Psycho IV: The Beginning

2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

المحتوى المقدم من Todd Kuhns and Craig Higgins. يتم تحميل جميع محتويات البودكاست بما في ذلك الحلقات والرسومات وأوصاف البودكاست وتقديمها مباشرة بواسطة Todd Kuhns and Craig Higgins أو شريك منصة البودكاست الخاص بهم. إذا كنت تعتقد أن شخصًا ما يستخدم عملك المحمي بحقوق الطبع والنشر دون إذنك، فيمكنك اتباع العملية الموضحة هنا https://ar.player.fm/legal.

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Our first tribute episode of the year: Olivia Hussey died just a few weeks ago. Long after her starring role in Romeo & Juliet, she gave a truly unhinged portrayal of Norman Bates’ mother in the TV movie, Psycho IV.

Not only was it Anthony Hopkins’ favorite sequel (he died a few years later), child actor Henry Thomas scandalized the world with his fascinating portrayal of the young Norman. We’ve got incest, chain smoking radio hosts, lustful sexiness straight out of a 90’s erotic thriller, and the screenwriter of the original all assembled together for a compelling (and occasionally silly) final entry in the saga of the Bates Hotel.

A dark and ominous movie poster for "Psycho IV: The Beginning" features a man's shadowed face on the left and a spooky, illuminated house under a night sky on the right. The film title, "Psycho IV," is prominently displayed in bold red letters at the top.

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Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990)

Episode 424, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast.

Todd: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Two Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.

Craig: And I’m Craig.

Todd: Well, it’s another first this year, you know, of course, we had our first podcast of the new year. Then we had our first guest of the new year, right, right, and now sadly we have our first tribute episode of the new year I guess we’re just gonna get it all out in the beginning, huh?

Well, I guess it was uh last December was it was just about a month ago Just after Christmas that Olivia Hussey died at the age of 73 in LA and wow This woman has been You know, it’s interesting, it’s not like she’s been in a ton of movies that I’ve seen, you know, it’s not like I followed her all throughout my childhood, but she was a very prominent actress in my childhood, there were some very big, important movies that really resonated with me that she was a big part of, earliest on, Romeo and Just a babe when she was in that one.

And that movie was a little before, you know, a few years before my time, but. It was. We watched that in high school. In school. Yeah, didn’t we all?

Craig: Yes, yes, I think we all did. Now, I don’t know, did your teacher have like a special edited version that didn’t show her boobs? Because. No. There, there’s a 15 year old Olivia Hussey’s boobs in that movie.

And I feel like when I was, I also have the vantage point of having been in high school and seeing that. And then when I started teaching high school, teachers were still showing it like that’s kind of the definitive version. Well, it’s a good version.

Todd: I mean, it really is.

Craig: It really is. She’s fantastic. And she’s fantastic in it, but all I was gonna say was I think I remember my teachers editing that out But then I think I remember hearing stories of teachers forgetting to edit it out.

It was just boobs In freshman English. I mean that woke us

Todd: right up. I’ll tell you that I was very impressed. I remember very distinctly Enjoying that as a as a young boy.

Craig: I rem Well, I don’t think that probably stimulated me in the same way that it did you, but I remember really thinking that she was Strikingly beautiful.

Yeah, like I don’t even know what her heritage is, but she just has kind of an exotic beauty that oh man even at At 15 she was just absolutely stunning and and remained so her whole life. She’s just beautiful

Todd: Well, she is mixed as far as her ethnic background goes. She’s British. I believe her mother is British and her father was Argentinian But she spent a little bit of time in Italy, which led me to believe, because she was also in, you know, a few Italian productions.

I always imagined she was Italian, you know, based on her looks and the fact that she was in these, these productions. And of course the, the Romeo and Juliet movie was also an Italian production. But, um, but no, she was, she’s British and she even said up to her dying day that even though she hasn’t spent A vast majority of her growing up years, I should say, in Britain.

She considers Britain her home. She feels at home when she is there. And so yeah, I guess we can just kind of go on and say that she’s British. Which, again, surprised me because she never struck me as particularly British in all the roles that I saw her in.

Craig: I don’t know. She always has, like, an accent, but it’s just kind of an ambiguous accent.

Todd: really is! Just, like, an ambiguous look and an ambiguous accent that works in so many situations. It

Craig: does! She’s fantastic. And so, yes. Honestly, like, we have been talking about doing this movie. For years and years. Yes. I, I don’t think we ever spoke into existence. Maybe it, maybe it will be the Olivia Hussey episode.

Never. Cause I didn’t think about that. You know, I, I didn’t think about her being old. Cause she wasn’t really. She died of breast cancer, sadly. But Psycho 4, we’ve been talking about for years. Yes. I think both of us have memories of it. Olivia Hussey’s breaths are also a part of that

Todd: memory as well. I

Craig: didn’t.

I didn’t remember that she. Went topless in this movie. Kind of unnecessarily, frankly.

Todd: Yeah,

Craig: I don’t In hindsight, you know, maybe show Olivia Hussey a little bit more respect. You didn’t need to show her boobs. There are other boobs in the movie. But, whatever. For those of you who like to see those kinds of things, that’s nice, I guess.

Well,

Todd: you know, again, 15 year old Todd appreciated

Craig: that more than I get it. Yeah.

Todd: And

Craig: she’s gorgeous. She’s gorgeous. I get it.

Todd: She is. And honestly, Black Christmas, we did, but way back on, like, I think episode 11, was our Black Christmas episode. She’s wonderful in there. My mom was a huge fan of that movie. I think it’s called Lost Horizons.

It’s a musical. And I watched a little bit of that growing up, and she was in that as well. Now, Psycho 4 came out in 1990.

Craig: And it was a TV The same year that It came out, which she was also in. Yes. The, the miniseries, the Tim Curry miniseries.

Todd: That’s right. Now she, she’s not one of the main.

Craig: No, she was Audra.

She was, uh, the Bill’s wife.

Todd: That’s right. My recollection and why I remember Psycho 4 so much is not just because of boobs, but, but also because I remember it being a very big deal. At least it was pretty heavily promoted. But this movie was coming out and I remember so in 1990, I would have been in middle school, but you know, I could read and I read the news and I was kind of up on things.

I do remember there being a lot of talk about how this is going to be a really unique film because they’re expecting this to be a more dramatically substantial exploration of Norman Bates’s character and particularly as childhood and guess who’s going to play the The young Norman Bates, it’s gonna be Henry Thomas.

