Psycho IV: The Beginning, dir. Mick Garris (1990)

NIKKI says:
And then it all just goes so horribly lame. CCH Pounder sitting in a radio booth, smoking, acting all high and mighty, spouting nonsense about matricide and boys gone wild. This is a Psycho sequel? Apparently.

The main gimmick here is the flashback to Young Norman, played awesomely by Henry Thomas, to detail just how Norman went a little mad. It's all so standard, though. Think of the absolute to-the-letter textbook case for someone of Norman's particular issue and you'll no doubt pick the problems outlined here. Let's just say, at one point, Norman gets an erection while hugging his mother in bed. And, at another point, she makes him wear a dress. Really? Could you make it any more obvious?

BORING. Were there no creative people in the room when discussing the plot for this movie? But wait, it's written by Joe Stefano, who scripted the first one. Dude, what happened in 30 years that you became so unimaginative, boring, and by-the-numbers? Oh wait -- they gave this to Mick Garris to direct. That makes me think Stefano wrote a masterpiece. Give Garris a script, you know, and it's like in The Simpsons when the tractor keeps falling on Homer. He fiddles with it, it falls on him. He walks by it, it falls on him. He does nothing at all, the tractor still falls on him.

Give Mick Garris a screenplay and a tractor will fall on him.

This is just terrible. Badly acted, badly directed (Garris tries to be Jonathan Demme and fails), with a script so hopelessly stupid and banal that even Anthony Perkins and his giggly weirdness can't save it.

Top 5 Reasons To Make Me Think 'Joe Stefano' is a pseudonym for 'Mick Garris':
1. "You've got a tongue like an elephant's memory."
2. "You see Norman, it's not polite to be naked around a lady unless you're having sex with her."
3. "You will stay locked in there until you learn not to say "no" to your mother when she tells you you're a girl!"
4. "Just me and my trusty umbrella. "
5. "They're closing down the highway and building a new one. They couldn't build it closer to the motel because then the world could still see us! Oh, what am I going to do! How am I going to live! You! Just like my father -- never a drop of sympathy! It's because of you that I can't hold my water!"

1/5