[4]

I don’t think a Psycho sequel could ever possibly work, but that doesn’t stop screenwriter Tom Holland from giving it the old college try. The script paints Norman Bates (a returning Anthony Perkins) very sympathetically — reformed, recently released, and ready to start a new life. But someone keeps playing tricks on Norman, leading him to believe his domineering mother is still alive. The movie focuses more on the mystery surrounding the antagonist’s identity than on thrills and kills. On one hand, at least it tries to be something more sophisticated than ‘more of the same,’ but on the other hand, the film’s a bore. Perkins fails to engage and director Richard Franklin (need it even be said?) ain’t no Hitchcock. With Vera Miles, Meg Tilly, and Robert Loggia.