Rating: C+
Dir: Anthony Perkins
Star: Anthony Perkins, Diana Scarwid, Jeff Fahey, Roberta Maxwell
Perkins sat in the director’s chair for the third installment, which did at least up the ante somewhat, albeit by sliding more into the exploitation area than Hitchcock would ever have done. There’s also a strong anti-religious tone to this, with Maureen Coyle (Scarwid) playing a disgruntled and unstable nun, who hits the road and ends up at thge Bates Motel, where Norman is startled by her strong resemblance to a certain other “M.C.” “Mother” pays a visit to Maureen in the bath, only to find the nun has attempted to take her own life – she sees Mother as a vision of Mary, and vows to turn her life around, crediting Bates with saving her.
Meanwhile, Norman has hired Duke (Fahey) to help him out around the motel; however, the new employee discovers the secret in the house and tries to blackmail the owner. Three guesses how that works out. Additionally, a journalist (Maxwell) is sniffing around Bates, looking for a story, and wondering whether Bates is quite as rehabilitates as he seems. No shortage of plot threads here, in place of the stark simplicity of the original, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. Any effort to mine deeper into Bates’ psyche would seem doomed to failure, and Perkins would seem better equipped to provide a new angle than a Hitchcock devotee like Franklin, director of the preceding entry – who knows Bates better than Perkins?
However, the fate of Coyle is so disappointingly pedestrian (despite an impressive tribute to the original that immediately precedes it), it smacks of an afterthought, and the film then moves on to far less interesting characters. For a while, I was convinced that Coyle had taken on the mantle of Mother, and was killing to protect the new-found love of her life – however, that proved not to be quite the case, and what does transpire is not as interesting. It’s somewhat of an improvement over the first sequel, if still falling significantly short of the original.
Original review [4] Norman Bates is back to normal, but Mother’s off her rocker again. The usual mix of kooks at the Bates Motel a suicidal nun who sees ‘Mother’ and thinks it’s the Virgin Mary, an investigative journalist and an insane C & W singer – help Norman out with the usual mix of murder, mayhem and mother- fixation. None the less enjoyable for it, with Perkins good value for money as ever and showing a few neat touches from the director’s chair too, even if the film doesn’t get into top gear until five minutes from the end. 6/10