One franchise down! Next up we’ve
decided to go with one of the more unlikely entries to make our list: The Exorcist. It is a unique horror
series in that it’s sort of what Marvel (DC is better) did with The Avengers only in reverse… only it’s
a horror movie… and there are no superheroes… What I mean is what’s weird about
it is that all the sequels are individual adventures of each of the characters
that are joined in the first film. Part 2 follows Reagan, part 3 follows Father
Karras and 4 and 5 are alternate histories of Merrin, which is something that
Marvel does – it all comes together. The
franchise does reach the 5-film watermark as we have decided to treat The Beginning and Dominion as separate films as they do in fact have different,
though similar story lines, and are credited to different directors (one of
whom also made Nightmare on Elm Street 4,
so we will be seeing more of his work later).
Who would of thought that a film with a masturbating twelve-year-old
girl would have so many sequels… oh.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Friday, May 24, 2013
The Exorcist II: The Heretic - destroying Linda Blair
Maire says:
What the fuck did I just watch?
Yes, I know it’s one of those movies that you need to watch, in a hipster kind of way.
Yes, it did lead to a moment of awesomeness when Corey realized why he knew the name Pazuzu, and accurately recreated how he knew it.
And yes, it allowed for J. Spurlin over at imdb to come up with this understated gem for his plot summary:
The beauty of The Exorcist is its epic clash of “good vs. evil” in an unexpected container. The horror of The Heretic is its desperate attempt to cling to its predecessor’s glory, while derailing so quickly and horrifically, nothing is left but a shell of what could have been an ok film and another 90 minutes to sit through.
But hey, it’s not all bad for Linda Blair. Just check out all of this awesome modeling work she did in the early 80’s.
Salty says:
Watching The Heretic is like being in a serious accident: you don’t really know what’s happening or why when it’s going on, but you are pretty sure that it’s really, really bad and you just want it to be over. You wish you had avoided it, but you just have to let it play out. Then, once it ends and you get some distance on it and you start taking in the details, you start to question it. Why is that doctor’s office full of glass walls? Was that even a doctor’s office? Why did that man have a strobe light on his forehead? What the fuck was up with those moths? Isn’t that the dude from Field of Dreams? Why doesn’t that skyscraper’s balcony have a complete railing? What is this movie about? Did the person I watched this movie with slip me some drugs? I have only scratched the surface here. This movie creates questions upon questions.
And afterwards the movie haunts you, and for a while you can’t relate to people who haven’t had the same experience, but you bond intensely with those who have. You may try to explain it to friends and loved ones, but they don’t understand unless they experience it for themselves. So, you try to move on and pretend it didn’t happen, but it becomes the standard by which you compare all other bad you films you’ve seen. I am not kidding; this is what seeing The Heretic is like. How did this move not obliterate a lot of people’s careers? Was this movie the result of a bet? Does anyone like this movie? I don’t know any of the answers to any of the questions that I have put forth here.
Corey says:
Before I start on II, let me give you my interpretation of the star ratings that we use here at the ole’ House.
What the fuck did I just watch?
Yes, I know it’s one of those movies that you need to watch, in a hipster kind of way.
Yes, it did lead to a moment of awesomeness when Corey realized why he knew the name Pazuzu, and accurately recreated how he knew it.
And yes, it allowed for J. Spurlin over at imdb to come up with this understated gem for his plot summary:
His investigation takes him to Africa where he locates another recipient of Merrin's exorcising and learns something fascinating and terrible about locusts.BUT, the above ≠ good movie. Or even laughably bad movie. Remember, I’m the schlock guy of the group, but hoo boy, this was a baaaad film.
The beauty of The Exorcist is its epic clash of “good vs. evil” in an unexpected container. The horror of The Heretic is its desperate attempt to cling to its predecessor’s glory, while derailing so quickly and horrifically, nothing is left but a shell of what could have been an ok film and another 90 minutes to sit through.
But hey, it’s not all bad for Linda Blair. Just check out all of this awesome modeling work she did in the early 80’s.
