The vitals:
Monday, 3/31
7:00 ~ Doors
7:30 ~ PSYCHO II

“It’s all the Norman Bates story,” was what Australian director Richard Franklin said to Quentin Tarantino when describing his honest wish for his Hitchcockian sequel. Psycho II lives in a funny territory, being a followup to the classic slasher that doesn’t just make its original monster a hulking threat to a new young starlet. Instead, this is the Norman Bates story, as Tarantino praised it for being on Eli Roth’s History of Horror podcast.

After being released from his sentence in a mental institution, Norman wants nothing more than his life back and Anthony Perkins plays his struggle so heart-rendingly well. But loose threads remain from the original Psycho story. Scorned family members of the murdered Marion Crane aren’t too pleased their beloved’s murderer gets to flip patties as a free man, and the Bates Motel has fallen into the hands of a no-good druggy, who Norman fires right away. And if those ghosts weren’t haunting him enough, Norman’s got dear old Mother leaving cryptic phone calls and notes trying to drive him back to the knife. In a turn poor Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers never took, Norman steps into the protagonist role for this sequel – trying to make the most of his second chance despite everyone else making damn sure he ends up holding the knife again.

-James Scott

SEE YOU AT THE MOVIES
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