Film Journal Podcast
George (Film Journal) and Ryan (Cinecrisis) dig through film history one oddball pick at a time—hopping from cult horror to forgotten blockbusters, art house to trash fire (sometimes in the same episode). Whether it’s dissecting Hammer Horror, roasting the latest Studio Flop, or revisiting 70's exploration fare- they bring sharp takes, deep trivia, and the kind of banter only good pals can pull off!
No film school snobbery. No hot take clickbait. Just smart, funny conversations for people who like movies and think they actually matter.
Film Journal Podcast
Going a Little Mad with Psycho 1-4!
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Ryan and George discuss the legacy of Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece Psycho and its three sequels. Are they any good?
Exploring the Psycho Franchise
Speaker 1my question for you. To start out, this is a tough one to do. This is a series that I would never have thought to do. It was your idea, because of course I'm an admirer, from sort of an academic perspective, of the original psycho, um, as a seminal film in the oeuvre of Alfred Hitchcock, and I guess I just assumed that if there were any sequels they would be sort of like cheap cash in cash grabs. That would be a massive come down from the original, and how could you possibly make a sequel to psycho? What would it be about? But in this episode we not only watched Alfred Hitchcock's original, but we both read the Robert Block novel and watched the sequel movies and the remake. So I guess, ryan, the question. I would ask you to get us back into the groove here on the stream. Sorry for the technical difficulties, everybody to start out, but why did you decide to? What was why? Why Psycho?
Speaker 2Well, I've always been a fan of Alfred Hitchcock, and Psycho especially. I always think of this as one of the movies that I saw at a young age that got me into classic films more so than others. It's it's kind of tangentially associated with the Universal Monsters and all that, so stuff that I saw at an early age that piqued my interest and said, hey, there's a lot of, there's a lot of great material out there that's from you know time, long before we were born, and so this kind of guided me along the path of my journey into exploring you know film, history and all that. So I was enthralled with psycho from for a long time. And then I remember when I first read about that there were sequels and I was kind of you know my fascinated that.
Speaker 2What would they, what would they possibly do in a sequel to psycho? I mean, it was, it's an encapsulated film. Hitchcock had been dead by the time they made it and it's just kind of a curiosity that was out there and it took me a while to see them. I didn't see them until probably I was in high school or college and I was like, oh, they're pretty good. I actually avoided Psycho 4 for a long, long time until the purposes of watching this video actually.
Speaker 1Oh really.
Speaker 2Yeah, I just was. It came in the pack. I bought the DVD Originally. Years ago. I bought the DVD pack that had the Psycho 2, 3, and 4 in it and I watched 2 and 3, liked them a lot. In Psycho 4, I was like, well, I just don't really like prequels. I don't know, there's not a whole lot there that's left to explore for this world, for this character, that we really need to see the origin story when it's been laid out so many times. So there's that and the remake. I guess we should also put a little note on that. I actually remember going to see that in the movie theater back in the day. I was a little kid, but my parents took me to see that and it probably left a mark on my psyche at that point too. So Psycho has been with me for the whole time and I'm glad we're here to talk about it.
Speaker 1Yeah, same. I guess we should just jump right in and talk about the original Psycho film, which is not one that I had. I think I saw it in high school. I was a huge Alfred Hitchcock fan because I was enamored with the glamour and sort of like pageantry of North by Northwest and Rear Window and Vertigo. Those were films that I have very fond memories, watching on sunny afternoons as a child with my mom on TCM, and Psycho was not one that I had seen.
Speaker 1I guess it's one of those movies that you feel like you have seen, even if you haven't, because that shower scene is so iconic and there's a lot more to it. Um, I guess I would start by asking you this everybody knows psycho is a classic, that it's a great film, that it pushed the boundaries of what you could show in the modern cinema of 1960 and that alfred hitchcock shot it on a very low budget because it was such sort of scandalous material based on Robert Block's book. He used his Alfred Hitchcock Presents television crew to make the movie. Now everyone loves it. It's a classic. It broke barriers. I'm going to start with this and we can move into other things. But what are some faults you find in the original Psycho, if any.
Speaker 2I don't think there are a lot. I think one of them that and this is one that I remember that Siskel and Ebert even talked about back in the day the psychiatrist scene at the end of the movie feels unnecessarily tacked on as an explanation that we don't need. But looking back in retrospect, I think for 1960, 1960 that psychiatry explanation was needed for for people to understand. I feel like if the movie had been newly made nowadays people would have a better understanding of the psychosis of. You know how complex a character this is. But that does feel a little bit tacked on. Otherwise, not really. I really don't don't see any major, major flaws. There's nothing that I watch. When I watch it again I'm like oh, can we get past this part, can we not? Can we move on to something else? You're kind of at least I am.
