe her weekly drug regiment. Also, the cast is full of old people (seriously the average cast member age is like 55), which is right unusual for a horror picture.

A plus of the film’s cautious pace is that you get to spend a lot of time in the creepy, dusty mansion, and who doesn't want to hang out in Norman Bates’ totally cool mansion? Also, you get more time with Norman, who is always fun in an inordinate way. However, I feel that the level of abuse he takes at the hands of the evil mother of his new girlfriend, Meg Tilly, is kind of hard to watch and I really just want him to be either left alone or to snap and start slaying people, but instead he mostly tragically struggles with his sanity. So, the movie really boils down to a lot of me sitting around thinking, "That's a pretty sweet house. Oh, Norman’s really losing it, is he going to kill anyone now? … Nope … Okay … Man, that old lady sucks! I wonder if Meg Tilly is like partially from Eastern Europe or Iceland. Yeah, I could see Icelandic blood in her … This movie is depressing."

Then after a lot of build up Norman finally freaks out, Dennis Franz disappears somehow (I don’t even remember if he gets wacked or what. Oh yeah, Dennis Franz is in this movie) and there is a lackluster crescendo. But! Then something unexpected happens: a new old lady shows up and claims to be Norman’s true mother, which isn’t a great twist conceptually, but watching that old woman get cracked full force on the back of the head with a shovel brings a huge smile to my face just thinking about it. So, if nickel-scented breath sends a shiver up your spine and you would like to spend your excess spare time with dusty houses, Meg Tilly, old people being dicks and Dennis Franz, Psycho II is the film you have been waiting for.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆	☆☆	☆☆

The Gang Reviews Psycho (Catchier Title Coming Soon!)

Maire Says:

Call me a child of pop culture, but honestly, I didn’t know. Yes, I had seen the facade at Universal Studios as a little girl, and I knew Mother was behind it, but that was all I knew. At 34, I had never actually seen the movie, and therefore I did not know.

So naturally, 10 minutes in, my esteemed co-authors, rightfully assuming that their eldest cohort had seen the film (to their credit, I did tell them that Mother was the killer), spoke openly about the killer and the backstory. I then politely watched the rest of the film before letting them know of their misstep. 

So alas, what can I say? Would I have been as shocked as those first movie goers that were not allowed to leave the theater? Or would my reaction be the same as it is now, after becoming so jaded by pop horror, that nothing is really surprising anymore? (Ok, that statement isn’t completely fair, and I still hold Cabin in the Woods up high because of it’s slant.)

Surprise endings aside, and cinematic firsts aside, the film warrants my 2 out of 3 star rating. Norman is the painfully relatable bad guy. You know he’s not quite good, but you can’t help but root for him anyway. I was quite shocked to see the shower scene play out so early in the film. Seriously, HOLY CRAP! SHE’S DEAD ALREADY? But this is the scene the movie is known for? How can it happen so early on? Cue the rest of the film’s plot device to keep it moving, slowly unraveling the mystery of Norman, leaving you to forget about the early murder and focus more on what the heck is actually going on with this guy, how long has this been happening, and will he ever return?

But it must be a happy ending, because, hey! there’s a Psycho II!

Corey Says:

We decided to start our project with the grandaddy of all the slasher films, Psycho.  The beauty of this film lies in the masterful performance of Anthony Perkins as Norman, our favorite hotel manager with mommy issues.  He goes from polite sandwich offering local yokel to a deeply, darkly afflicted (and frightening) psychopath in the time it takes to ask him a question.  I had not seen Psycho in over a decade when we decided to watch it again, and I was blown away at the violence of the transformations that Norman goes through during the film’s process.

Also as a side note: No matter how old a film is, don’t give away spoilers while talking during the film.  One of our crew (she knows who it is) didn’t know about the most classic twist in the history of horror.  (Well, other than the one in Sleepaway Camp, that is). During the film, Salty and I were discussing the twist, not realizing that we were ruining our ONE SHOT to see a true, honest reaction shot to the end of the film.

Oh well, there’s always the next classic horror franchise that has one of the greatest twists of all time.

Salty Says:

Psycho is now old enough that not everyone knows the ending, so if you are going to watch it with someone who doesn’t watch a lot of horror, don’t ruin it for them by blabbing about the end (Sorry, Maire)! Watching Psycho for the fifteenth or sixteenth time makes you really want to read into it. Maybe I was a little late to the examining-subtexts-and-undertones party here, but I sort of like to turn my brain off when I watch movies: classics or otherwise. I’ve read reviews and watched enough documentaries and interviews with directors and critics and anyone who knows anything about movies to know that everything that needs to be said about Psycho has been said and that it has been dissected scene by scene, angle by angle, shadow by shadow. Its greatness need not be mentioned. So, instead of trying to throw my hat into the interpretation ring and pulling apart the suspense, I want to talk about the what makes this film not an edgy thriller, but a full-blown horror epic. I want to talk about corpses.

To me, that’s the real beauty of the film: stinking, rotting human corpses dried out to better withstand exposure, taxidermied to maintain some of their original form. The film is like a wake: it’s tense and uncomfortable and you can try to pretend that you are interested in other stuff, you can analyze the other characters and focus on the details and décor, but really you are just there to check out a cadaver. That’s what I look forward to when I watch Psycho - not the shower scene, which is excellent except for the one tiny twitch of Janet Leigh’s eyes, which I always hope and pray won’t happen, even though it always does – but that glorious moment when the other Miss Crane sneaks into the ominous mansion thinking that she is going to dig up some of the dirt that Norman has tucked into his fruit cellar.

She finds the old lady she was searching for. She reaches out to turn the silent figure and what does she get? A eyeful of parch-paper skin shrinking away from lipless aging teeth on a face dominated by wrinkled and vacuous eye sockets, that’s what! The way the swinging light bulb makes you wonder whether or not you saw the mummy move just a little bit. HA! That’ll teach you to snoop! Then, in runs Norman in full drag with a face full of insane. When Sam grabs him before he gets the kill Norman grimaces and screams, but the look he has on his face lets you know that he doesn’t have the lung capacity to scream as much as he wants. To call it impressive is an understatement.

And what about that swamp? Full of rotting corpses! I like to think that Hitchcock secretly wanted to open the trunk of Marion’s car for in the final shot, but he knew that the censors wouldn’t allow it. 

Yeah, it would have made the movie a lot schlockier, but then you would at least get to compare mother’s husk to a fresh corpse beginning to corrupt in stagnant water. You know, see how Marion’s pretty body broke down and ate itself as a kind of redemption for Norman; a sort of testament to the compassion he demonstrated in trying to help mother avoid that cold damp grave. That would have been a nice ending too.

Maire	Corey	Salty
☆☆	☆☆☆	☆☆☆

Psycho - the Franchise Introduction

What started as a cinematic first, as is with many honest endeavors, quickly ran astray, and though detouring into OK country, eventually ended up in I'd-rather-fall-asleep-than-watch-this.

In the following posts, we take you on a trip along the main highway and off to the closed one. Drama, intrigue, and surprise endings lure you in, unrequited love of an anti-hero keeps your thirst at bay, but will this relationship pan out? It's up to you, and the influence of our reviews, to decide.