Psycho is a 1998 American
horror filmHorror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
produced and directed by
Gus Van SantGus Green Van Sant, Jr. is an American director, screenwriter, painter, photographer, musician, and author. He is a two time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director for his 1997 film Good Will Hunting and his 2008 film Milk, both of which were also nominated for Best Picture, and won the...
for
Universal PicturesUniversal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....
, a
remakeA remake is a piece of media based primarily on an earlier work of the same medium.-Film:The term "remake" is generally used in reference to a movie which uses an earlier movie as the main source material, rather than in reference to a second, later movie based on the same source...
of the 1960 film directed by
Alfred HitchcockSir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
. Both films are
adapted fromFilm adaptation is the transfer of a written work to a feature film. It is a type of derivative work.A common form of film adaptation is the use of a novel as the basis of a feature film, but film adaptation includes the use of non-fiction , autobiography, comic book, scripture, plays, and even...
the 1959 novel of the same name by
Robert BlochRobert Albert Bloch was a prolific American writer, primarily of crime, horror and science fiction. He is best known as the writer of Psycho, the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock...
, which was in turn inspired by the crimes of
WisconsinWisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
serial killerA serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
Ed GeinEdward Theodore "Ed" Gein - July 26, 1984) was an American murderer and body snatcher. His crimes, committed around his hometown of Plainfield, Wisconsin, gathered widespread notoriety after authorities discovered Gein had exhumed corpses from local graveyards and fashioned trophies and keepsakes...
.
Although this version is in color, features a different cast, and has been set in a contemporary timeframe, it is closer to a
shot-for-shot remakeShot-for-shot is a term used to describe a visual work that is transferred almost completely identical from the original work without much interpretation....
than most remakes, often copying Hitchcock's camera movements and editing. Bernard Hermann's musical score is reused as well, though with a new arrangement by
Danny ElfmanDaniel Robert "Danny" Elfman is an American composer, best known for scoring music for television and film. Up until 1995, he was the lead singer and songwriter in the rock band Oingo Boingo, a group he formed in 1976...
and recorded in stereo. Some changes are introduced to account for advances in technology since the original film and to make the content more explicit. Murder sequences are also intercut with surreal dream images.
Plot
Marion CraneMarion Crane is a fictional character from the 1960 film Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.-Fictional character biography:Unhappy in her relationship with her boyfriend, Sam Loomis , Marion rejects his idea to take the afternoon off and rushes back to her storefront real estate office. Her boss,...
(
Anne HecheAnne Celeste Heche is an American actress, director, and screenwriter. She started her career on the daytime soap opera Another World, for which she won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1991. Heche gradually landed supporting roles in feature films, and in 1997 appeared in I Know What You Did Last Summer,...
) steals $400,000 from her employer to get her boyfriend, Sam Loomis (
Viggo MortensenViggo Peter Mortensen, Jr. is a Danish-American actor, poet, musician, photographer and painter. He made his film debut in Peter Weir's 1985 thriller Witness, and subsequently appeared in many notable films of the 1990s, including The Indian Runner , Carlito's Way , Crimson Tide , Daylight , The...
), out of debt, and flees
Phoenix, ArizonaPhoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...
by car. While en route to Sam's
CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
home, she parks along the road to sleep. A highway patrol officer awakens her and, suspicious of her agitated state, begins to follow her. When she trades her car for another one at a dealership, he notes the new vehicle's details. Marion returns to the road but, rather than drive in a heavy storm, decides to spend the night at the Bates Motel.
Owner
Norman BatesNorman Bates is a fictional character created by writer Robert Bloch as the central character in his novel Psycho, and portrayed by Anthony Perkins as the main antagonist of the 1960 film of the same name directed by Alfred Hitchcock...
(
Vince VaughnVincent Anthony "Vince" Vaughn is an American film actor, screenwriter, producer and comedian. He began acting in the late 1980s, appearing in minor television roles before attaining wider recognition with the 1996 movie Swingers...
) tells Marion he rarely has customers because of a new interstate nearby and mentions he lives with his mother in the house overlooking the motel. He invites Marion to have supper with him. She overhears Norman arguing with his mother about letting Marion in the house, and during the meal, she angers him by suggesting he institutionalize his mother. He admits he would like to do so, but does not want to abandon her. Later that night while Marion is changing Norman secretly watches and masturbates to her from a peephole in his office.