And so you’ve got Anthony Perkins revising his role, you’ve got Henry Thomas playing a young Norman Bates, you’ve got Olivia Hussey in there, and as you see, a number of other people, and in fact, a cameo by John Landis of all people, who I was shocked to

Clip: see in there as well! I know! Just

Craig: I was at least halfway into the movie and I’m like, Is that John Landis?

Like, why is John Landis in this movie? It’s so weird and I looked it up and it was him. Like, it’s so

Todd: random. It’s so funny and CCH Pounder who is another one of those just faces i’ve seen in a million things She’s still acting but I

Craig: feel like she was in everything in the 80s

Todd: She really was, right? So familiar.

So it had an all star cast, and my recollection was that it was on network television, because I got to, like, tape it off of TV and see it, but actually it was on Showtime. Right. Which it had to have been, with the nudity and I think the subject matter. And so I can only surmise, because I did really see this at the time it came out, that it must have either come out or been re shown during one of those Free preview weeks or whatever.

Craig: Yeah, I bet that’s it.

Todd: And I remembered being really struck by the movie I remembered being a little scandalized by it the middle schooler that there’s so much sex and sexual situations and Really icky stuff that I had never considered before. I wasn’t that familiar with psycho at that age I don’t remember if I’d actually seen it or not.

I but I knew You know, what everybody else knows about Psycho? Yeah. And so, you know, I understood what they were talking about when they said they were gonna explore his backstory. And, what I remember reading in the papers at the time, was also that these were not new ideas. Because, way back when they were shooting the original Psycho, the screenwriter Who is the screenwriter of this movie as well?

The original screenwriter of the original Psycho. And Hitchcock, and I believe Robert Bloch, the novelist, all had discussions during the production of the movie amusing on what would Norman Bates childhood actually have been like. And, you know, in the process of trying to find his character and flesh out the original Psycho, there were a lot of discussions about what ended up in this movie decades later.

So the whole movie fascinated me then, it still fascinates me now, it was really great. To have an excuse to go back and revisit it even though it’s a sad one.

Craig: Right. My experience is similar, I think. I think I had seen Psycho. That’s just one of those movies that I don’t know. I feel like I’ve always have seen it, you know, right.

Todd: You were born having seen

Craig: it Right, right, right.

Todd: Your mom watched it. You were in the womb,

Craig: right? Exactly, but I Probably seen the other sequels too, but I honestly don’t remember and I remember nothing about them I know that Jennifer Tilly’s sister Meg Tilly is in The second one, I think that’s it. Like that’s the extent of my knowledge.

Anthony Perkins, the star of the franchise, says that this is his favorite of the sequels. It’s

Todd: interesting.

Craig: And I remember like you, I don’t think I remember being scandalized by it, but I remember really liking it. And it’s funny going back and watching it now. I still really like it, but I think that I realized that the reason that I liked it at the time, it’s so, it came out in 1990 and I felt like it was so straddling that line of 80s and 90s, like it’s trying to get a little bit edgier, I think, on the 90s still, the thing that I like the most about it, I think is it’s, it’s so melodramatic.

Yes. Yes. It’s so melodramatic to the point that it’s hilarious.

Todd: Yes, exactly. My memories of this film are kinder to it. I still like it, but my memories of this film are much kinder. Now that I watch it through a modern lens, it just takes me back to the typical Showtime and Cinemax and HBO movies of the time.

These erotic thrillers. This is very much on the edge of You could almost call it an erotic thriller, it kind of is. And it’s certainly It is! It’s an erotic

Craig: incest thriller, it’s disgusting!

Todd: It’s filmed in that style, it has the same cinematography, the same lighting. For a while, I wondered if the whole movie was just gonna be in this extremely dim, where nobody ever turns the lights on and everything’s blue and red.

Oh my God, it was so dramatic. And we’ll get to the ending, but, uh. Of course.

Craig: And listen, I love Olivia Hussey. I really do. And I love her in this movie. She is so over the top. She is playing this over the top crazy person. And it’s hilarious. And I love her. And I want to talk about her at length. But I also want to say.

Henry Thomas f ing kills in this movie. Yes, he does. He is so good. He is so good as a young Norman Bates. I think of Henry Thomas as Elliot. Now, he’s still working, he’s doing great things. He’s been working in all of, well, in some of those TV series like Fall of the House of Usher. Mike Flanagan, he’s been working a lot with Mike Flanagan.

Todd: he’s still around. The haunting of Bly Manor where he played an older British guy. I had to double take, you know, I was like, wait a minute. That British actor looks familiar. I’m like, no way. That can’t be. Henry Thomas. He was utterly convincing in that movie. It was just great.

Craig: Well in in this, he is a young.

Man, he is not the boy that he was in E. T. Not at all. But he’s I couldn’t tell if it was camera trickery or if he really was big. I think he was big. Like I think he’s got like really broad shoulders and he was lean and young and tall, significantly taller than Olivia Hussey. He looked like a big guy.

Like I totally believed him as a young Anthony Perkins. I thought he was big. He was so good!

Todd: He was great. His acting was fantastic. I was enthralled every minute he was on the screen. Honestly, him and Anthony Perkins, both, I thought were wonderful. And I do remember that part of, again, I don’t want to say controversy, but just, you know, why this movie stirred up so much attention, it was such a big deal, is that you’re right.

Just for Or three years before this movie, all we had ever seen him in were these kid movies. E. T. God, one of my all time favorite movies, Cloak and Dagger. If we could do Cloak and Dagger on here, we could have a three hour episode about how much I love that movie. And The Quest. And then like, two years later, boom.

He is in this incestuous relationship with his mother in, uh, Psycho 4 as Norman Bates. And I know everybody did a double take at that time, like, wow, what would this look like? And gosh darn it, he pulls it off. And I thought, Anthony Perkins too? I got a, a real respect for him as an actor. Up until the very last scenes, I was, which I, again, we’re gonna get to, I’m sure, but like, up until that moment, you know, again, this movie is shot in that.

potboiler, erotic thriller style, which means we’re in everyone’s face most of the time.

Craig: Yes. I love this. It also, there’s, there’s something very TV about it. Like, like you said, it premiered on Showtime, but it has the feel of an early late eighties, early nineties TV movie. And I, I don’t say that. In a derogatory way.

Todd: Right.

Craig: We were big fans of those movies, or miniseries, or whatever. But, like, it feels like it’s built to easily insert commercials, first of all. But I also, it’s so, to me I don’t know, it’s so of the time, that the whole framework of the movie is that he’s calling into Norman Bates! Norman Bates! Who is just a real person who exists in the world that other people know about.

Right. Is calling into a radio show Where the topic is matricide The topic is sons who kill their mothers So he calls into this show And he’s like their star guest for the night and like at first he doesn’t identify himself. He calls himself ed It also just so happens that the guest on the show is this doctor who has worked With men who have killed their mothers Including Norman Bates, right?