Salty says:
Watching The Heretic is like being in a serious accident: you don’t really know what’s happening or why when it’s going on, but you are pretty sure that it’s really, really bad and you just want it to be over. You wish you had avoided it, but you just have to let it play out. Then, once it ends and you get some distance on it and you start taking in the details, you start to question it. Why is that doctor’s office full of glass walls? Was that even a doctor’s office? Why did that man have a strobe light on his forehead? What the fuck was up with those moths? Isn’t that the dude from Field of Dreams? Why doesn’t that skyscraper’s balcony have a complete railing? What is this movie about? Did the person I watched this movie with slip me some drugs? I have only scratched the surface here. This movie creates questions upon questions.
And afterwards the movie haunts you, and for a while you can’t relate to people who haven’t had the same experience, but you bond intensely with those who have. You may try to explain it to friends and loved ones, but they don’t understand unless they experience it for themselves. So, you try to move on and pretend it didn’t happen, but it becomes the standard by which you compare all other bad you films you’ve seen. I am not kidding; this is what seeing The Heretic is like. How did this move not obliterate a lot of people’s careers? Was this movie the result of a bet? Does anyone like this movie? I don’t know any of the answers to any of the questions that I have put forth here.
Corey says:
Before I start on II, let me give you my interpretation of the star ratings that we use here at the ole’ House.
☆ : Garbage. Very little (if any) redeeming quality.
☆☆ : There’s some good stuff in there, you just have to look for it a little.
☆☆☆ A film that must be watched.
I want to emphasize that 3 star rating: a film that must be watched. It doesn’t say it has to be good. And now, Exorcist II.
This film is baffling in how bad it is. I’m not sure if bad is even the correct word for it. If you haven’t seen II, I must insist. To just try to put into words how I feel about the film, much less the quality, is very difficult.
First, Reagan’s back! Hooray! Let’s hook her up to this weird sci-fi brain thingy! Repressed memories GO! Now James Earl Jones, and Africa, and Pazuzu! And bugs, don’t forget the bugs! Some dudes fall off of a cliff! Reagan can heal the sick! Roll credits!
Ok, did that last paragraph make sense? No? Good. Now, imagine how that is my review of II, keeping in mind... I give it three stars.
This film is baffling in how bad it is. I’m not sure if bad is even the correct word for it. If you haven’t seen II, I must insist. To just try to put into words how I feel about the film, much less the quality, is very difficult.
First, Reagan’s back! Hooray! Let’s hook her up to this weird sci-fi brain thingy! Repressed memories GO! Now James Earl Jones, and Africa, and Pazuzu! And bugs, don’t forget the bugs! Some dudes fall off of a cliff! Reagan can heal the sick! Roll credits!
Ok, did that last paragraph make sense? No? Good. Now, imagine how that is my review of II, keeping in mind... I give it three stars.
| Maire | Corey | Salty |
|---|---|---|
| ☆ | ☆☆☆ | ☆ |
Sunday, May 19, 2013
The Exorcist - introducing Linda Blair
Maire says:
Woo, I’ve actually seen this one before!
Aside from being a classic, The Exorcist gives us much more than warm fuzzy memories. I feel like this is the franchise the established the trope of privileged white parent(s) with a demon possessed child. It also brought the whole exorcism ritual into pop culture. Seriously, I think I know all of the text and hub bub thanks to this franchise and The Omen franchise. And it made Linda Blair’s career! Well, for a moment anyway.
Chances are, you’ve seen this one too, so I won’t ramble. And if you haven’t seen it, go watch it. It’s pretty good.
Corey says:
This was the first time that I had viewed the “super scary pants-shitting fuck fuck fuck” version of the already terrifying Exorcist. To add to the pot ‘o fun, this was also the first time viewing the film in over a decade. And let me tell you: this bad boy holds up.
One of the most interesting things about this film is that much of the “scary” comes from the awful realism and desperation that Dimmy and company have to face. There’s no fun in the film. No camp. Very little gore. The only jump scenes are very subtle (let’s play spot the Capt. Howdy!), which makes them even more terrifying. And yet I am horrified by what William Friedkin put together.
It’s the kind of horror that builds in you, like a cancer. At first, I’m just uncomfortable. So a little girl pissed herself in the middle of a party, no big deal. Then there’s some spooky shaking. Kind of weird, ok. And then it just keeps going. It keeps hitting you with escalating acts of defilement. And that spider walk. Fuck that spider walk.
This is one of the few films that we’ll watch that I think still affects me the same way that it did the first time I watched it. It’s a masterpiece, and it’s status as one of the greatest of all time is well deserved.