Marion resolves to return to Phoenix to return the money. After calculating how she can repay the money she has spent, Marion dumps her notes down the toilet and begins to shower. An unidentified female figure presumed to be Norman's mother enters the bathroom and stabs Marion to death. Later, finding the corpse, Norman is horrified. He cleans the bathroom and places Marion's body, wrapped in the shower curtain, and all her possessions — including the money — in the trunk of her car and sinks it in a nearby swamp.
Sam is contacted by both Marion's sister,
LilaLila Loomis is a fictional character from the 1959 Robert Bloch novel Psycho and its 1960 film adaptation. Additionally, she appears in Bloch's sequel novel and the unrelated sequel film of the same name.- Fictional biography :...
(
Julianne MooreJulianne Moore is an American actress and a children's book author. Throughout her career, she has been nominated for four Oscars, six Golden Globes, three BAFTAs and nine Screen Actors Guild Awards....
), and private detective Milton Arbogast (
William H. MacyWilliam Hall Macy, Jr. is an American actor and writer. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as Jerry Lundegaard in Fargo. He is also a teacher and director in theater, film and television. His film career has been built mostly on his appearances in small, independent films, though...
), who has been hired by Marion's employer to find her and recover the money. Arbogast traces Marion to the motel and questions Norman, who unconvincingly lies that Marion stayed for one night and left the following morning. He refuses to let Arbogast talk to his mother, claiming she is ill. Arbogast calls Lila to update her and tells her he will contact her again in an hour after he questions Norman's mother.
Arbogast enters Norman's house and at the top of the stairs is attacked by the "Mother" figure who slashes his face three times with a knife, pushes him down the stairs, then stabs him to death. When Arbogast does not call Lila, she and Sam contact the local police. Deputy Sheriff Al Chambers (
Philip Baker Hall-Early life:Hall was born in Toledo, Ohio, the son of a factory worker father who was from Montgomery, Alabama. He attended the University of Toledo. As a younger man, Hall served in the military, started a family, and became a high school English teacher. In 1961, he decided to become an actor...
) is perplexed to hear that Arbogast saw a woman in a window, as Norman's mother had died ten years ago. Norman confronts his mother and urges her to hide in the cellar. She rejects the idea and orders him out of her room, but against her will Norman carries her to the cellar.
Posing as a married couple, Sam and Lila check into the motel and search Marion's room, where they find a scrap of paper in the toilet with "$400,000" written on it. While Sam distracts Norman, Lila sneaks into the house to search for his mother. Sam suggests to Norman that he killed Marion for the money so he could buy a new motel. Realizing Lila is not around, Norman knocks Sam unconscious with a golf club and rushes to the house. Lila sees him and hides in the cellar where she discovers the
mummifiedA mummy is a body, human or animal, whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme coldness , very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs, so that the recovered body will not decay further if kept in cool and dry...
body of Norman's mother. Wearing his mother's clothes and a wig and carrying a knife, Norman enters and tries to attack Lila, but she is rescued by Sam.
After Norman's arrest,
forensic psychiatristForensic psychiatry is a sub-speciality of psychiatry and an auxiliar science of criminology. It encompasses the interface between law and psychiatry...
Dr. Fred Richmond (
Robert ForsterRobert Forster is an American actor, best known for his roles as John Cassellis in Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool, and as Max Cherry in Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown, the latter of which gained him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.- Early life :Forster was born Robert Wallace...
) tells Sam and Lila that Norman's dead mother is living in Norman's
psycheThe word psyche has a long history of use in psychology and philosophy, dating back to ancient times, and has been one of the fundamental concepts for understanding human nature from a scientific point of view. The English word soul is sometimes used synonymously, especially in older...
as an alternate personality. After the death of Norman's father, his mother found a lover. Norman went over the edge with jealousy and murdered both of them. He stole her corpse and preserved the body. When he is "Mother", he acts, talks, and dresses as she would. Norman imagined his mother would be as jealous of a woman to whom he might be attracted just as he was of his mother's lover, and so "Mother" kills any woman he has feelings for; when Norman regains consciousness, he believes that his mother has committed the crime, and covers up for her. Richmond concludes that the "Mother" personality has now taken complete control of Norman's mind.
In the final scene, Norman sits in a cell, thinking in "Mother's" voice. In a voiceover, "Mother" explains that she plans to prove to the authorities she is incapable of violence by refusing to swat a fly that has landed on her hand. Marion's car is shown being recovered from the swamp, and is followed by the ending credits.