And about halfway through the movie, the doctor’s like, Hey, I think that’s Norman Bates.

Todd: That long to figure out, huh?

Craig: The radio host is like, holy shit. Really? And he’s like, yeah, I’m pretty sure. And they’re like, okay. And, and then why don’t you stay out of this from here on in,

Clip: are you asking me to leave? No, Ellen will make you a cup of coffee, I’ll tell the audience You’re gonna question a psychopathic killer without professional help?

Maybe he’s had enough professional help! Maybe he needs somebody unprofessional! Do you want to be responsible for whatever he does after he hangs up on you? I suggest you trace that call, then contact the authorities. In the first place, we can’t trace calls here. And in the second place, I don’t think I like your attitude.

I’m not gonna be a party to this. Oh, now, just a minute. My way or yours?

Craig: And they’re like, okay, get the f out of here.

We’ll take it over from here. This psychologist who has worked with him in the past, who has identified him, is like, I don’t know if we should do this. And they’re like, fine, leave. And he just does. And then they just keep going

Todd: on. Since you brought it up, I want to address that silliness right away so we can get that out of the way.

Because it is the framing device for the story, and if you’re gonna knock this movie, you gotta say it takes the easy way out. You kind of expect a little more from the writer of the original, but you can just see that he was thinking, Okay, so we want to Psychologically explore Norman’s background and what caused him, you know, what was his childhood like?

Okay, why don’t we have a radio call in show where the topic is exactly that And have Norman Bates call in and the whole movie can be him literally explaining Bit by bit, moment by moment, what his childhood was like and how he felt about it and how it changed him

Craig: It is also brilliant because the way that it’s Made, they can get, I think Anthony Perkins was a part of this from the get out, I think he was behind it, but even if he weren’t, like, it would be so easy to get him.

All you have to do is come in for like three days and walk around the kitchen on the phone. Like,

Clip: and then, and

Craig: then we’ll film some stuff on the universal lot at the house and it’ll take an afternoon and you’ll be done. It’s so 90s. Ah, I love it. It’s so great. It’s so 90s. And 80s. It’s right there. It’s right there in the cusp.

I love it.

Todd: And don’t get me wrong. I was entranced. I was seriously kind of on edge and really focused on what he was saying and his mannerisms and his expressions. I didn’t feel like it was too indulgent where, you know, you’re like, okay, man, get me to the cutscenes already, you know, get, get me to the flashbacks.

Craig: It’s indulgent. No, it is. Those scenes. But. Those scenes of him in the kitchen are so funny. Like he’s always doing something so weird.

Todd: Oh, the Apple one? Yeah,

Craig: that’s the weirdest of them, but I actually like that one. It’s, it’s the least obvious. The Apple one, we should explain. We should explain. There’s one scene where like he’s frustrated on the phone and it cuts back to him in the kitchen and he just rips an apple apart with his hands.

Like he just like tears it in half. And, uh, you know, I, I, I read. That was his idea. He thought that just stabbing it would be too obvious. But that’s what I’m saying, like everything else, too corny, every, but that’s what everything else is. Like he’s like, he’s just constantly like pulling knives out of the knife block and like slicing a tomato and like close up, right?

Innocent things shot as though. Like, okay, I’m filming a serial killer. It’s funny.

Todd: It’s really funny. It is funny, and it’s a little bit like, you know, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Dexter, I really haven’t, but I’ve seen a few episodes and I was just reminded of the intro to that where it shows all these, basically him getting ready for his day, doing normal things like grinding coffee and, you know, cutting up, breaking eggs and things, but it’s filmed in this really close up, fast, violent style, you know, with the music behind it, that it, it was kind of like a precursor to that.

The part that I thought was the corniest, that I almost fell out of my chair, was when he, for no good reason, nicks himself with the knife, holds it over the drain, and we get The same shot from Psycho of the blood swirling down the drain in the most notorious scene of that movie referenced so obviously and boldly in the most mundane circumstance.

I loved it. Oh. I mean, didn’t it just feel like they were checking that off? Like, we gotta reference this somewhere. How can we do it? Ah, just have him nick his finger and then we’ll zoom in on the sink like, what? I thought it was great. So there’s some silliness. It’s melodramatic. That I gotta get because I have a radio background, right?

So I want to come back to this radio framing story one more time because number one, I love, love how in movies, particularly of this era, they always showed radio stations as these super dramatic places and they’re always for some reason sitting around and working in absolute darkness. I Don’t understand that.

I guess it’s because if you shoot radio stations the way they really operate, it’s really boring as hell because, uh, nobody works in the dark. The lights are bright. And every one of these little talk shows, it’s like they have a premium on space. You know, there’s this huge room with this lone table in the middle.

With this person sitting behind a chain smoking and their guest across from them. They’re both really dramatically lit. And then far away there’s a window where there are at least three technicians who are just standing there watching the show, ready to jump in with ideas, advice, or whatever like that.

God, man, if only.

Craig: It’s the biggest studio I’ve ever seen. It was hilarious. And you’re absolutely right. Like, it was, she was just sitting at this big oval table in the middle of an enormous room by herself, chain smoking marbles. The lights out. Oh, God. Yeah. With, with, you’re right. Like, and, and the booth, like 15 yards away.

Like, it

Todd: was crazy. And you would think this is the most important production that is going on the way that all the attention that’s being given to it, stuff like that. I mean, I used to host like a morning call in show that we did on the AM station in a very small market town and people called in and stuff all the time, but let me tell you, nobody was helping me out with that at all.

We had like a three line phone thing, I’d hit a button to pick up the next caller, hope they weren’t crazy, do my own commercial breaks, anyway, there’s that.

Craig: While we’re on that, I do want to say that, uh, CCH Pounder Is really good too. Like she’s the, she’s the radio host. Um, and she does a good job. I didn’t look her up.

I, she’s just one of those actresses that was seemingly in everything around. And I feel like a lot of TV. Just very recognizable. It makes a lot of sense to cast her as a radio personality because she has a great voice. She does. You’ll recognize her, uh, when you see her. And she does a good job. Like you said, the talk show is the framing device.

And so, her character is very much a device and could have been very formulaic and boring but I like her and it seems like she’s genuinely invested in Norman and his story. I believe by the end of the movie that she really, I feel like she cares more about him. Of course at first it’s just Great for her show, you know She’s got this killer on the show and it’s good for the show But she gets invested in his story and by the end I feel like she’s genuinely concerned Not only that he’s said that he’s going to kill somebody But she seems concerned about him too.