Salty says:
Catholics go out of their way to hate themselves. What an unusual dogma: love the weak, the poor, the meager and the sick because they are blessed - but you, you’re scum, born into sin and damnation, you had better spend the rest of your life trying to make up for your own offensive existence or you’ll spend eternity filleting yourself and diving into salt or whatever. This is one of the most popular religions in the world. At least they've got good demons.
When I watch The Exorcist this is what comes to mind. For some reason - though I've seen the movie half a dozen times at least - I always forget about the Father-Karras-dying-mother subplot that is so depressing. It always catches me off guard. Instead of expecting to watch a tutorial on how to glut on self-loathing, I always remember the film as a kind of party with my dream demon the way The Murderdolls portray it in Love At First Fright, which, I believe, is the way most of the world remembers it. That is, the world and I remember a joyride with blasphemy and spinning heads and pea soup. I watch the movie to see Reagan scream “Let Jesus fuck you!” and do the blood vomiting crab-walk and to enjoy all the other rank and belching shenanigans Captain Howdy brings with him.
And the film works it’s way to those things, but you have to make a lot of other stops. First there is the sad life of Karras, then the pissing on the carpet, both of which are difficult to watch. And then we go to the hospital for tests. The tests are the worst. While it’s always funny to watch people smoke in the hospital, but advanced painful medical tests performed on a screaming young girl are not fun to watch, and it's around this time that I usually forget that I put this movie on to have fun with the devil and I start thinking that maybe I remembered wrong and that this movie isn't a joke to have fun with, but instead it’s very disturbing film. Then comes the Father’s visit to his mom in the asylum and Reagan’s mother’s despairing plea for information on how to go about getting an exorcism, and I know that the movie’s goal is to make me feel ashamed to watch it, and I kind of do.
So, by the time I get to the goods that I've been waiting for - that I looked forward to with a smile on my face - it’s not so easy to smile, because the movie is so serious that it makes you see the horror even if you only wanted to just revel in the weirdness and the chaos, and catholic or not, I am certain that I don’t want to hang out with a demon, regardless of his rank on a ship, and I start to think that maybe I should hate myself a little for thinking that I would. That’s how I know that the film was made by Catholics. Way to go fetus-huggers.
Woo, I’ve actually seen this one before!
Aside from being a classic, The Exorcist gives us much more than warm fuzzy memories. I feel like this is the franchise the established the trope of privileged white parent(s) with a demon possessed child. It also brought the whole exorcism ritual into pop culture. Seriously, I think I know all of the text and hub bub thanks to this franchise and The Omen franchise. And it made Linda Blair’s career! Well, for a moment anyway.
Chances are, you’ve seen this one too, so I won’t ramble. And if you haven’t seen it, go watch it. It’s pretty good.
Corey says:
This was the first time that I had viewed the “super scary pants-shitting fuck fuck fuck” version of the already terrifying Exorcist. To add to the pot ‘o fun, this was also the first time viewing the film in over a decade. And let me tell you: this bad boy holds up.
One of the most interesting things about this film is that much of the “scary” comes from the awful realism and desperation that Dimmy and company have to face. There’s no fun in the film. No camp. Very little gore. The only jump scenes are very subtle (let’s play spot the Capt. Howdy!), which makes them even more terrifying. And yet I am horrified by what William Friedkin put together.
It’s the kind of horror that builds in you, like a cancer. At first, I’m just uncomfortable. So a little girl pissed herself in the middle of a party, no big deal. Then there’s some spooky shaking. Kind of weird, ok. And then it just keeps going. It keeps hitting you with escalating acts of defilement. And that spider walk. Fuck that spider walk.
This is one of the few films that we’ll watch that I think still affects me the same way that it did the first time I watched it. It’s a masterpiece, and it’s status as one of the greatest of all time is well deserved.
Salty says:
Catholics go out of their way to hate themselves. What an unusual dogma: love the weak, the poor, the meager and the sick because they are blessed - but you, you’re scum, born into sin and damnation, you had better spend the rest of your life trying to make up for your own offensive existence or you’ll spend eternity filleting yourself and diving into salt or whatever. This is one of the most popular religions in the world. At least they've got good demons.
