Four and No More

1990's Psycho IV: The Beginning is the last and, by far, the worst of the franchise.

Both a sequel and a prequel, this one was a made for TV movie in which Anthony Perkins plays Norman Bates calling into a radio show to tell them about his past. In flashbacks, Henry Thomas plays a young Norman Bates and Olivia Hussey plays his mother.

Olivia Hussey as Norman Bates' mother is extremely bad casting. It's bad casting on the level of Keanu Reeves as John Constantine. No, it's worse because at least the comic version of Constantine isn't also in the film with Keanu. In Psycho IV, we have the mummified corpse and the grey wig and dowdy dress familiar from all the previous movies along with the American accent Norman hears in his head (played by Alice Hirson). At the same time, we have vivacious young Olivia Hussey with an English accent that sort of breaks at the end of every sentence in that lovely way of certain beautiful women. Norman mentions once in narration that his mother usually kept her hair up in a bun and it was a rare treat for her to let it down. But Hussey actually keeps it down for the whole movie.

Norman's psychological background is totally different. Norma Bates, in this movie, is a woman who quite likes to sleep with men, it's just she doesn't like Norman to have any fun. She's become more of a batty Joan Crawford type than the puritanical matriarch. And in this version, lots of girls seem to be interested in Norman who's making out all the time.

Joseph Stefano, who wrote the screenplay to the first film, wrote the teleplay for this one. Which proves all the good stuff came from Robert Bloch and Alfred Hitchcock.

X Sonnet #1868

Mistakes were sold on cards for greedy hands.
Resplendent woods of splinters loom ahead.
Consensus bans the lovely, wild lands.
Expensive cleaning wipes prepare the bed.
Corrupted lemons steal the night from clowns.
Regressive cats enliven shows for swag.
Peculiar oil rains on gloomy towns.
Improving palettes filled a moving snag.
Surpassing hats, the hair ascends to God.
Dividing time as peas for soup she cooked.
Accepting clouds invade the av'rage pod.
Divorced from safety rules, the Buster looked.
Beholding Hell beyond the fruitless tree,
Ambitious wasps have fleeced the friendly bee.