And even, you know, her show ends at 10 o’clock and the time is running out and she begs him to stay on the phone with her to keep talking. All that just to say the actress, I thought, was great. I just like, it’s, I like this movie. Ah, it’s hard for me to say it’s a good movie. I don’t know, but I enjoyed it so much.

And like, there are so many things like these performances that I really think are quite good and compelling, even when they’re melodramatic. And we haven’t even started talking about Olivia Hussey. She’s, she’s, she’s a nut bag, but

Todd: I love it. You know, in a way, it’s a little bit like, I mean, it’s not like a giallo, but it’s got that same style over Overreality kind of aspect to it where you just kind of have to accept it’s going to be a little corny You kind of have to accept that it’s a little unrealistic But it’s full of style and even that style itself.

It’s kind of over the top the acting is, you know, very melodramatic But I think the story is interesting and the characters are interesting It’s just fun to watch things play out even though I was rolling my eyes just to kind of wrap up Because I think we can talk a little bit about the basic framing of the movie, but, you know, kind of finish that, and then go into detail on the Norman Bates story, because I think that’s the more compelling and interesting part.

Okay. So, here we are with this radio show. Like you said, one of the very first things he says when he calls in is he’s killed before and he’s going to have to kill again. He might even say tonight. Mm hmm. So The movie does a good job of creating, like, an urgency. It’s, if this were nothing more than just Norm debates calling into a radio show and, oh, isn’t that supposed to be interesting?

It’s one thing. But there’s some urgency created where, like you said, it’s like they kind of have to keep him on the phone, and that’s the whole reason why the psychologist, once he figures out who this guy is, he’s like, oh, I think this is real. I think this guy is dangerous. We need to do something about this.

And you’re right, their instinct is, well, we can’t call the cops. Don’t call the cops, no cops are gonna get involved. If you’re not cool with us hanging out with, keeping him on the line and how we’re pulling this out, you can just leave. And he just goes. And we never see him again. So it’s kind of ridiculous.

It’s really dumb. And I have to ask myself, is anybody listening to this radio show? Because anybody could have called the cops. Anybody listening to what’s happening. Who’s getting all the same information and detail that they are because it’s not like they ever make contact with him outside of the radio Right.

So everybody listening to the show is getting all the same detail. Anybody could have, maybe there, there ought to have been a cop listening to the show. Who would have been like, alright, we need to get involved here. Well,

Craig: alright. And because eventually like, like I said, he uses a fake name at first, but he eventually identifies himself by his full name.

Like, I don’t remember. He’s like something, something Norman Bates. And she already thought, right. Like she thought that it was him, but she wasn’t sure. Then like, you know, yeah. Melodramatic closeup of her face. Like, oh my God, it is him. Like, this is apparently. renowned serial killer that people know about and he’s just on the radio identifying himself by name and nothing happens.

That’s, it’s, it is, it’s silly. It’s silly. There are so many things, like, I agree with you, we should get into the backstory of it, and we need to talk about Olivia Hussey, but all, like, it’s so silly. He says, you know, that he needs to kill somebody else, and he ultimately says that it’s gonna be his wife, whom he met.

While he was in a mental institution, she was his nurse. Oh god. But they fell in love and got married because she believes in him. What?

Todd: What?

It’s so funny. You know, you know, you think about those real life stories of prisoners who have admirers, right? Very notorious people, like, I think even Even Charles Manson, like, married someone from his prison cell, right? Who was just kind of a fan.

Craig: Both of the Menendez brothers are married. To people that they met while they were in prison.

Todd: But, I’ve never heard of the prison guards taking an interest in the prisoner and developing a romantic relationship. Maybe it happens, but I kind of equate this to that.

Craig: That would be, I feel like that falls more under the realm of Abuse of power, but like this is just like my mother is a nurse I think one of your parents is in health care or both.

Oh, yeah, both of my parents are nurses. Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah nurses don’t Psych nurses

Todd: don’t f their patients. Especially psych nurses Especially if your patient is Norman Bates.

Craig: Norman Bates Notorious serial killer of women, but it’s

Todd: fine. She trusts in him. We see her in her office, you know, with her co workers, and I just wanted to imagine all those co workers, like, what do they think?

Oh, good for you, honey. You know, was, was that gal that she’s chatting to with one of the bridesmaids at their wedding? Do they get together and play cards?

Craig: He’s, yeah. They’re not even using a false name. Like he’s not even using an alias. Like her last name is Bates. Like she is Mrs. Norman Bates. But I really, I liked her because she seemed totally normal.

Like she seemed like a real. Woman of her, professional woman, smart. Not glamorous or anything,

Todd: nothing?

Craig: No, no, just a very normal, you know, she’s good at her job, everybody likes her, but just a normal lady. And I, I liked that, but it was just such a stupid conceit. Yeah. Oh my god. And he lives in her beautiful suburban house where he can walk around the beautiful suburban kitchen with a knife on a corded phone, I think.

I don’t know. Sometimes

Todd: lay on the floor.

Craig: Yeah, it’s all him. The whole movie is him telling his backstory. In which, Henry Thomas plays him as a younger man and Olivia Hussey plays his mother and obviously if you know anything about Psycho at all You know that this is a guy who has mommy issues. Why even in the first movie?

We don’t entirely know this kind of attempts to answer that and I think that it does it in a great way I think melodrama is totally the way to approach this. What makes this guy Cuckoo batshit crazy. Well, the story has to be cuckoo batshit crazy. And it is. It’s wild. Like, I don’t, I think Olivia Hussey is great in this, but I feel like they could have just called her on set in any given moment and she’s already memorized her lines.

And they just say, All right, just go f ing nuts. Like, what? Right. I mean She just delivers everything. Like, she is a lunatic. It’s a night and day thing where, in one instant She will be a doting mother. There’s all kinds of Oedipal stuff going on here, uh, too. This kid, I mean, I don’t know how old Henry Thomas was at the time, but he looks like he could have been 19, 20.

He’s a man. He’s a young man. And she keeps putting him in all these kind of awkward, sexualized situations. It’s just the two of them all the time. She makes him take off his clothes. All of his clothes and get in bed with her to keep her warm and like snuggle her

Clip: and she’s

Craig: like Caressing him and stuff and then there’s another part where they’re both Barely dressed and she starts rolling around with him on the floor and these are disgusting It’s disgusting but She is the one that’s being inappropriate and then when his body She responds, then she freaks out and is horrible and abusive and it doesn’t, you know, that’s later in the movie, like it doesn’t even take that, like she might freak out for any given reason and just go from being loving and doting to hateful and abusive and terrible.