When I watch The Exorcist this is what comes to mind. For some reason - though I've seen the movie half a dozen times at least - I always forget about the Father-Karras-dying-mother subplot that is so depressing. It always catches me off guard. Instead of expecting to watch a tutorial on how to glut on self-loathing, I always remember the film as a kind of party with my dream demon the way The Murderdolls portray it in Love At First Fright, which, I believe, is the way most of the world remembers it. That is, the world and I remember a joyride with blasphemy and spinning heads and pea soup. I watch the movie to see Reagan scream “Let Jesus fuck you!” and do the blood vomiting crab-walk and to enjoy all the other rank and belching shenanigans Captain Howdy brings with him.
And the film works it’s way to those things, but you have to make a lot of other stops. First there is the sad life of Karras, then the pissing on the carpet, both of which are difficult to watch. And then we go to the hospital for tests. The tests are the worst. While it’s always funny to watch people smoke in the hospital, but advanced painful medical tests performed on a screaming young girl are not fun to watch, and it's around this time that I usually forget that I put this movie on to have fun with the devil and I start thinking that maybe I remembered wrong and that this movie isn't a joke to have fun with, but instead it’s very disturbing film. Then comes the Father’s visit to his mom in the asylum and Reagan’s mother’s despairing plea for information on how to go about getting an exorcism, and I know that the movie’s goal is to make me feel ashamed to watch it, and I kind of do.
So, by the time I get to the goods that I've been waiting for - that I looked forward to with a smile on my face - it’s not so easy to smile, because the movie is so serious that it makes you see the horror even if you only wanted to just revel in the weirdness and the chaos, and catholic or not, I am certain that I don’t want to hang out with a demon, regardless of his rank on a ship, and I start to think that maybe I should hate myself a little for thinking that I would. That’s how I know that the film was made by Catholics. Way to go fetus-huggers.
| Maire | Corey | Salty |
|---|---|---|
| ☆☆ | ☆☆☆ | ☆☆☆ |
Friday, May 17, 2013
Closing the Curtain on Psycho
We can look back now with fond memories at the highs and the lows that came from that peek into a high-rise building in a Southwestern city where we found Marion Crane who would become a victim. She was not the first or the last, but the one that we remember the fondest, because she helped set the standard. We participated in a crime and as we watched her reach for us through that low-flow stream of hard motel water, begging for more defensive wounds, she taught us something. She taught us that this is what you should fear. Not vampires and werewolves or mummies and gorillas, but sudden unexpected death at the hands of madness in the midst of an adventure. And through her sacrifice we met a nice young man, though he was admittedly a little inordinate. He killed a lot of people, but we like him anyway, so we leave him with wife and child on the way. Norman Bates killed dozens and now he’s going to be a family man, Charlie never killed anyone and he’ll be locked up until the day he dies. Life is funny.
Genre fans and those with Wikipedia access and spare time may be wondering about The Bates Motel. Well we here at the House of Sequels couldn't track that down, but we’ll keep an eye on the “rare DVD’s” tables at the next convention we attend. In the meantime, we've pulled off of the main highway for long enough, the time has come to continue the journey and we've got a long way to go: all the way to Washington D.C. where a young girl as been acting strange lately, it seems she may be getting sick and no medical tests can locate the problem.
But before we go we make a mark for those who want to follow in our footsteps, we want you to learn from our work and save ourselves from having to answer the same question over and over. So, using the 3-star rating system you may or may not have noted at the end of our posts as well as the power of democracy we at the House of Sequels humbly present the true fruits of our labors: a best to worst list of the franchise! Disagree with us? Tell us in the comments below! (We’re not going to change it, but we like feedback)
*Post about Franchise Ranking coming soon!
**See Franchise Ranking post.
Genre fans and those with Wikipedia access and spare time may be wondering about The Bates Motel. Well we here at the House of Sequels couldn't track that down, but we’ll keep an eye on the “rare DVD’s” tables at the next convention we attend. In the meantime, we've pulled off of the main highway for long enough, the time has come to continue the journey and we've got a long way to go: all the way to Washington D.C. where a young girl as been acting strange lately, it seems she may be getting sick and no medical tests can locate the problem.