Cast
- Vince Vaughn
Vincent Anthony "Vince" Vaughn is an American film actor, screenwriter, producer and comedian. He began acting in the late 1980s, appearing in minor television roles before attaining wider recognition with the 1996 movie Swingers...
as Norman BatesNorman Bates is a fictional character created by writer Robert Bloch as the central character in his novel Psycho, and portrayed by Anthony Perkins as the main antagonist of the 1960 film of the same name directed by Alfred Hitchcock...
, the proprietor of the Bates Motel.
- Anne Heche
Anne Celeste Heche is an American actress, director, and screenwriter. She started her career on the daytime soap opera Another World, for which she won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1991. Heche gradually landed supporting roles in feature films, and in 1997 appeared in I Know What You Did Last Summer,...
as Marion CraneMarion Crane is a fictional character from the 1960 film Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcock.-Fictional character biography:Unhappy in her relationship with her boyfriend, Sam Loomis , Marion rejects his idea to take the afternoon off and rushes back to her storefront real estate office. Her boss,...
, a young woman who steals $400,000 in cash to start a new life with her boyfriend.
- Julianne Moore
Julianne Moore is an American actress and a children's book author. Throughout her career, she has been nominated for four Oscars, six Golden Globes, three BAFTAs and nine Screen Actors Guild Awards....
as Lila CraneLila Loomis is a fictional character from the 1959 Robert Bloch novel Psycho and its 1960 film adaptation. Additionally, she appears in Bloch's sequel novel and the unrelated sequel film of the same name.- Fictional biography :...
, Marion's neuroticNeurosis is a class of functional mental disorders involving distress but neither delusions nor hallucinations, whereby behavior is not outside socially acceptable norms. It is also known as psychoneurosis or neurotic disorder, and thus those suffering from it are said to be neurotic...
and concerned sister.
- Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Peter Mortensen, Jr. is a Danish-American actor, poet, musician, photographer and painter. He made his film debut in Peter Weir's 1985 thriller Witness, and subsequently appeared in many notable films of the 1990s, including The Indian Runner , Carlito's Way , Crimson Tide , Daylight , The...
as Samuel "Sam" Loomis, Marion's boyfriend. His relationship with Marion is under stress due to his looming debts.
- William H. Macy
William Hall Macy, Jr. is an American actor and writer. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as Jerry Lundegaard in Fargo. He is also a teacher and director in theater, film and television. His film career has been built mostly on his appearances in small, independent films, though...
as Milton Arbogast, a private detective hired to find Marion after she vanishes.
- Robert Forster
Robert Forster is an American actor, best known for his roles as John Cassellis in Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool, and as Max Cherry in Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown, the latter of which gained him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.- Early life :Forster was born Robert Wallace...
as Dr. Simon Richmond, a psychiatristA psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...
.
- Philip Baker Hall
-Early life:Hall was born in Toledo, Ohio, the son of a factory worker father who was from Montgomery, Alabama. He attended the University of Toledo. As a younger man, Hall served in the military, started a family, and became a high school English teacher. In 1961, he decided to become an actor...
as Sheriff Al Chambers, the local sheriffA sheriff is in principle a legal official with responsibility for a county. In practice, the specific combination of legal, political, and ceremonial duties of a sheriff varies greatly from country to country....
who knows Norman.
- Anne Haney
Anne Haney was an American actress, perhaps best known for her roles as social worker Mrs. Sellner in Mrs. Doubtfire, Greta the secretary in Liar Liar, and for her unique, low-octave voice.-Career:...
as Eliza Chambers, his wife.
- Rance Howard
Rance Howard is an American actor who has starred in film and on television.-Life and career:Howard was born Harold Rance Beckenholdt in Oklahoma, the son of Ethel Cleo and Engel Beckenholdt, a farmer. He changed his name to "Rance Howard" when he became an actor. He married Jean Speegle Howard...
as George Lowery, Marion's boss.
- Chad Everett
Chad Everett is an American actor who has appeared in over 40 films and television series but is probably best known for his role as Dr. Joe Gannon in the 1970s television drama Medical Center.-Early life:...
as Tom Cassidy, the client from whom Marion steals the money.
- Rita Wilson
-Early life:Wilson was born Margarita Ibrahimoff in Los Angeles, California.Her father, a Bulgarian who worked at a racetrack, was born in Greece. Before immigrating to the US, he had lived in Bulgaria and Turkey....
as Caroline, Marion's co-worker at the real estateIn general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...
office.
- James Remar
James Remar is an American actor and voice artist. He has appeared in movies, video games, and TV shows. He is perhaps best known as Richard, the on-off tycoon boyfriend of Kim Cattrall's character in Sex and the City, as Ajax in The Warriors, as the homicidal maniac Albert Ganz in the 1982...
as a highway patrolman.
