Psycho IV: The Beginning (1990)

Psycho IV: The Beginning

• Well, this is it. The fourth and final film of the (main) Psycho series, and Anthony Perkins’ last appearance as Norman Bates, my horror husband. Needless to say (and probably obvious), this is the worst of the four Psycho films, though I was still somewhat satisfied with it. Well, maybe not “satisfied”, but it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. I think at this point in the series, they had already done everything they could with Norman, so this isn’t some big character development plot or anything. Most of it is just Norman recounting his youth and what led up to him killing his mother, and onwards. While it does offer some intriguing insight on his upbringing, I don’t really like seeing anyone else play Norman. Henry Thomas is decent, but he’s just not Anthony Perkins. I wasn’t really a huge fan of the flashback scenes, because like I said in my review of ‘Psycho III’, Perkins is my man, and I need as much of him as possible. But he’s still captivating in the scenes he’s in, at least to me. But everything around him isn’t super great, as it’s mostly fluff for stuff we already know, or at least have an idea of. The writing isn’t impressive, nor are the visuals and performances (other than Perkins). But it can still be a fun piece of psychological horror. Well, it’s more of a thriller than traditional horror, but still. The biggest highlight for me was the score. It used a lot of Bernard Hermann’s original score, which is of course, possibly the greatest score in cinematic history. But the film also has its own music by Graeme Revell, who does quite a good job, considering that this is the fourth and sloppiest film of the series (no shade, though). Even though the series ends on a weaker note, it’s still a fitting end for Norman, and I’m glad to see him “redeem” himself (not really what you’d call it, but you know what I mean). And at the end of the day, it all leads back to Hitchcock’s magnum opus, the original 1960 film. All hail Alfred, Anthony, and Bernard! I would only recommend this to those who have seen the first three Psycho’s and want to finish the series.