But before we go we make a mark for those who want to follow in our footsteps, we want you to learn from our work and save ourselves from having to answer the same question over and over. So, using the 3-star rating system you may or may not have noted at the end of our posts as well as the power of democracy we at the House of Sequels humbly present the true fruits of our labors: a best to worst list of the franchise! Disagree with us? Tell us in the comments below! (We’re not going to change it, but we like feedback)
| |||
*Post about Franchise Ranking coming soon!
**See Franchise Ranking post.
Friday, May 10, 2013
Psycho '98. Not as good as The Birds 2.
Maire says:
The following is what it was like to watch this movie:
Corey says:
Ah, we've come full circle. Remake. The very word sends cold bolts of fear shooting from my body. Any horror fan knows that the remake is a veritable crap shoot, and hopes for the best while preparing for the worst. When Psycho '98 (talkin' 'bout 12 o'clock, don't be late) first started showing trailers, I was a wee young man, and not aware of how Hollywood can easily and totally destroy the icons of my youth. Through investigation, I found out that it was a shot for shot remake with the same script. How could this possibly go wrong?
The following is what it was like to watch this movie:
Woo, all-star cast! This is gonna be great!
Oh... ok, well y’know, re-imagining and all that...
Oh... yeah, that’s not cool...
Really?! Eff this, I gotta work in the morning. G’night boys!
Corey says:
Ah, we've come full circle. Remake. The very word sends cold bolts of fear shooting from my body. Any horror fan knows that the remake is a veritable crap shoot, and hopes for the best while preparing for the worst. When Psycho '98 (talkin' 'bout 12 o'clock, don't be late) first started showing trailers, I was a wee young man, and not aware of how Hollywood can easily and totally destroy the icons of my youth. Through investigation, I found out that it was a shot for shot remake with the same script. How could this possibly go wrong?
Enter Norman.
Now, to be fair, Vince Vaughn (who is way better as a comedic actor) does a pretty solid job of working with the hand that he's dealt. But, that hand is awful. Remember our conversation about needing a sinister figure after the first Psycho? Well, a horrible thing happened. We had to make Norman himself the sinister figure in the remake. Let's face it, by now (unless you're one of our hapless crew) you know the plot. So, in order to get butts in the seat for this film, we had to spice Norman up a bit. He goes from a harmless sexually repressed miscreant to malicious deviant. Remember the watching-Marion-Crane-through-the-peephole scene? Let's face it: any 14 year old with access to that hole would have done the same thing. But now? Oh, no, watching isn't enough. We have make sure that the audience knows what kind of creep Norman is, because they already know that Mother is going to be rocking in a chair at the end of this film. Let's add some jerking it sound effects! Surely, that's still subtle, right? RIGHT??
It's sad, really. It's sad that you could take a film that is a "shot for shot" remake, and fuck it up so badly.
Salty says:
My sister has this theory that a movie’s quality is inversely proportional to the number of A-list stars that are in it: one or two can make a good movie, but the more you add the more it gets dragged down, down, down into the depths. Gus Van Sant’s Psycho has more A-listers than I can count and it shows, but why is it bad? Is it because of the performances? Not completely. Independently, they really aren’t bad, though I find it hard to watch anyone but Anthony Perkins play Norman. Is it because it’s in color? That doesn’t help. Is it because of the shot-for-shot nature of the remake that begs comparisons between each scene, each actor, and each detail of the original film? Yeah, that’s probably the main reason.
But I think that the thing that really tips the scales from failed experiment to catastrophe is the audible masturbation. There is something about hearing the sounds of a man fondling himself while watching him peep on the girl that everyone knows that he is about to murder that creates a terrible discomfort. It just sucks all the fun out of the scene. Call me crazy, but I don’t want to hear that anymore than I want to watch Norman Bates clean up the voided bowels of his freshly murdered victim. Do I know that these things happen in real life? Yes, I do, but it just seems like its better left out of the movie.
My Own Private Idaho is pretty good though.
My sister has this theory that a movie’s quality is inversely proportional to the number of A-list stars that are in it: one or two can make a good movie, but the more you add the more it gets dragged down, down, down into the depths. Gus Van Sant’s Psycho has more A-listers than I can count and it shows, but why is it bad? Is it because of the performances? Not completely. Independently, they really aren’t bad, though I find it hard to watch anyone but Anthony Perkins play Norman. Is it because it’s in color? That doesn’t help. Is it because of the shot-for-shot nature of the remake that begs comparisons between each scene, each actor, and each detail of the original film? Yeah, that’s probably the main reason.
