"Psycho II" packs surprises. 23 years after Alfred Hitchcock's original 1960 thriller "Psycho," Anthony Perkins returned as the troubled Norman Bates, and the movie's posters showed him standing ominously in front of the original film's famous scary house. It had been the scene of a startling knife attack on the stairway, and it hid a mummified corpse in the basement. And now Norman Bates was "coming home."

But the movie opens with Bates being released from a mental institution, supposedly cured of a split personality disorder which caused him to kill. He'll no longer channel the personality of his homicidal mother or hold imaginary conversations with her. Early on the movie reveals its first tricky twist. If Norman is really cured, then why does he keep seeing her standing in the house's top window?

Vera Miles also appeared in both this movie and the original 1960 Hitchcock film. She plays Marion Crane, whose sister was killed in Hitchcock's infamous "shower" sequence. "Psycho 2" reveals that she eventually married her sister's boyfriend - and she's furious about the release of her sister's killer from the asylum. Bates also encounters hostility from the neighborhood's locals, who taunt him as a "psycho" at his job at a local restaurant. And meanwhile, the new manager of the Bates Motel has turned it into a sleazy adult motel.

All the unsympathetic characters antagonize Norman, and soon enough a killer appears on the scene, wielding Norman's familiar butcher knife. Bates has no recollection of the killings - just like before - and the movie teases viewers with a red herring. Maybe there really is another killer prowling around the Bates estate. A likely suspect is revealed - only to be quickly dispatched by Norman's butcher knife

Meg Tilly made one of her first film appearances as Norman's understanding co-worker. She watches helplessly as the plot unfolds, lying to the sheriff while Norman resumes dangerous conversations with his dead mother that signal his descent into madness. "Oh no, mother," he says at one point. "I couldn't do that. I couldn't...kill her."

Norman goes from sane to insane, but there's still a question about who's behind the killings - and who will survive to the film's end!

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older