- James LeGros
James LeGros is an American film and television actor. He is known as a star of independent films with a diversified body of work in the early to mid 1990s.-Personal life:...
as Charlie, a used car dealer.
- Flea
Michael Peter Balzary , better known by his stage name Flea, is an Australian-American musician and occasional actor. He is best known as the bassist, co-founding member, and one of the composers of the rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers...
as Bob Summerfield, Sam's assistant at the hardware store.
Director
Gus Van SantGus Green Van Sant, Jr. is an American director, screenwriter, painter, photographer, musician, and author. He is a two time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director for his 1997 film Good Will Hunting and his 2008 film Milk, both of which were also nominated for Best Picture, and won the...
, emulating
Hitchcock's practice of making cameo appearances in his films, appears as "Man talking to man in cowboy hat" at the same point in his film when Hitchcock made his appearance in the original. According to the DVD commentary track that featured Van Sant, Vaughn, and Heche, Van Sant's character is being scolded by Hitchcock in the scene.
Production
The
audio commentaryOn disc-based video formats, an audio commentary is an additional audio track consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with video...
track that accompanies the DVD release of the film, and the "making-of" documentary (
Psycho Path) that the DVD includes, provide numerous details about where the film strived to remain faithful to the original, and where it diverged. Some changes are pervasive: as the film opens, it is made clear that it is set in the late 1990s, so minor changes are made throughout the dialogue to reflect the new timeframe. For example, all the references to money are updated (how much Marion Crane steals, how much a car costs, how much a hotel room costs), as are references to terms from the original script like "
aspicAspic is a dish in which ingredients are set into a gelatin made from a meat stock or consommé. Non-savory dishes, often made with commercial gelatin mixes without stock or consommé, are usually called gelatin salads....
" that would seem
anachronisticAn anachronism—from the Greek ανά and χρόνος — is an inconsistency in some chronological arrangement, especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other...
in the new setting. According to Van Sant, in the original the only fully fleshed out character was
Norman BatesNorman Bates is a fictional character created by writer Robert Bloch as the central character in his novel Psycho, and portrayed by Anthony Perkins as the main antagonist of the 1960 film of the same name directed by Alfred Hitchcock...
; the other major characters were more iconic, purposely written and portrayed to advance the plot; Van Sant relied upon his main cast more to flesh out and make consistent their character's motivations and worked with them to determine to what degree their characters were similar to the originals.
According to the commentary by Van Sant, Vaughn, and Heche, some actors, such as William H. Macy, chose to stay true to the original, while others, such as Vaughn and Julianne Moore, interpreted the dialogue and scenes from the original film differently; Moore's version of Lila Crane, for example, was much more aggressive than the one portrayed by
Vera MilesVera Miles is an American film actress who gained popularity for starring in films such as The Searchers, The Wrong Man, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Psycho and Psycho II.-Early life:...
, and there are differences in Marion Crane's evolving attitudes about the money she stole. The
cinematographyCinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
and the
cinematic techniques- Basic Definitions of Terms :Aerial Shot:A shot taken from a crane, plane, or helicopter. Not necessarily a moving shot.Backlighting:The main source of light is behind the subject, silhouetting it, and directed toward the camera....
were consistent between the two films in many of the film's most memorable scenes, including the shower scene, scenes of the mother, scenes of the swamp, and the scene of Arbogast on the staircase, but other scenes changed significantly, particularly the climax, and the Dr. Simon monologue at the end, which was much shorter. Van Sant's comments from the commentary track attributes many of the updates to the need to make the film more accessible to a new audience.
Box office
The film earned $37,141,130 in box office, $21,456,130 of which came from North America. Estimates of the production budget range from $20 million to $60 million; while promoting his 2002 film
Gerry, Van Sant said he thought the producers "broke even" financially.
Reception
This version of
Psycho received mostly negative reviews; it was awarded two Golden Raspberry Awards, for Worst Remake or Sequel and Worst Director for Gus Van Sant, while Anne Heche was nominated as Worst Actress.
Camille PagliaCamille Anna Paglia , is an American author, teacher, and social critic. Paglia, a self-described dissident feminist, has been a Professor at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania since 1984...
commented that the only reason to watch it was "to see Anne Heche being assassinated", but that "it should have been a much more important work and event than it was."