And Olivia Hussey just fucking goes for it.

Todd: She’s just.

Craig: Going for it, and I love it.

Todd: It establishes that pretty early on, pretty directly, when one of the first scenes we see is, he’s talking about his father dying, when he was very young.

Clip: Boy’s best friend is his mother. What about your father? How’d you feel about him?

He died when I was six. He was stung to death by bees. They stung his eyes, his nostrils, even the insides of his mouth. I was worried about my mother seeing him lying there, in that box.

Todd: And they’re sitting at the funeral, and while they are listening to the message at the funeral, she is rubbing him through his pants.

Well, he’s saying he’s being tickled. I think that was a euphemism from the point of view of a little boy that’s too young to understand what’s happening. And when he makes some noise, she immediately slaps him on the face and says, Don’t you have any respect for the dead? So she’s doing this thing. And then immediately punishing him when it’s, it’s really her fault.

Right. You know, this is not actually, I mean, it’s a melodramatic presentation of very real psychological behavior. I mean, I have known bipolar people who are quite literally like this. They are just fine one minute, and then the next minute seem irrationally angry. And almost just, you know, like a completely different person.

You don’t know what this comes from, and why, and it’s very confusing. And it would be very confusing for a child. And then that child coming up through adolescent, when a lot of confusing things are happening.

Clip: What’s the matter? What did I do? Nothing, nothing, nothing! Then why are you hitting me? Who They’re not going to build it where the highway is.

No, because from there the world would still be able to see us. It’s going to be miles away. Nobody will even know we’re here. They’re putting us out of business. Oh, what am I going to do? How will we live? You, you’re just like my father. Never a drop of sympathy. I’m sorry. Sorry for what? What the hell good are you if you can’t show a little sympathy?

Well, I don’t know how. No. You just know how to cause trouble. Because of you my bladder’s damaged, I can’t hold my water. That’s why I’m always running to the toilet, did you know that? Yes, I know. I was fine until I gave birth to you. You caused a lot of damage. I should have gotten rid of you the day I found out I was gonna have you.

Not one thing you’ve ever said or done has made all I’ve gone through with you worthwhile, not one blessed thing. I should have killed you in my womb. You sure as hell tried to kill me getting out of it.

Todd: And you have that aspect to where it’s just this boy and his mom. He has no father figure in his life I mean, I guess he’s going to school, but we never see do we see any portrayal of that?

Craig: No, he carries books and at one point his mom says get off to school or you’re gonna be late to school or something But no, we never see him go the whole thing Gosh, I think the entire movie and I’m sure that this is an economical thing, but the whole thing takes place On that lot and in that house.

Todd: Yeah,

Craig: I think it’s universal It’s on the the Bates motel and and the house is on the Universal back lot I think that it was on one studio lot and then this is the first movie where it’s the same set But they changed location. It was on a different lot

Todd: The first three movies were all shot on the Universal back lot in California, which became a part of the Universal Studios tour

Craig: Yeah, I’ve been there.

Have you?

Todd: Not to the one in California. I’ve been to the one in Florida when they still had it. Right. I Me too, I think. They don’t have it anymore. They don’t do any of that backlot stuff. Oh. But when they first opened Universal Studios, it’s the same y I think it was like the same year, 1990. Cause I remember, God, it was all over Nickelodeon, you know, like you There was all kinds of promotional stuff for it, what you could see on the tour.

And it was like, yeah, and you can see the Bates Mansion and the Bates Motel. They built the set, you know, a copy of that set there in Florida and in Insisted on filming it there so that they could come out with a bang for the new studio tour and lots and, and, and amusement park down there and give people something to see.

So apparently people actually did get to see some of this being filmed while they were down there, and it’s a shame that that doesn’t happen anymore. None of that stuff happens anymore. You know, Disney built mg. At the time it was called Disney MGM Studios, now it’s Disney Hollywood Studios. That was built as kind of a rival to Universal’s gig, and they both put a lot of effort into making it so that at any given time when you visit the amusement park, you might be able to see a movie being produced.

And over the years, they realized that that didn’t really matter anymore, and people didn’t care, they would come anyway. And so they just started replacing them with rides, and that’s no longer a thing.

Craig: Yeah, that’s too bad. I, I enjoyed that stuff when I was a kid. I went on that studio tour. I think that I went to the one, I think I went to the one in Florida too.

And, and I saw, and it was cool, you know, like the, the Bates, the Bates motel. The golden girl’s

Todd: house was there, dude. The

Craig: golden girl’s house. I was more excited about that.

Todd: You know. When I, when I worked there, and that would have been in 1999, the fall of 1999, I was there on the college program, and I worked at Disney MGM Studios, and at that time the Backlots Tour, I think it was still going, but it was a very limited version, because they had already carved some of it out and stopped doing a few of those things.

But, there was this thing that Up until I think this last year was still going on called the Osborne family lights and I don’t know long story short I think this family called the Osborne family in Florida had a bunch of lights and they donated they used to do big light Shows on their street in their neighborhood and it got to be too unwieldy So they kind of donated them to Disney so that they could set them up every year and where they set them up Was on that back lot area Where all those houses and things were.

And so, a couple nights during the fall, when those lights were up and people were paying special admission to come to the park at night and tour those Osborne lights, I was literally standing there in those sets, like, in front of the Golden Girls house and all that stuff. Well, that’s fun. Yeah, just kinda managing crowds and And working a couple extra shifts for some extra money.

It was a, it was a cool time. It’s a shame that stuff’s gone.

Craig: I agree with you. It is a shame that that’s not really a thing anymore. I just have a vivid snapshot memory of being on like that open air. multi car, tram type vehicle going by the Golden Girls house. It was so exciting to me. It’s my favorite show.

Todd: It’s sort of like, you know, Golden Girls house is to Craig as Olivia Hussey’s breasts are to me. We’re both getting very distinct memories right now.

Craig: It is. It is. And you do. You see her boobs. Like, look, this is such a funny movie. Everything that we’re being. Shown and being told is from Norman’s perspective.

Perhaps if this movie were told from the mother’s perspective, she wouldn’t come across as a psychotic whore. Because maybe, I don’t know, just throwing it out there, maybe Norman is It’s the one who’s crazy and screwed up. But this movie totally makes it like his mom totally fucked him up. Like, like I said before, there’s kind of, there’s Oedipal shit going on.

Like he’s getting boners for his mom all the time. And uh, she eventually gets a boyfriend. He’s also. Killing people. He’s crazy. He’s he’s crazy. Yeah And he and like he narrates he narrates these murders and it all ties back to his mommy issues But like he’s a good looking guy and he can pull tail, but every time he does he kills them.