But I think that the thing that really tips the scales from failed experiment to catastrophe is the audible masturbation. There is something about hearing the sounds of a man fondling himself while watching him peep on the girl that everyone knows that he is about to murder that creates a terrible discomfort. It just sucks all the fun out of the scene. Call me crazy, but I don’t want to hear that anymore than I want to watch Norman Bates clean up the voided bowels of his freshly murdered victim. Do I know that these things happen in real life? Yes, I do, but it just seems like its better left out of the movie.
My Own Private Idaho is pretty good though.
| Maire | Corey | Salty |
|---|---|---|
| ☆ | ☆ | ☆ |
Friday, May 3, 2013
Psycho IV - The Beginning, but Unfortunately Not the End
Corey says:
To begin with, Psycho IV is one hell of a film for being made for TV. Sure, every now and then, you can kind of see the places where they put the commercial break cut in, and there's not that much in the way of gore (certainly no knives through mouths), but it does an amazing job of being the best Psycho it can be for what it has to work with.
The biggest thing about IV is that it has, yes, a happy ending. While some people will argue that II is also happy (I mean, whacking "Mom" in the head with a shovel, then a feast of sandwiches and milk?), this one has an ending where, no, Norman's not crazy, and no, he hasn't just killed anyone. But boy, does he come close. To be fair, I was really, really hoping that Norman was gonna go all baby killer on us. However, I'm happy with how events turned out. Though, it was sad to see the house go.
Our evil bastard this time around is Norman's mother's shitbag of a boyfriend, Chet. Even his name makes him sound like an asshole. Seriously, does anyone know a nice dude named Chet? The name evokes images of an ex-Marine who played football in high school (quarterback, of course) and is trying to relive the glory days of his youth through heavy drinking and reminiscence. There's even some terrible "advice" moments where Chet gives Norman some frat boy fatherly philosophy ("Never be naked in front of a woman, unless your having sex". Who says that to a kid?).
Chet fills a nice role that we've seen develop since the first sequel to the venerable franchise: the scumbag male figure that no one could possibly like. We've had Dennis Franz (scumbag manager), Jeff Fahey (scumbag musician who likes to wave lamps in front of his bits), and now Chet, played by some guy I didn't immediately recognize, so I remember the name of the character and not the actor. Even the remake has a scumbag, played by Vince Vaughn (that's right, Norman in the remake is a piece of shit). Over the course of watching these films and seeing all these assholes, I started wondering, "Why do we need these dicks?"
The answer, sort of, goes back to the original Psycho. Hitchcock's masterpiece is just that: a brilliantly told tale of a young man and (we find out at the end) just how deep his madness lies. The "whodunit" part of the film satiates our desire for conflict; in trying to figure out exactly what's going on, we don't concentrate so much on whether or not we need an antagonist. Furthermore, we don't necessarily have a hero. We just have a cast of characters who all live in this gray area of the morality rainbow. There isn't a single person who identifies as just "good" (though it can be argued that that's filled by Marion's manfriend, but he isn't enough of a force to fill the role). The film is amazing because these gray area folks tell an amazing tale, and at the end (and towards the beginning) the film comes together to execute some of the best storytelling ever in a suspense film.
Then, Norman gets famous. Not in the films, mind you. The character of the dress-wearing knife-wielding maniac struck a nerve, and became an icon. Now, there is almost no way (wait till the remake) that we can picture Norman as an evil figure. Thus, we have to have a surrogate. There's gotta be someone that we, the audience, can see as "the bad guy". Sure, we know that, at the end of the day, Norman is gonna be doing some killing (or not, which makes II a romp), but there's no way we can hate the guy. He's just a misunderstood wacko. We need scuzz. We need evil, and that's what Franz, Fahey, and Chet (I'm really sorry I don't know your real name) give us. They give us someone to hate, even as Norman gives us someone to (misguidedly) love.
Also, for those keeping score, yes, there are sandwiches in the film, though I don't remember if there is milk.
Maire says:
Brace yourself - I liked Psycho IV! Yep, honest and true, I dug it. Well, except for the closet. That just went weird.To begin with, Psycho IV is one hell of a film for being made for TV. Sure, every now and then, you can kind of see the places where they put the commercial break cut in, and there's not that much in the way of gore (certainly no knives through mouths), but it does an amazing job of being the best Psycho it can be for what it has to work with.