Speaker 2I'm enthralled with the movie from the moment the opening credits start rolling and we hear the bernmann music, the score, with that incredible opening title sequence, with the horizontal lines flying in and out of the screen with the titles. Yeah, it's unlike anything that I had ever seen before when I first saw it and I was just immediately captivated by it. But I wanted to say before that the production of this movie is also quite fascinating. I mean, if you think about it, this is would you not say this is alfred hitchcock at his peak um, that he never achieved anything quite like this level of artistic or commercial success afterwards? I mean, he was riding very high off of north by northwest, which had come out before this, and on a string of just masterpiece after masterpiece, right talking about, uh, you know, all through the 50s. Almost everything that he did was gold, save for the trouble with harry, you know, or the wrong man and which people really do like, except us the wrong.
Speaker 1Yeah, the wrong man is weak.
Speaker 2It's not bad, but it's experimentation and I don't think it's quite up to snuff.
Speaker 1I agree with Cobra Malibu Frenzy is a banger, and I also like Topaz, and in my new movie that I've been working on you'll find a reference to Topaz in there, oh yeah.
Speaker 2No, I love Topaz. And in there, oh yeah no I love. Topaz um and torn curtain I'm quite fond of as well, but I don't think you can say that torn curtain or topaz or frenzy and family plot is also quite good too, which I just watched last week reference to family plot. Sorry, that's the one with uh, yeah, karen black and william devane also quite good in that movie I have a family plot, karen black reference to my movie, but go ahead yes, but none of those movies are anywhere close to the output that he had in the 1950s.
Speaker 2and ending with psycho, which is ostensibly a 50s movie that came out in 1960 right, I mean, has many of the same sensibilities.
Speaker 2Um, and he was almost basically 60 years old at this point and he was being told by hollywood that Hollywood that, or critics or audiences that, hey, you're making these great movies, but you're also benefiting from having these outlandishly lavish budgets from major studios, you're having the top tier actors of the time, what else can you do? And he made Psycho almost just to prove a point and to get some kind of artistic integrity here, to make a movie that would be otherwise considered like gutter trash. This movie, this book Psycho by Robert Bloch is absolute garbage. You know, by the standards of that time period, this is not considered to the level of someone like Alfred Hitchcock or to be made by a major studio. And he says well, what if somebody really good made this movie? And I think also he was quite upset that he had not been able to make Diabolique, which is what he wanted to do originally. He wanted to do a remake of Diabolique.
Speaker 2What's that?
Speaker 1He wanted to do a remake of Diabolique. No, no, no.
Speaker 2He wanted to adapt the book that diabolique was based on, but he did, was not able to obtain the rights, and it was made instead in france oh, is that right?
Speaker 1I didn't know. Yes, he was interested.
Speaker 2He was interested in making that, that book adaptation. He's not, oh, I didn't know that, okay, and so that kind of myth, tim, and so this was his answer to that. And also he had to basically finance this movie mostly on his own, because the studio did not want to be, you know, tied to this trashy movie.
Speaker 1Well, because you know people speak of Diabolique and psycho in the same breath. I had never made the connection that diabolique was material. He wanted to adapt because, but you think about the scene of the disposing of the body by the two women in diabolique, how similar it is to norman bates disposing of the body in, uh, psycho, how it's a very long drawn out sequence that that draws your um, uh, I guess, your sympathy to the murderer. Right, he can't help it, and Hitchcock has done that before where he couldn't help but draw your sympathy to the murderer. I think to a certain degree, maybe Rear Window, but especially in Dial M for Murder. But I did not know that.
Analyzing Hitchcock's Original Masterpiece
Speaker 1So when I was reading the book, we both read the book by Robert Locke which was published in, I think, 58. And maybe this is just sort of a knock on my non familiarity with fiction of the early 20th century, but I was shocked at how graphic the book was for a novel of that time and this would even be considered by alfred hitchcock as something to do now, unfortunately I mean not unfortunately, but I mean sort of interestingly this has become maybe his most famous movie, right for the general public, his, his glamorous adventure films sort of blend together, I guess, but this one is a very indelible movie um and for good reason so.
Speaker 2It's so unique even among his own filmography.
Speaker 1That's probably why, too that's exactly right, and I I want to go back to something you said earlier about you find fault in the idea of the explanation at the end, which I think is correct. I mean that that is the one that plays lands flat with modern audiences. Um, this is a question I've been asking myself recently. One of my next videos I'm writing a script for is um david cronenberg's videodrome, which features, uh, sequences of sort of bdsm style sex with debbie harry's character. Right, and that's something that the audiences now are, like tangentially familiar with that this sort of practice exists, but like how on the radar of the average viewer, would that have been in the 80s? And I suppose for this too, I mean how many people, when watching psycho, had ever heard the term transvestite in 1960?
