Psycho III (1983) - Fresh Perspective

I think you could see the beginning of the end of the slasher genre by 1986. Besides “A Nightmare on Elm Street” franchise which still had some life left in it from a financially viable standpoint (but not for much longer, either), the writing seemed to be on the wall. “Friday the 13^th Part 6: Jason Lives” proved that perhaps the audience for dark figures stabbing folks was suffering fatigue. “Psycho III” (1986) came three years after a surprisingly (perhaps it shouldn’t have been considering the pedigree of Perkins returning as Norman and Hitchcock’s spirit still honored) successful sequel to the iconic Hitchcock classic from 1960. Perkins in the director’s chair brought a different tone to the third film in the franchise. “Psycho III” was a failure at the box office. I noticed a cool photograph of a theater in, I believe, New York where “Psycho III” was on the marquee. It would have been neat to see it then. But I was nine. I do recall probably about two years later, in maybe 1988, seeing Norman Bates with the motel key in his hands, with that sinister smile, in a HBO guide at my uncle’s house. And around perhaps 1991, I remember seeing the box in a rental store I frequented, renting it a bit too young (something I write about all the time on the blog; I got my horror in around my early teens, sometimes renting them without much resistance from rental store counter employees, other times borrowing or trading VHS tapes with the film on them with friends and relatives). I currently own a VHS copy (and box), kept in my “vault” (a shed that looks like a little home, sort of a man cave without an attachment to my house), but tonight I wanted to see it on DVD. Earlier Saturday afternoon I spent some time down the YouTube rabbit hole looking for anything that might have Perkins or content about “Psycho III” before watching the film later in the evening, finding this alternate opening offered by AMC (this was at one point when they were showing some of the Psycho films) featuring a montage of artwork detailing the time spent at a convent for Maureen Coyle. There is also the alternate narration as Maureen leaves the convent ashamed for accidentally killing a nun passing through a desert until reaching highway (and Duke in his jalopy)…I wasn’t a fan of these alterations and relieved they are just that. I couldn’t imagine if these were always listed in the final cut. Burwell’s score and Maureen’s traumatized journey to the highway were enough, following her “THERE IS NO GODDDDDDD!!!!!” and attempted leap from a belltower in the convent. The first of the Psycho films that I watched, mentioned in my recent ramblings on the blog, was the second film but I was more aware of Norman as a creepy boogeyman when I saw him in the HBO guide. Intrigue at such an early age at what he was all about later came to actual fruition…the film was one I watched several times throughout the 90s. While I prefer “Psycho II” as an overall film, I do think “Psycho III” has specifics I’m quite fond of…as I detailed in my IMDb user comments available just tonight on the blog for the archive. I still think Norman progressed as a character, seemingly able to finally put an end to Mother…that was until he plucked the hand of Spool from his coat (how he was able to sneak that into the cop car is anyone’s guess). But, unlike the second film which revealed Spool as the killer, except for when Norman slammed a shovel across the back of her head, Norman isn’t actually wielding the knife. Tragically, Norman is the one in the third film…I remember being disappointed it was him. I liked that he was more of a pawn in the previous film, as it allowed us to have empathy for him that he was trying to remain rehabilitated but certain folks would have none of it.

In the third film, I remember feeling initially (the first time when I was in my early teens) that Duke was the killer, capitalizing on Norman’s soiled reputation. While Duke’s peculiar changes in behavior always confused me—he can be rather level, chill, and even charming then turn on a dime into this volatile, sleazy, outbursting creep—I figured him to be someone who could stab an easy lay from a bar he picked up or a teenager joining a football team and others her age taking a piss on the toilet in Norman’s motel parlor. Alas, Norman couldn’t avoid the personality change of Mrs. Spool, once again donning the old lady wig and black dress, wielding the knife. When Duke sees a chance to make some money by blackmailing Norman, he signs his own ticket to a resting place in the infamous swamp. I always got a kick out of how Norman used Duke’s beloved guitar as a weapon to shut him up.

