- Directed by Anthony Perkins
- Written by Charles Edward Pogue, Robert Bloch
- Stars Anthony Perkins, Diana Scarwid, Jeff Fahey, Roberta Maxwell
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 33 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWQvuGar-9A
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
After the second movie, Norman is living his best life at the motel and with mother at the house. It’s interesting seeing it so out in the open to us this time, and how Norman deals with the people who come into his life. Things still don’t necessarily go like we expect. It was the least successful of the Psycho movies financially, and reviews at the time were mixed, but The Horror Guys liked it quite a bit. You’ll get more out of it for sure if you’ve seen the first two movies.
Synopsis
We open up to Maureen, a nun, screaming “There is no God!” She climbs the church tower and gets ready to jump to her death. Maureen doesn’t jump, but she does knock the helpful nun to her death below. The nasty nun yells, “You’ll burn in Hell for this!” Credits roll.
Maureen sits by the side of the desert road, still distraught, and walks until she’s picked up by Duane Duke, a musician. He’s all over her pretty much instantly. He’s talkative, and she seems deeply depressed and in shock.
It gets dark, and a storm hits, and he doesn’t want to drive anymore. He wants to make out, but she’s been a nun for years. She gets out in the storm and runs away.
It’s morning at the Bates Motel, and a bunch of birds eat from the feeder and then die. Norman has poisoned them for his taxidermy hobby. We see in a newspaper that Emma Spool, from the previous film, is still missing. Duke honks his horn to get Norman’s attention; he saw the “help wanted” sign in the window and is interested in the job. Norman doesn’t even care about an application; he’s hired. Duke says he’s not planning on staying around for too long, but he’ll do it for a while.
Over at the diner, Statler and the Sheriff talk about Mrs. Spool’s disappearance. There’s a woman there who says she drove all the way from L.A. to see Norman, and the two men stick up for Norman. “The guy just wants to be left alone in peace.” She’s Tracy, and when Norman comes in, she wants to interview him about “The Insanity Defense.”
In the middle of the interview, Norman watches Maureen get off a truck and is distracted by her. She resembles Marion Crane, the woman he killed in the shower all those years ago. Maureen walks to the motel and runs into Duke, who apologizes for last night. Duke overcharges her and keeps the difference. Duke gives her cabin number one, which makes Norman nervous.
Norman has a talk with Mother upstairs, and she picks on him. “You can’t get rid of me,” she says. Duke meets Tracy at the town bar, but they don’t get along until she finds out that he works at the Bates Motel. She fills him in on Norman’s history.
Meanwhile, Norman uses the peephole to watch Maureen undress. “Mother” comes into Maureen’s room as she bathes, but finds that Maureen has already slit her wrists. She hallucinates Mother as the Virgin Mary, with the knife being a dazzling shiny cross. Maureen wakes up later in the hospital. They tell her that Norman found her while taking fresh towels to her room. He offers to let her stay at the motel for a few days to get her head right.
Duke brings a girl home from the bar, and we see that he’s redecorated his room to look like a porn set. They have sex and then argue— he throws her out afterward. Mother kills her before she can call a cab.
Maureen talks to Father Brian, and they discuss her lack of faith and her desires. He points out that God saved her from suicide twice now. At the Motel, it’s Homecoming weekend, and the place is crowded for once. Tracy wants to know more about the voices coming from Norman’s house, and he asks her not to come back again.
Tracy checks out Mrs. Spool’s house and finds the phone number for the Bates’s Motel on several notes. Norman and Maureen go out to dinner, and he shows her how to dance, “My mother taught me.” They go back to her room. Maureen is ready for some earthly pleasures, but Norman says that wouldn’t be right and leaves. Mother calls Norman a, “dirty, dirty, dirty boy.”
Mother wants to kill Maureen, but Norman doesn’t want to. Mother does go to the motel to kill one of the homecoming partiers. Norman finds the body soon after.
The next day, the police come to see Norman; Tracy fills Maureen in on Norman’s history. The police are looking for Patsy, one of the guests from last night who didn’t come home. The sheriff has a warrant. Norman runs up to Mother’s room, but she’s not there. The police look around, but don’t find anything suspicious.
Tracy and the sheriff argue, and they’re standing right next to Patsy’s dead body in the ice machine and don’t notice. Maureen gives Norman an airtight alibi, but she wants to leave and go stay with the priest. Norman goes back home and looks all over for Mother.
Norman finds a note, “I’m in cabin 12– Mother.” That’s Duke’s room. Norman goes there and Duke sings him a song about his mother and then reveals that he stole the body from upstairs. Duke has blackmail on his mind. There’s a fight, and Norman kills Duke.
Tracy goes to see a man in a nursing home who recalls that Mrs. Spool spent a bunch of time in an asylum— and that she had a son. She does some more research and learns quite a lot about the Bates family history.
Back at the motel, Norman works to dispose of a couple of bodies in the swamp – it’s not a clean job when Duke isn’t really dead and goes down fighting.
Maureen returns while he’s away and goes up to the house. When he comes back, she sorta-kinda-accidentally falls down the stairs and dies by being impaled.
Tracy comes to the motel in search of Maureen but finds her room empty. She comes up to the house, but Norman sees her. She comes inside and finds Maureen’s body and Norman, dressed as Mother. Then she finds Mrs. Spool’s in the bedroom, as Mother protests the truth. As she tells what happened between the crazy Spool and Norman’s real mother, he has a moment of clarity and stabs the mummy to death.
Next morning, the police take Norma away, back to the asylum. He’s got a big smile on his face. “I’m finally free,” he says as they drive him away. Except he’s still got a souvenir…
Commentary
To fully appreciate the third installment, you really should see the first two. And all three in order.
Anthony Perkins directed this one, but he didn’t feel that it came out as well as he wanted it to. I thought it was really well done, but this was the lowest-grossing of the Psycho movies.
It’s well paced and doesn’t drag anywhere. It’s fairly clear what’s going on; there’s no conspiracy this time around.