Speaker 2probably very few. The only other major reference or movie would have been what Edwards, glenn or not, doing it to achieve like a sexual pleasure or fetish. They're doing it to escape from the mob and certainly characters even in cartoons dating back to the golden age have dressed in drag Bugs. Bunny, fred and Barney on the Flintstones have done that for whatever comedic situation they've been in. But not to the degree that Ed Wood did in Glen or Glenda or Norman Bates in Psycho, where it's a much deeper psychiatric problem.
Speaker 1I'm going to read Matthew's quote real quick. He said I bet Alfred Hitchcock loved the freedom or, I'll add, was perhaps envious of the freedom that novelists had at the time to be so explicit versus all the limitations in film. I think that's probably correct. But then you have to look at when Alfred Hitchcock was trying to go toe-to-toe with some of the more hard-edged stuff in the early 70s he kind of fell flat or kind of came across as clumsy, like he didn't know what to do. He was a better creeper and suggester than he was an outright explicit portrayer of violence or sex do you agree?
Speaker 2I would agree with that, yes, but you were saying about the, the violence in the, the block novel, and that that's it's really apparent. I mean shower scene, literally marion gets decapitated it gets her head cut off.
Speaker 1I remember that was shocking to me when I read that.
Speaker 1Yeah, um, you know, I would, uh, I would say not just the violence in the book, but the sort of inner monologue between mother and norman I thought was fairly explicit and also interesting.
Speaker 1In the book too we can get to Anthony Perkins. But Norman Bates is drawn up as a much more like disgusting character, like there are references to him being like fat or bald or old and gross. Right, he's not this sort of like androgynous figure that Norman Bates is. Right, this sort of Norman Bates is in a way a sort of overgrown mama's boy, but like in a, he's like a very old, like a boy. He's like a boy, right, yes, um, he's not like a creepy old, like you know weirdo, which perhaps, but which I think also sells the idea that he's able to captivate marion crane in conversation for so long. And maybe what's more interesting about him is that he does seem sort of somewhat accessible, which is the only reason why the sequels work, because he does elicit some sympathy from you. If you had old, fat, balding, comb-over glasses, norman Bates, I don't think the sequel plot for part two would have worked. No, not at all.
Speaker 2I don't think the sequel plot for part two would have worked, but no, not at all.
Speaker 1None of.
Speaker 2I don't think the movie would would work if it had not been changed to portray Norman Bates as, like Anthony Perkins is, is the boy next door, this handsome, strapping young man who you know, kind of a slender guy, but still he's very charming.
Speaker 1He's definitely odd.
Speaker 2He's definitely odd and strange, but not in a way that is off-putting. If you saw this person on the street or you went to that motel and you met this guy in the office, you would not be. Um, maybe, maybe, you know, your spider sense would go off and you say it's a little off, there's something not quite right here. But he's probably not a harm point, probably not.
Speaker 1Uh, not a scary guy, not someone that's going to kill me I think actually, if I'm, I think actually he's a character that red flags would go off more for men than women. For women, this is like a poor, sad, weak, frail, mild-mannered guy. For men, this sort of like okay, this guy's like a total wimp, and you know what wimps can be capable of sometimes, right, yeah?
Speaker 2and I think you see that as as how weird he is when they start talking and you know right off the bat, you see all the stuffed birds and the guys into taxidermy, which is not not a usual, even by any standard, right, that's. That's kind of a very strange thing to be into. Where you're, you're constantly playing with the dead, your stuff, dead birds, it's a. It's a very morbid, uh hobby.
Speaker 1I put them in West. It's a little different, but go ahead.
Speaker 2Okay, down in Florida it's not really a thing yeah.
Speaker 1I mean, I don't know anybody that does taxidermy, but getting your hunting trophy stuffed is not an absurd pursuit.
Speaker 2Do you do it yourself, though? No?
Speaker 1no one never does it themselves, but there's always a guy. And then when you get it done, it's quite the trophy to show off and say check out my deer, check out my pheasant.
Speaker 2But, if you recall, Norman does not stuff beasts because he cannot stand the sight of stuffed beasts. He only likes birds that are stuffed, which is a little nod to your reference there. Perhaps, then, maybe Texas Dermatologists would look at a different light in that regard. But that's that part.
Speaker 1I'll chime in in the chat here, trembling Col. It catches my drift and says men would see him as a creep that is up to something and women would see him as a cute weirdo they can fix. I think that's exactly correct and I think that goes both ways. I think there are sort of weirdo characteristics in men that sends off alarm bells in women's minds that men don't pick up and vice versa.
Speaker 2So um, but do you think do you think if they had kept the idea of and and maybe vince fawn um in the seat in the remake excuse me fulfills the the notion that robert block put more in the in the book for norman as kind of a different personality for norman? Uh, do you think that that works better, or do you think it worked better by having a? I think it was just Stefano who made the idea to change Norman into this character the way we see him in in the original site, though Sorry.