So like Like stop it stop it Don’t do it

Todd: Now, did you know that Anthony Perkins himself had never slept with a woman until he was 39?

Craig: Well, I think he was gay. Well, I think he was bi Uh,

Todd: no, I think he was bisexual or or or pretty fluid, actually, because he he was married The internet

Craig: will tell you he was bisexual because he did have relationships with women, but the fact that he didn’t have sex with a woman until he was 39 suggests That’s to me that he was probably gay.

Todd: Uh, you know, and again, there’s a difference sometimes between what people say in public and how they actually feel, but there was a quote also, uh, you know, where he had talked about, I don’t remember when in life, maybe in the late 80s or early 90s that he talked about not having had sex with a woman until he was 39.

He had had homosexual experiences before that, but he said that kind of sex always just felt very unfulfilling to him and kind of empty. And then when he met his wife, he just was absolutely in love with her again. And, you know, You say one thing, you do other things. He had lots of trysts with men, but, uh, he was apparently really, really into his wife, and she was really into him.

Up to the point when he died. Oh good, good for them. But anyway, where I was going with that was, I went back, when was the last time you saw the original Psycho?

Craig: A long time. Yeah. I don’t know. I’ve probably only watched it start to finish a couple of times. I don’t know, it’s just so ingrained in my head.

It’s, it’s such a cultural touchstone, like, it just, it’s, it’s, it’s just there, you know?

Todd: Well, I wasn’t planning to go back and watch the original, like, to research for this, I didn’t feel like I had to, but we ended up putting it on in the background today, and I found myself watching it again, and it is good, and it made me realize a couple things.

One of those was, Anthony Perkins was a good looking guy, when he was a kid. Young and old. He’s almost a spitting image of Henry Thomas. I mean, they picked, like, a great, great face for this. Great casting. He is just as good in the original Psycho as Henry Thomas is in this movie. They are fantastic at playing this.

And I guess I was saying maybe, maybe he could relate a little bit, you know, to his awkwardness with women. Like, but, you know, I don’t want to, I mean, the guy’s an actor. He should, he can act, right? Sure. I don’t want to diminish that. I get it. It’s just fun bit of trivia. But. You know, the other thing I was thinking of was, we really don’t know how his mother really was.

In the original Psycho, we hear his mother yelling at him, and saying all these horrible things and stuff. Which is very similar to what Olivia Hussey is saying to him in this movie. But in the original movie, it’s him! It’s his voice, is, you know, cause he’s got this split personality. I

Craig: think maybe It was actually another voice actress.

I don’t think it was actually Anthony Perkins, but it was no I don’t mean it was the actor. I mean it was the character right where to believe that it’s him and the same thing here the first time He kills a woman. The timeline is a little bit confusing too. I’m not, I don’t exactly understand it because he says the first time that he killed a woman was this woman who tried to have sex with him, which is exactly right.

She’s this attractive, bubbly young woman who is. Clearly into him and they’re making out in the car and she wants to get a room and but this you know Pretty young girl is into him and they’re fooling around and it starts to get hot and heavy But then he’s like, oh wait, I have to go give my mom her 2 a.

m. Medicine

And he goes up there and he’s talking to her and she, you, she’s laying on the bed on her side with her back to us, to the camera. So you can’t really see her, but it doesn’t even look like she’s laying on top of the covers. I think it looks like a corpse. It doesn’t look like a person. It’s

Todd: a hundred percent.

Craig: And then it talks to him and she’s like,

Clip: Get that whore out of my house.

Craig: She’s not a whore mother.

Clip: I said, get rid of her. Oh, do I have to do it myself? No mother. I’ll get rid of her. Kill her. Kill her? I can’t, no! No, I can’t. All right. All right. Then I’ll do it for you.

Craig: And it’s in a very affected voice. Like it doesn’t sound like Olivia Hussey’s voice at all.

And this happens multiple times. So, yeah, he’s nuts, and he is either, like you said, it’s kind of a split personality thing where he takes on her personality, and then he blames everything on and attributes everything to her, um, when it’s really him. He said that was the first time that he killed anybody, and we see his mom dead.

Then It goes back to her being alive. And he eventually kills her and her boyfriend. So, well, yeah, it jumps in time, right? But why do I say, I’m saying, why does he say that’s the first time that he killed anybody? When, when he did that, the mother was already dead.

Todd: You know what I’m saying? Oh, good point. I feel like there was a trick of language that he used there, but I don’t remember it because I remember having that question myself.

Craig: Well, and he, to be fair, like we said, you know, it’s a limited narrative perspective. We can only trust what he tells us, and we can only trust what he is telling this radio person. Like, who knows how he’s Editorializing, you know what I mean? Of course,

Todd: yeah. He does seem to be trying to garner some sympathy, but he’s also not at all concerned about admitting to all these things.

But I guess he’s done his time, right? I suppose that I mean, it’s kind of unbelievable, but I, I mean, I guess there’s some modern day equivalents to that, you know, where we have people who go on and become freaking celebrities after murdering people, I suppose, so. Oh gosh, yeah. So yeah, I mean, it’s possible, and it’s, it’s within the realm of possibility.

But yeah, anyway, that’s what struck me, was just that even this movie is not necessarily the definitive answer to what was Norman Bates mother like, because at nowhere are we ever getting anything that’s not through his voice. Even up to the original movie. She’s not even alive in the original film and everything that Sounds like her is really coming from him.

So yeah, that’s an interesting aspect to it. That will always remain a mystery I suppose.

Craig: Yeah, that’s yeah, and that’s fine. Yeah That doesn’t bother me at all. Uh, I actually I like this. I like this as his origin. I love Henry Thomas It’s one of the times that she’s very inappropriately rolling around with him in their underclothes and he gets a boner and she freaks out about it and emasculates him and tells him he’s a girl and locks him in a closet and calls him Norma.

Oh god. That’s when he starts dressing up in her clothes and a wig and so, you know, we kind of get a little backstory. for that. And it’s silly and melodramatic and stupid and, but whatever. I mean, it answers the question. Sure. He kills another lady too. You know, in reading the trivia and stuff, I guess them showing him killing these women answers questions that were left unanswered in the previous movies.

But I’m not familiar enough. With those movies to know that whatever he kills another lady an older lady older than him not probably more his mom’s age not like an old lady, but uh, he kills her and then eventually the mom gets a A boyfriend and that part was all weird too. Like so weird. There are some weird lines in this like The first night that he sees his mother bring this man home, first of all, she takes him to the motel and Norman watches them through the peephole that’s been established through the whole series, and then the next morning.

