Robert Bloch - Psycho 2

[dem]

Robert Bloch - Psycho 2 (Corgi, 1982)

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the shower .....

For the last 20 years, Norman Bates has been in a state hospital for the criminally insane.
With the help of his psychiatrist, Norman appears to have been cured of his mother fixation, and now decides that he wants OUT.
His opportunity arises when he is visited by a nun. He kills her, uses her habit as a disguise - and escapes. The psycho murders are about to start again ...

Thanks to the untiring efforts of Doctors Steiner and Claiborne, Norman Bates is stable enough to be running the library unsupervised at the State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, his home this past twenty years since that nasty business at the Motel. All is well until cantankerous Sister Cupertine and new recruit Sister Barbara of the Sacred Order of the Little Sisters of Charity pay a visit and the latter - much to her elder and betters consternation - asks if she can see the star "fruitcake". Str. Barbara explains to Dr. Claiborne that before she became a Nun she took a course in psychology and he's so impressed he agrees to the request. As she tries to persuade Norman of how much they have in common, a storm erupts. Str. Barbara, it transpires, is terrified of thunder. How ridiculous! Thunder can't hurt you. Norman Bates, on the other hand ....

Sister Cupertine is furious. Not only has this jumped-up young dogooder upstaged her in front of Dr. Claiborne, it seems as if she's about to drive back to the convent without her. "Wait for me!". As she runs to the van, getting soaked through in the process, she consoles herself that this will all be going in her report to the Mother Superior. But Str. Barbara looks kind of different all of a sudden. And why is she brandishing a tire-iron?

After battering Str. Cupertine and shagging her corpse, Norman realises that a change of clothes and a box of matches are expedient to his escape. As luck would have it, there's a lone hitcher on the road, holding up a scrap of soggy cardboard with "Farevale" scrawled across it. Fairvale? Why, that's where Sam and Lila Loomis lived at the time of his arrest! How he'd love to get even with them for what they did! Didn't they understand: he wasn't a murderer, just very unwell? He picks up the hitcher, Bo, an irritating failed Hells Angel (no bike) who incessantly tells himself to "play it cool" and "go with the flow" and has designs on bashing the kindly Nun and stealing her wheels. If we're honest, we can't wait for Norman to off him.

Back at the State Hospital, Str. Barbara's corpse is discovered just as her van goes up in flames. She's been strangled with her rosary beads. The bodies in the van are burnt beyond recognition though it's assumed they belong to Norm and Str. Cupertine. Dr. Claiborne has his doubts: he feels guilty for the whole episode and won't believe Norman is dead until the autopsy report confirms it. Besides, it might just be a coincidence, but Sam Loomis and his sister were sliced and diced last night by an "opportunistic burglar" as yet to be apprehended. Dr. Steiner advises him that he's been overworking and could use some leave. When he catches the headline in a local newspaper - Hollywood Producer Plans Film On Bates Case - he knows exactly where he'll be spending his vacation ......

To be continued ....

[dem]

Once we arrive in Hollywood, things take a turn for the Night Of The Ripper as Bloch moves into familiar 'spot the psychopath' territory. He's as much at home exploring Tinseltown's rotting underbelly as he is force feeding us a diet of red herring and no surprise that seemingly everyone connected with the Bates movie - tentatively titled Crazy Lady - is teetering on the edge of an ultraviolent outburst. Take, for example:

• Jan Harper: aspiring starlet and the person who takes it worst when it looks like, in view of recent events, Coronet Pictures may cancel the movie. Over her dead body! Don't they realise: she is Mary Crane!
  
• Santo Vizzini: pervy producer whose CV includes an Italian snuff job. An S&M bondage freak who bears a striking resemblance to Norman Bates, his constant pill-popping is pushing him way over the brink.
  
• Roy Ames: impeccably polite but disillusioned screenwriter. Prone to wild mood swings.
  
• Paul Morgan: leading man. A big hit with the teenyboppers until that year in rehab fighting his booze addiction. His last chance to crawl off the scrapheap. Likes to get right into a character. Likes playing Norman in full-on 'Mother' mode.
  
• Marty Driscoll: won't tell anybody what's going on.
  

Weird bunch! Good job Dr. Claiborne's overlooking the project as technical advisor otherwise none of us could feel safe ....

Next up: Psycho House .....

[sean]

Jul 11, 2008 12:59:34 GMT dem said:

Good job Dr. Claiborne's overlooking the project as technical advisor otherwise none of us could feel safe ....

Yeah, its nice to know there is one unquestionably sane character amongst all those other potential lunatics. Arf.

Haven't read this one in years, but can remember it being good, but not great. Incidentally, I've just picked up a copy of 'Night of the Ripper', and 'Chamber of Horrors' (that one courtesy of Franklin Marsh). Blochtastic!

[dem]

I figured it was time to lump all the RB threads together if only for convenience sake, so here you go, Bloch-heads!

Hope you enjoy the *ahem* "controversial" (as in 'great or crap?') Night Of The Ripper, Sean. Avoid our thread about same - at least until you've read it - because its a bit...in depth.