The biggest thing about IV is that it has, yes, a happy ending. While some people will argue that II is also happy (I mean, whacking "Mom" in the head with a shovel, then a feast of sandwiches and milk?), this one has an ending where, no, Norman's not crazy, and no, he hasn't just killed anyone. But boy, does he come close. To be fair, I was really, really hoping that Norman was gonna go all baby killer on us. However, I'm happy with how events turned out. Though, it was sad to see the house go.
Our evil bastard this time around is Norman's mother's shitbag of a boyfriend, Chet. Even his name makes him sound like an asshole. Seriously, does anyone know a nice dude named Chet? The name evokes images of an ex-Marine who played football in high school (quarterback, of course) and is trying to relive the glory days of his youth through heavy drinking and reminiscence. There's even some terrible "advice" moments where Chet gives Norman some frat boy fatherly philosophy ("Never be naked in front of a woman, unless your having sex". Who says that to a kid?).
Chet fills a nice role that we've seen develop since the first sequel to the venerable franchise: the scumbag male figure that no one could possibly like. We've had Dennis Franz (scumbag manager), Jeff Fahey (scumbag musician who likes to wave lamps in front of his bits), and now Chet, played by some guy I didn't immediately recognize, so I remember the name of the character and not the actor. Even the remake has a scumbag, played by Vince Vaughn (that's right, Norman in the remake is a piece of shit). Over the course of watching these films and seeing all these assholes, I started wondering, "Why do we need these dicks?"
The answer, sort of, goes back to the original Psycho. Hitchcock's masterpiece is just that: a brilliantly told tale of a young man and (we find out at the end) just how deep his madness lies. The "whodunit" part of the film satiates our desire for conflict; in trying to figure out exactly what's going on, we don't concentrate so much on whether or not we need an antagonist. Furthermore, we don't necessarily have a hero. We just have a cast of characters who all live in this gray area of the morality rainbow. There isn't a single person who identifies as just "good" (though it can be argued that that's filled by Marion's manfriend, but he isn't enough of a force to fill the role). The film is amazing because these gray area folks tell an amazing tale, and at the end (and towards the beginning) the film comes together to execute some of the best storytelling ever in a suspense film.
Then, Norman gets famous. Not in the films, mind you. The character of the dress-wearing knife-wielding maniac struck a nerve, and became an icon. Now, there is almost no way (wait till the remake) that we can picture Norman as an evil figure. Thus, we have to have a surrogate. There's gotta be someone that we, the audience, can see as "the bad guy". Sure, we know that, at the end of the day, Norman is gonna be doing some killing (or not, which makes II a romp), but there's no way we can hate the guy. He's just a misunderstood wacko. We need scuzz. We need evil, and that's what Franz, Fahey, and Chet (I'm really sorry I don't know your real name) give us. They give us someone to hate, even as Norman gives us someone to (misguidedly) love.
Also, for those keeping score, yes, there are sandwiches in the film, though I don't remember if there is milk.
Maire says:
So here we have Norman running through his own issue 0 via call in radio. Ok, he has some serious mommy issues, and probably a few trust issues since it’s his former shrink on the radio
While this film too still carries some hints of dickbaggery, thankfully no one actually acts on it, and our anti-hero is free to be well and actually live happily ever after.
Or until he sees the shot-for-shot remake of the original Psycho.
Salty Says:
What I am about to say goes without saying. It’s weird to want to have sex with your family, regardless of which family member you want to have sex with. Psycho IV (which may be the first film to use the now cliché subtitle) has got a lot of awkward mother/son sexual tension. The plot is predictable, the movie is toned down, especially when compared to Psycho III, it has continuity errors with the rest of the series and the back-and-forth prequel/sequel storyline doesn’t really come together great, but for some reason I still really like it. The kid that plays Young Norman - a role that is positively owned by Anthony Perkins – is totally acceptable and I even like the lady that plays Mother. Plus John Landis is in there somewhere. Oh, and you get to see what happens when you poison someone with strychnine, which is absolutely horrifying…
| Maire | Corey | Salty |
|---|---|---|
| ☆☆ | ☆☆ | ☆☆☆ |
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