She’s like cooking breakfast and she’s like, yes, this is Carl or Chip or whatever his name is and we’re gonna get married as soon as he gets divorced

Todd: and Could they paint her in a worse possible

Craig: life. She’s awful and and he used to be like a Security guard or something, but not anymore because now he works for us He works at the hotel and he’s gonna live here.

He’s gonna live with us and then the guy That’s a lot to throw on a kid. Yeah, a teenager. And the guy comes in in a robe and, uh, Henry Thomas says, take off my dad’s robe. I thought that he just was going to, like, I thought that he was just going to like, just stand there naked. But he says something gross.

He’s like,

Clip: No underwear. You see, Norman. You only want to be naked around a lady when you’re having sex with her. Any other time, you just ain’t respectful.

Craig: Or just impolite, or something like that. Oh god. And this guy is so annoying, like within the course of a day or something, like he’s trying to give Norman boxing lessons and he has to taunt Norman to even to get him to participate and then he eventually does and then he Punches him in the face and gives him a bloody nose And then the mom and the boyfriend stand over him and we see the POV from the ground like you’re looking up at them And they’re just laughing and pointing at him like like the boys got to learn someday like they’re just It’s awful.

Yeah.

Todd: They are terrible, terrible people. So he kills them. I guess this is one way to get us on his side. And he does. The radio host asks him, how did you kill your mother? And he says, slowly. Oh my

Craig: god.

Todd: Commercial. You’re right. That was great. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, the way he kills them is, is what we know from the first movie.

You know, it’s, it’s said by the, by the cops or somebody that they were poisoned in, with strychnine. Now, in the first movie, it’s said that She, that the guy, that one of them kills the other, like she kills him because he wouldn’t get his divorce and then She decides to go with him. But obviously in this movie it puts the blame on Norman.

Craig: Gotcha,

Todd: okay. And you know, I guess it’s supposedly you kind of wonder if in the original movie they meant that too. There’s no indication actually in the original movie that, that he killed his mother. So.

Craig: This is off topic, but I want to get it in while I’m thinking about it. There was also the prequel series Bates Motel Starring Freddie Highmore and Vera Farmiga as Norman and and the mother Norma.

That’s

Todd: the more recent one, right?

Craig: Yeah, and it was really really good. Freddie Highmore was fantastic as Norman Bates too and and Vera Farmiga is always fantastic and she was great as Norma and it Explored their relationship, which was also strange and sometimes awkward and inappropriate but far more realistic and believable.

So if you’re, if you’re a fan of these movies and you haven’t watched that show, I highly recommend it. It’s a very good show. Yeah, so he kills, he poisons them with strychnine. Ugh, God, it was another one of my They’re just, the mom and her boyfriend are just loudly banging all over the house and he’s just having to listen to it.

And then when they’re done banging, the mom’s like,

Clip: Go down and see what’s keeping that boy, I’m so thirsty I can hardly swallow. Well, we can’t have that now, can we?

Room service has arrived.

Not a word about my new kimono. It’s lurid. It just keeps

Craig: walking away. So

Todd: funny. Could you imagine? No, I couldn’t, but

Craig: again, I can’t say enough how good Henry Thomas is because he’s just great in every moment, but the movie borrows some style from Hitchcock and there are moments when it does really tight closeups on his face.

He watches them die. Basically he watches the poison kick in from around the corner and his eyes like He’s he’s wide eyed and fascinated by what he’s seeing and I feel like he’s got his fingers up by his mouth like he’s Anxious and he just does a really good job. I imagine that he probably If not worked with anthony perkins, is that his name?

If he didn’t work with him on it, he at least watched his previous performances because they have similar, uh, idiosyncrasies and, and things. And I just thought he, I just, throughout the whole time I was watching, I just kept thinking, Oh my God, he is so good.

Todd: Yeah. Supposedly, Anthony Perkins was really insistent that he meet with Henry Thomas and give him some advice.

But Henry Thomas was like. It ended up being like five minutes, and he didn’t really say much of anything, and so there wasn’t

Craig: Well, Mick Garris, the director, said that Anthony Perkins was the most difficult actor he’d ever worked with. Um, so I don’t know what that’s all about, but usually when people say that, there’s a reason.

Todd: That’s true. Now, speaking of Mick Garris We’ve done movies by him earlier. He’s done a lot of horror. Sleepwalkers. Sleepwalkers. He did the story for Batteries Not Included, which is one of my favorites, but he wrote I love that movie. He wrote and directed Critters 2. He did the screenplay for The Fly 2.

But probably, you know, your favorite one is the wrote and directed Hocus Pocus. Oh

Clip: yeah!

Todd: Yeah, I don’t know if he’s involved in the new one that’s gonna supposed to be coming out soon. I don’t think he is. I don’t know. I don’t remember. But yeah, he’s done some good stuff. He has! He’s done a lot of things, both television and movie

Craig: wise.

Once Norman kills his mom and the boyfriend though, then we just have to wrap up the frame story and that’s what it feels like. And it wraps up quickly and Is

Todd: it though? Is it quickly? Well, conceptually, it’s quick. I don’t

Craig: know. It sure goes on for a while. He tells the radio lady that he’s going to kill his wife.

Why? Because she let herself get pregnant. Oh my God. And he’s very angry about it because he told her from the beginning that they could never have kids because he didn’t want to pass on his evil seed or some shit like that. But she is pregnant and he’s going to kill her. And there’s. And the, the radio lady’s like trying to beg him not to, trying to keep him on the phone, but he eventually hangs up and he calls his wife and tells her, don’t come home, even though I’ve been preparing this meal for the last two hours.

Um, don’t come home. Meet me at my mom’s house. He’s so

Todd: shady. He is super shady with her from the, from the phone call all the way up. To when she arrives and he’s like manhandling her and he’s being coy and he’s like just kind of like Pulling her up to the house and she’s just kind of going along with it.

I I just don’t understand why this woman Who knows his history? Wouldn’t be more alarmed. Yeah,

Craig: she knows who he is Yeah, come meet me at my mom’s house. Your mom’s house where you killed all those people? Thank you, no. Like,

Todd: I don’t think so. Grabs her by the arm, they go into this cobweb place, which looks like nobody’s been in there for decades.

He hauls her upstairs to show her something, then he goes into the cabinet where she had locked him in, and I guess he had planted a knife in there? Like, hidden? In a secret compartment, and not maybe it’s something from the sequels, I don’t know. Eww, gross. But, and he whips around with a knife in his hand, and she just stands there, like, This woman can’t run, doesn’t run for anything, it’s your typical, Uh, uh, uh, But I love you!

