‘Psycho:’ The Movie Hollywood Will Not Leave Alone

More than fifty years after its release, Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” is a classic movie people just keep coming back to. You’d think even movie fans would have had their fill by now of it having analyzed that brilliant shower sequence a thousand times over, but Hollywood and others have continued to milk “Psycho” for all it’s worth as the fascination behind it is never ending. The latest examples of this are the movie “Hitchcock” which has Anthony Hopkins playing the famous director, and the A&E; television series “Bates Motel” which is a prequel featuring a younger Norman Bates and the craziness he got involved in before Marion Crane made the mistake of dropping by his place of business.

Seriously, look at what ensued after “Psycho’s” release in 1960. For a movie Hollywood studios weren’t originally interested in making, it has left quite the legacy.

The sequels

Psycho II” was released in 1983 and takes place 22 years after the events of the original with Norman Bates (once again played by Anthony Perkins) being released from the mental institution and sent back to live at the Bates Motel. It did well enough critically and commercially that Universal Pictures became very comfortable in giving the green light to another sequel.

“Psycho III” came out in 1986, and it marked the directorial debut of Anthony Perkins. The movie, however, was perceived as a financial failure when it came out, and it looked like the saga of Norman Bates had finally come to an end. But that didn’t stop Universal from making the prequel “Psycho IV: The Beginning” which debuted on cable television instead of theaters.

The books

“Psycho” was based on the book of the same name by Robert Bloch which was first published in 1959. Bloch would later go on to write “Psycho II” in 1982, but it is completely unrelated to the film which came out the following year. Instead, the “Psycho II” novel had Norman escaping from the mental institution he was incarcerated in and traveling to Hollywood where filmmakers are shooting a movie based on the murders he committed. It was meant to be a critique of the slasher films which were overtaking the movies back in the 80s, but Universal Pictures apparently hated it.

In 1990, Bloch wrote another sequel entitled “Psycho House” which takes place ten years after Norman died in the previous novel. The Bates Motel has since been rebuilt and now serves as a tourist attraction, and a woman named Amy Haines visits it for the purposes of writing a book about it. But once she arrives, a series of murders begin to occur and she tries to get others to help her figure out whom the culprit is.

And let’s not forget the non-fiction book “Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho” written by Stephen Rebello which tells you everything you need to know about this classic movie. This book also served as the basis of the movie “Hitchcock” starring Anthony Hopkins.

The television series

Before “Bates Motel” on A&E;, there was a television movie that was also called “Bates Motel.” It starred Bud Cort (best known for “Harold & Maude”) as Alex West, Norman’s roommate in the mental institution who ends up inheriting the Bates Motel. Alex ends up reopening the motel with the help of a teenager named Willie (Lori Petty from “A League of Their Own”), but strange things start happening which makes them wonder if Norman’s mother is still haunting the establishment.

This “Bates Motel” was meant to be a pilot for a television series but was never picked up by the networks. Even Perkins wanted nothing to do with it and openly boycotted its making.

The remake

Many still wonder why Gus Van Sant, the director of “Drugstore Cowboy” and “Good Will Hunting,” even bothered to do a shot-for-shot remake of “Psycho.” Some say Van Sant wanted to see the movie done in color instead of black and white in order to make it seem more violent, but he apparently did it as an experiment to show that it is impossible to copy something as good as Hitchcock’s movie. In that case Van Sant succeeded because his “Psycho” was an enormous critical and commercial failure, and it went on to win the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Remake or Sequel.

Regardless of that, this didn’t stop Austrian director Michael Haneke from doing a shot-for-shot remake of his own film “Funny Games” in 2008.

Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” is considered by many to be the first slasher film ever made, so perhaps that’s why audiences come back to it over and over. For all we know, Universal Pictures might be prepping another remake of it in the future as Hollywood still hasn’t stopped raiding its own closet. Regardless of how “Hitchcock” ends up doing with critics and audiences, there’s bound to be another form of “Psycho” coming at us in the near future.

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