A number of critics and writers viewed Van Sant's version more as an actual experiment in
shot-for-shotShot-for-shot is a term used to describe a visual work that is transferred almost completely identical from the original work without much interpretation....
remakes. Many people refer to this film as a duplicate of the 1960 film rather than a remake. Film critic
Roger EbertRoger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
wrote that the film "demonstrates that a shot-by-shot remake is pointless; genius apparently resides between or beneath the shots, or in chemistry that cannot be timed or counted." Screenwriter
Joseph StefanoJoseph Stefano was an American screenwriter, known to genre fans for writing the screenplay for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho and for being the producer and co-writer of the Outer Limits TV series.-Early years:As a teenager, Stefano was so keen to become an actor that he dropped out of high school two...
, who worked on the 1960 version, thought that although she spoke the same lines, Anne Heche portrays Marion Crane as an entirely different character. Even Van Sant admitted that it was an experiment that proved that no one can really copy a film exactly the same way as the original.
Janet MaslinJanet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...
gave the film a positive review, calling it an "artful, good-looking remake (a modest term, but it beats plagiarism) that shrewdly revitalizes the aspects of the real
Psycho (1960) that it follows most faithfully but seldom diverges seriously or successfully from one of the cinema's most brilliant blueprints"; she noted that the "absence of anything like
Anthony PerkinsAnthony Perkins was an American actor, best known for his Oscar-nominated role in Friendly Persuasion and as Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho , and its three sequels.-Early life:...
's sensational performance with that vitally birdlike presence and sneaky way with a
double-entendreA double entendre or adianoeta is a figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways. Often the first meaning is straightforward, while the second meaning is less so: often risqué or ironic....
("A boy's best friend is his mother") is the new film's greatest weakness."
Critic
Leonard MaltinLeonard Maltin is an American film and animated film critic and historian, author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives.-Personal life:...
gave the film a rating of one out of four stars, or "BOMB" compared to the four stars he gave the original. He describes it as a "Slow, stilted, completely pointless scene-for-scene remake of the Hitchcock classic (with a few awkward new touches to taint its claim as an exact replica.)" He ultimately calls it "an insult, rather than a tribute to a landmark film."
Soundtrack
The film's soundtrack,
Psycho: Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture, included
Danny ElfmanDaniel Robert "Danny" Elfman is an American composer, best known for scoring music for television and film. Up until 1995, he was the lead singer and songwriter in the rock band Oingo Boingo, a group he formed in 1976...
's re-recordings of some of Bernard Hermann's score for the original film, along with a collection of songs in genres from
countryCountry music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
to
drum and bassDrum and bass is a type of electronic music which emerged in the late 1980s. The genre is characterized by fast breakbeats , with heavy bass and sub-bass lines...
, connected mainly by titles containing "psycho" or other death or insanity-related words. Many of the songs were recorded specifically for the soundtrack, to the extent that a number of them
sampleIn music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song or piece. Sampling was originally developed by experimental musicians working with musique concrète and electroacoustic music, who physically...
Hermann's score as well.
Though not included on the soundtrack, Rob Zombie's "Living Dead Girl" is heard during the scene when Marion first arrives at the car dealership. The song was a single off Rob Zombie's
Hellbilly Deluxe* Danny Lohner - Additional Guitar on Meet the Creeper.* Tommy Lee - Drums on Meet the Creeper.-Chart positions:AlbumSingles...
(1998).
Series
- Psycho, the original 1960 film, directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
.
- Psycho II, a 1983 sequel to the first film (unrelated to the novel Psycho II
Psycho II is a 1982 novel that Robert Bloch wrote as a sequel to his 1959 novel Psycho. The novel was completed before the screenplay was written for the unrelated 1983 film Psycho II. According to Bloch, Universal Pictures loathed the novel, which was intended to critique Hollywood splatter films...
).
- Psycho III
Psycho III is a 1986 sequel to Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho. The film stars Anthony Perkins , Diana Scarwid, Jeff Fahey and Roberta Maxwell. The screenplay is written by Charles Edward Pogue...
, a 1986 sequel to the first film.
- Bates Motel
Bates Motel is a 1987 television movie about Alex West, a mentally disturbed youth who was committed to an asylum after killing his abusive stepfather. There he befriends Norman Bates and ends up inheriting the infamous Bates Motel.-Plot:...
, a 1987 TV movie.
- Psycho IV: The Beginning
Psycho IV: The Beginning is a 1990 made-for-cable-television horror film that serves as both the third sequel and a prequel to Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho, as it includes both events after Psycho III while focusing on flashbacks of events that took place prior to the original film...
sequel including flashbacks to events in Norman Bates' youth before the first film.