Kind of standing there, he gets right up in her face, I know, Norman, I know you’re better than this, And then, covers his eyes for a minute, like, rubs his eyes for a second, At which point she inexplicably decides, Now’s my moment to get out of here. So she runs away and then he removes his hands from his eyes.

He does like an almost comical, what, what? Double take. Like, where did she go? And starts chasing her. Oh god, that was so poorly staged. I laughed out loud. I don’t even remember. Oh god, it was so funny. He just chases her all around the house, and this is when it gets really dumb. Because, like you said, eventually he chases her down to the basement, cause we gotta revisit the basement, right?

MMM.

Craig: The rocking chair, right? With

Todd: that chair and all that, that the mom used to be in. He’s got her cornered, he’s gonna emerge She manages to go outside, but then, I don’t remember, he comes out of the cellar and then pulls her back in or something? It’s all really I don’t remember. It’s all really Really hard to believe, but

Craig: All I remember is he gets her up against a wall or something like he’s got her pinned And he puts the knife up like he’s gonna cut her throat or stab her And he sees his own reflection And she’s like, yes, look, it’s you Look at yourself You’re not a killer And the baby won’t be either And then she says No more blood, Norman, please.

So he drops the knife and they embrace and he, yeah. And they embrace and he’s like cured now. So then he burns down the house, but then while he’s in there, he’s confronted by his mother, Olivia Hussey. And then all of the other people he’s killed in this movie. I really wish that he had been confronted by.

Victims from the previous movies too, even if they had to recast. Cause it just felt weird to me. Like, I want to see Marion crane, you know, like I want to see her with, I want to see her naked with wet hair. Oh, I

Todd: know me too. I wouldn’t have minded that at all. But it’s just so, it’s just so silly, like, at this point it is total cheeseball territory.

I think this sequence looked a lot better on paper. And conceptually, it’s kinda cool. He’s burning the house down, where it all started, you know, destroying the last vestiges of his mother. But on the way out, he’s being confronted by the ghosts of those other people, and he almost gets trapped inside. I mean, I like the idea, but god, the way it’s staged and the way it plays out on the screen.

He’s mugging for the camera at moments.

Craig: Yeah, yeah. And it’s

Todd: so slow. I mean, this this seemed to this seemed to go on for ten minutes. But he makes it out and they embrace and he gets out and he says, I’m

Craig: free. And then, and then we get a shot of the rocking chair in the basement, still a rocking. And I think we hear the mother’s voice like,

Clip: let me out of here.

Craig: And then you hear a baby crying and then the credits roll. Like, this, we didn’t talk about Olivia Hussey enough. Her role in this movie is a little one note. Yeah. I certainly wouldn’t say that like, oh my gosh, this is, you know, if you want to see Olivia Hussey really acting, you know, check this out. No, there’s not range here.

It’s, it’s kind of one note, but it’s Not her fault. It’s hysterical. It’s so funny. I, I say hysterical. In both ways of that word like she’s hysterical like she’s insane Like you can’t predict who she’s gonna be or how she’s gonna act in any given moment And she’s crazy, but it’s also hysterical to watch and it’s not played for comedy I don’t think I do think that All of them knew what they were doing with the melodrama, especially her and Anthony Perkins.

I think that Henry Thomas plays it straight. And for the most part, they all do. But I think they were aware of the melodrama of the story and they allowed themselves to give heightened performances. And I think that it was the right This is a fun movie to watch. It’s not a great movie. It feels a little bit TV.

You can tell it’s kind of got that TV movie feel about it, which is fine with me. But the fact that the, uh, original actor reprises his role and you get backstory, the answers to questions that people have had since the first movie and the original score, uh, It’s back. That was so nice. And featured heavily and is great.

And I absolutely love it. There are so many good things about it. If you come into it thinking you’re going to be seeing something serious, you’re going to be disappointed. But if, but if you come in ready to have a good time, I think it’s a good time.

Todd: I mean, in some ways, it’s a little in keeping with the original Psycho 2.

The original Psycho’s a bit of a potboiler itself. In fact, I read, and I don’t really understand this, but I read that Hitchcock actually saw it as a comedy himself. He said that when they, when he first watched the movie with an audience, they were laughing. Throughout and he said to even more than he expected and he said that was the first time that he himself had been Out thought or outsmarted by the audience like they didn’t just fulfill his expectations But they went even further than he thought they would so yeah, uh, I mean I feel exactly how you do I still enjoyed the movie.

It’s really silly. It updates my feelings about it a little bit because I took it a little more seriously when I was a kid. And it was more scandalous to me when I was a kid. And it still, real icky stuff, you know? I mean, I still, as silly as the movie is, those scenes of incestuous you know, it’s never full blown incest, but it pretty much is.

It’s really uncomfortable. It’s suggested, yeah. It’s pretty uncomfortable, and so, to that, you know, I applaud them for, you know, rising those emotions and pushing the envelope. Yeah! Pushing the envelope sure especially for television especially for this time to be honest even though it was cable. I do feel like You know, it was a bit of a groundbreaking movie for its time Yeah, and getting all these actors back together having this really really adult and kind of Very taboo subject matter being portrayed by these very famous people and for, I think, first grown up role for Henry Thomas himself, and one of the last roles for Anthony Perkins, unfortunately.

He died a couple years after this, but I, I mean, he was really proud of it as well. I guess, uh, I guess all around. I don’t know if it’s really well remembered. I know that reviews at the time were about as were very mixed, you know, there were a lot of people saying exactly what we’re saying, and then there were people who were like, no, it’s it’s good, it’s fun.

Mhmm. Yeah, I don’t know, it’s not an easy movie to find right now. Is it even showing on streaming services or anything? I don’t know. But yeah, there you go, and uh, obviously Olivia Hussey, we’re gonna miss her. She just, she just really left an impression on me. As a kid and as an adult.

Craig: Beautiful. Talented.

Really cool. She’s my

Todd: favorite part of Black Christmas. Oh, she’s great. I rewatched that movie a lot. I love that movie to death. She’s fantastic in it. Olivia Hussey, we’re gonna miss you. Well, thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. find us online just by Googling us.

Two guys in a chainsaw podcast. We are all over the social media channels and of course our website is there. Leave us a message, let us know what movie you’re looking forward to us doing for the coming year. It’s not too late to get those Easter suggestions in. So you know, that and uh, and St. Patrick’s Day.

We got Valentine’s Day on lock. Anyway, thank you so much for your support and until next time, I’m Todd. And I’m Craig. With Two Guys and a Chainsaw.

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Psycho IV: The Beginning

2 Guys And A Chainsaw - A Horror Movie Review Podcast

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published 10d ago