II vs III
Which do you prefer? I think II is better executed, but III is a weirder, more interesting movie (if that makes sense).
shareII for sure.
shareI think story-wise part II is a bit better, but I find III more entertaining to watch.
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MovieChat Forums > Psycho III (1986) Discussion > II vs III
No, that makes no sense
shareI believe that all three sequels were well below the quality of Hitchcock's 1960 original (alas, even with Anthony Perkins returning for all three of them) but...III was the best of a sorry crop, and the best connected TO the original.
III had an intelligent, artful new director in...Anthony Perkins himself, who showed a flair for shots and camera angles and "mood" that sometimes matched Hitchcock and sometimes went in other directions(Perkins weird, moody use of a storm at sea sequence from Huston's "Moby Dick" on TV in his parlor at night had a kind of art film sadness to it.)
III also had a more intelligent script than II -- II was written by the hack-like Tom Holland, but III was written by a guy named Charles Edward Pogue, who co-wrote Cronenberg's excellent remake "The Fly" for release in the same year as Psycho III -- 1986.
Psycho II was hobbled by its rather ridiculous premise -- after slaughtering six people (II wrongly says 7) -- Norman Bates is RELEASED to non-supervised life at his motel and house? Norman ends up rather a by-standing to a whole new plot in Psycho II ...its not clear if he even IS the killer this time (and, for the most part, he is NOT.)
But with III, thanks to the end of II, Norman has been set up as the Norman Bates of the original -- managing the motel, keeping Mother up at the house, speaking to her and BEING her half the time, even as she is but a corpse in her upstairs bedroom. III is giving us a version of Psycho where we KNOW the twist (Norman is Mother), SEE the twist(the real mother is a corpse) and get to see Norman "up close and personal" talking TO that corpse. Its a version of Psycho based on "what if we were up at the house with Norman and Mother when Marion Crane drove up, and we knew EVERYTHING.
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SPOILERS
III also directly references the two murder scenes from the original. We get Mother pulling back the shower curtain, knife in hand, and we get a victim stumbling backwards down the staircase down to the foyer.
But there are differences:
Intelligent: The shower scene. Mother pulls back the curtain, knife upraised but...the intended victim is already bleeding and dying -- from suicide razor cuts to her wrists. This "disconnects" murderous Mother and brings Norman back to normalcy. He takes this new "victim" exiled nun Maureen Coyle(same initials as Marion Crane) to the hospital, and we get this great exchange:
Maureen: I'm sorry about the mess I made in your bathroom.
Norman: I've seen worse.
Not so intelligent: it is, indeed, Maureen who falls backwards down those stairs, not from Mother's knife blow but because of an "accident" that is poorly staged. She doesn't fall to the foyer floor as Arbogast does, rather she is impaled upright on the arrow tip of the cupid statue clearly referenced in the original film. Actually all of this is pretty intelligent but alas --the process photography here is so much WORSE than what Hitchcock filmed with Martin Balsam in the original. We learn: process shots can be of differing quality.
What I liked best in Psycho III was watching how "Mother can be disconnected" from Norman by certain traumas. The suicidal Maureen pushes Mother out of Norman's mind in the new shower scene. And when Maureen first tries to climb the stairs as the detective did, Norman actually grabs his knife by the BLADE and rams his hand against the wall to push MOther out of his head by sheer pain. It works.
Psycho III just keeps on referencing the original in knowing and intelligent ways that II could not: we see Norman poison the birds he stuffs; we have Norman falling into the swamp where his bodies are buried -- and meeting one of the new corpses up close and personal. The film is very , very knowing.
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What trips the sequel up against the original is a sort of lazy "sequelitus" in which there is no particular meaning to the murders anymore. One woman is murdered on the toilet; another is killed in a phone booth conveniently placed out in front of the motel. The new characters are OK, but lack the profundity of the ones directed by Hitchocck, and Pogue's script, while intelligent, can't really compete with the original.
Also...the climax kind of sucks and goes on ridiculously forever.
Still...Psycho III IS the best of the sequels to my mind. Better than II. Much better than IV.
Just not as good as I. Nothing could be.
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Tom Holland is no horror master, but I think he's good for the genre.
shareTom Holland is no horror master, but I think he's good for the genre.
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He did make a name for himself after Psycho II (which was a hit, if not a blockbuster). Child's Play, I believe?
I'd have to look up Charles Edward Pogue. "One good year" -- with The Fly (a hit) and Psycho III(well written but not a hit) and...what else? Off to IMbd I go.
Me, I prefer the Psycho III storyline -- which puts Norman and Mother back up in the house together and, as someone wrote, "takes us backstage with Norman Bates" from his side of the charade with his guests and visitors.
But something was wrong about both of them. Universal simply didn't put the budget(even for LOW budget) or quality control into either of them.
Did you know that the Bates Motel wasn't even REBUILT for Psycho II? They only built the exterior of the office area and the parlor inside. One long shot of the Bates Motel early on is a ...matte painting. That's how cheap it was(the original Psycho was cheap, but not THAT cheap.)
They built the motel in full for Psycho III -- which allowed none other than Steven Spielberg to use the house and motel for an episode of his "Amazing Stories'(1986.) It was about a young lad who is obsessed with Psycho -- and thus sent to the Bates Motel FOR REAL. His attempt to escape back to reality is fun.
What I mean is that II has a more entertaining story, but III is more visually interesting/weird.
shareWhat I mean is that II has a more entertaining story, but III is more visually interesting/weird.
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Yes, I would agree.
Anthony Perkins, as the director of Psycho III -- and I guess working on the script with Pogue?(Perkins is not credited), said something like:
"I think today Hitchcock would have made a more strange and wild version of the film. That's what we are trying to do here." Carter Burwell's music is VERY strange.
After all, after Psycho in 1960, Hitchocck made the very graphic and strange Frenzy in 1972.
I think that III is sharper and clearer. II was trying to throw so much into the pot and see how it turns out. I think it just became too convoluted. III has a sharp, clear picture of what it was trying to do.
shareI liked Part 2 much better than Part 3. Part 2, for all intents and purposes - made sense. It's a good story, well told. When Part 2 ended - there was certainly room for another one. One can understand making a sequel. The problem is Part 3 totally confused part 2. It was ok - Part 3 I mean - but one thinks a better job could have been done with it.
shareI think Psycho II is a better, more entertaining film, but I like III too. For me, Psycho II is an 8/10 and Psycho III is a 7/10.
shareII has the better screenplay and acting (Meg Tilly is way better as a co-lead than Diana Scarwid). It also has Vera Miles, a strong legacy tie to the first movie. It feels like a proper, albeit belated, sequel to the first movie.
III is definitely interesting. The OST is fantastic and some of the visuals are great. It's a nice lean movie too. Shorter and faster paced than it's predecessors. Jeff Fahey is great in this. III feels like a continuation of part II and in a way further removed from the original, this movie doesn't have a lot of tie-ins to the first.
I think II felt like a respectful attempt at a 'legacy' sequel, III feels more like a contemporary slasher movie which is probably why it's considered the worst of the first three Psycho movies but I really like it and feel like both have their merits. II is probably better on paper though.