Norman Revisits the Past

 I had intended to revisit Mick Garris' Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990) back when I was in the midst of the series of films but just never got around to it.

I've honestly never tied the Garris directed and Stefano written sequel/prequel to the series . The fourth film, in fact, perhaps because it was made in 1990 as the horror genre started to decline, I had only watched twice in the past. Once in the late 90s and 2008 when I wrote user comments for the film on the IMDb; seemingly, for some reason, this particular film never felt like it was a true "member of the Psycho family" though Stefano's script focused on Norman and his memory/flashbacks of his mother, his early murders, and his teenage troubles.

It certainly interested me before I watched it for the first time. Actual Psycho flashbacks, allowing us to experience some of Norman's past. Not just that but this specific film even has Hermann's Psycho music. I remember reading about this Showtime film, once again featuring Perkins, the final time technically in the role of Norman Bates. Rewatching it for a third (and probably final) time, Perkins was in this more than I recalled the previous revisits. It seemed he was more or less on the phone with CCH Pounder, as she tries to talk him out of killing his wife, pregnant with his child, as he worries that his mother's (and his) crazy genes would pass on.

It just felt this time around that the poisonings of Norma and her lover were unintentionally campy, especially how many times each of them seems to bounce back up, collapse, and just not fucking die. The second Norman victim after the poisonings seems to die and recover multiple times from rope stranglings, eventually drowning when she wakes back up while in her car's trunk. And the first victim is quite a naughty girl who gets hot and horny from the sight and sound of fireworks.

Perkins feels sanitized even when lit to look sinister in this film to me. He's just pitiable and tired. And that quirkiness and nervous energy that embodied the Norman character for the past two films in the 80s feels nearly wrung out of Perkins. I think maybe a number of films like 1989's "Edge of Sanity" where Perkins gave us a version of Norman had sponged a lot of what made the character so special, fascinating, and unique. He's still very watchable but the film splitting his time with Henry Thomas deprived fans of the Norman we were always so captivated by. It does give Norman a happy ending and shuts the basement doors on the burned down Bates House and Mother Norma's "ghost" once and for all. 

There is just something sad about saying goodbye to Norman because we were all in a sense having to accept that Perkins was not long for this world. I have always felt he still had more for us cut short by horrible AIDS. He's missed.