 The violence is limited to a few setpieces but they are so savage and ferocious, it can take you aback. Poor [future director] Katt Shea is a cute, quipping teenager just trying to find a pot to piss in and chooses the wrong location to use the toilet…a slice to the throat, stab to the stomach, dump into an ice machine, and kiss from Norman (!!!) before being moved to Duke’s car (for the swamp) are quite an unfortunate end for her. Even worse for slasher graduate, Juliette Cummins (as Red), who has kinky sex with Duke, is not only insulted by him but unceremoniously discarded from his room, her clothes later hurled at her. She just wants to call a cab but is greeted instead with a knife from “Spool” before she can pull her shirt down, left a bloody, stabbed mess inside the booth.

And poor Maureen just seems doomed the moment she left the convent, perhaps her fate was sealed when she ascended the belltower…she was motivated by a tabloid reporter (played by snarky Maxwell, always trading blows with Hugh Gillin’s returning sheriff in tension-fuelled exchanges often about Norman) to leave the motel but ultimately returns, believing he was there when she nearly killed herself and deserves the same kindness in his time of emotional need.

God, the film has a lot going on. Norman can’t seem to ever escape scrutiny, his tortured psyche, or folks looking to derail him. Potential romance just seems evasive, and any chance to just live a sane, drama-free life remains elusive. But with all the sleaze—Duke’s room, such as lamp shades and walls, are a mosaic of smut, and the rowdy football game teenage crowd, anti-Fairvale opposition, makes a lot of noise and gets quite out of hand—at its core, Norman still dominates the screen anytime he’s there. Perkins, for me, especially in the early going, is just as captivating, fascinating, and compelling in the role of stuttering, anxious, frustrated, very lonely, and reclusive Norman as he has ever been. You see his process of poisoning birds and stuffing them while eating peanut butter crackers (with the same spoon as he uses for the stuffing powder), even releasing one bird that didn’t die. Eventually Duke arrives and the film sets in motion another series of developments that sees him carted off by a very disappointed Sheriff Hunt, who had vouched for him, actually believed that he was better.

But the end of the second film really set off what would be Norman’s undoing: Maxwell’s Tracy Venable is looking into what happened to Spool and questioned whether or not Norman might be involved. So Venable’s snooping, which includes a game Duke (always wanting some cash his way), soon lands her in the Bates home, looking at Norman in his Spool Mother costume, trying to avoid the same fate as other women not so lucky. I really like how Mother’s voice deadens as Norman stabs the deteriorated corpse of Spool, as if finally she is “dying” and Norman can have peace of mind…even if he’s in the asylum the remainder of his life.

I wanted to mention that I think the film is never more visually striking (except maybe when the sky is ominous above the Bates home when Norman tries to get away and stay away from Maureen who eventually just won’t leave) than after Duke and Maureen “part”. Duke dumps out Maureen, hitching a ride in a diesel truck later, and finds himself at the Bates Motel. The Bates Motel has been left to practically be overtaken by dust, weeds, inattentiveness, and the elements. The Bates house, too, is unkempt, disheveled, decaying without much care by Norman to keep it healthy. Whatever renovations Norman had been planning for the Bates Motel in the previous film seemed abandoned. But he did get an icebox!

There is even a passing nod to the second film with the book (Belly of the Beast) Mary had been reading shown with the cover and a few pages flapping in the desert wind, submerged in dirt. But as mentioned in my ramblings for “Psycho II”, while this film does feature Norman in his kitchen in the Bates home at the beginning and in the living room at the end, “Psycho III” gives us more of the Bates Motel this go-around.

Duke being “assistant manager”—basically unhinged and unstable by film’s end when Norman won’t allow him to blackmail him with use of Spool’s corpse, watching Loony Tunes!—and the football team’s stay, along with Maureen staying around until she can recover from slitting her wrists (the wounds spitting blood!), provide opportunities for the Bates to be featured more prevalently. I have been researching a general consensus at different places (YouTube comments, Letterboxd reviews, IMDb user comments, etc.) about “Psycho III” prior to watching it and writing about it, and it definitely divides viewers. I have even seen some considering the third film the best of the franchise, quite unexpected but maybe shouldn’t have been. It is often quite raw, macabre, in-your-face, naughty, cruel, and darkly comic, with a tone that can be a bit hard to pin down and characters that make decisions that inevitably mark them for death.