Speaker 1Cobra says Norman is a proto Sigma male. That's funny, but I think you're right. I don't want to get too into the remake. Until we get to it, give the sure.
Speaker 1Sure into the remake until we get to it. Give the sure, sure for people. But I think that norman bates, uh, vince vaughn conversation is much similar to the much more similar to the book than hitchcock's version where he sort of has like this outburst which is sort of a a big red flag that we also see anne hayes react to in a very different way than um, uh, jimmy, uh, what's her name? Uh, generally generally yeah, yeah do you notice?
Speaker 2one scene that always bothers me and not not that it bothers me, but it's just a very strange curiosity is when they're meeting at the motel for the first time and he brings her the tray for dinner, she invites him into the room and it's it's a very subtle kind of like hey, here, here you go, you're bringing me dinner, you're gonna gonna come in, but it's very odd, because marion is not written in that way in any other regard that she would be, you know, willing to spend yes, she's clearly devoted to john gavin the whole.
Speaker 2I don't agree with that. You don't think so?
Speaker 1I think she's clearly devoted to John Gavin.
Speaker 2I don't agree with that? You don't think so. I think she's very devoted. She's willing to steal $40,000 for him, basically so they can run away together. I don't see her as the kind of character that would be willing to have a one-night stand with this creepy guy at a motel.
Speaker 1I would disagree with you. I think that Marion Crane in the first film is a very sexually and ambitiously driven energy style person and I think she stole the money more to spite her boss and the sort of Texas money man that walks into the office and to stick it to the system that's kept her sort of in a bind in the shitty job, in the situation she's in, than to pay the debts because she didn't think it through. I mean, how you gonna pay? I mean, maybe you could pay off debts with a wad of cash back in 1960. It wouldn't work today. But um, I think that it was something that was more driven by like you know what, it's time to get mine and I'm go. She didn't have a really well thought out plan, it was a. It was an impulsive move.
Speaker 2Well, that's, that's the point, right? We all go a little mad sometimes.
Speaker 1Yeah, and she did.
Speaker 2And that's when she kind of snaps out of it and says, Whoa, what did I do?
Speaker 1What have I done? It's like post coital. You know what do they call that. You know, like there's a there's a more crude term for it, the chat can fill it in there, but post, post something.
Speaker 2clarity, I think so to get back to the, to the idea of of Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates. I always think about it in this way is that it's about psychos, about the monster that's within us that we can steal from the outside world, right? So we see this in Norman Bates. He's living a double life, and I think it's pretty relevant, especially for Anthony Perkins, who you can claim was also living a double life at that time as a closeted gay man. That's also something that probably spoke to him in this role is that you have to hide yourself from the world, and it lashed out in a bad way here.
Speaker 1I'm glad you brought that up because Hitchcock was also a guy that there's sort of you know, I seem to go after this sort of homosexual subtext in every movie we watched, because it's kind of low hanging fruit. But at the same time Hitchcock, as a British man I think is much more in tune to homosexuality than we are in America, at least back then. Um, there's more of a tradition of it over there, especially with the boarding school culture, and he oftentimes casted, closeted gay men in sort of murder roles. Rope his work with John doll, um, the same guy from rope that was in strangers on a train. Um, I think he, he uh directed. Who's the henchman? From north by northwest? Uh, I don't remember.
Speaker 2Yeah, uh, he's really uh, montgomery cliff in, I confess also.
Speaker 1Absolutely yes, though yeah, I think this was an element that hitchcock latched on to and realized was effective. I mean, did he that Anthony Perkins was gay? I'm not sure Anthony Perkins was sort of gay to an extent. He's had a son who played him in Psycho 2 and also is the director of Long Legs, the hit horror film of this year. Did you see?
Speaker 2that.
Speaker 1Not yet. No, I haven't seen it, sorry.
Speaker 2Yeah, very bizarre, very strange movie, please see it. Sorry, yeah, very bizarre, very strange movie, please see it.
Speaker 1I'm interested in seeing it. Yeah, I want to see it, but I can't bring my wife to it. You told me I can't bring my wife to it.
Speaker 2It's just so weird man. It's just so weird. Nicolas Cage is out of his mind in that movie. I don't know if it's meant to be forceful or not at a certain extent, but, but we don't want to get too off topic. Oh, yeah, yeah, I mean, rope is basically a metaphor for, for that, for for.
Speaker 1Absolutely.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1And I mean like, so Hitchcock had to be keyed into that to some extent, right, I mean he had something to tap in there in mind with Norman Bates. But I think the the thing about psycho for me is that you talk a lot about. I've heard in the chat and from you that psycho is a story about like presenting one face and there's something hidden behind it, right, yes, what that implies, I'm not sure Is that about how we perform under capitalism per se in this sort of society, because I think the interesting thing about Psycho is just how unglamorous it is. The Phoenix of 1960 is not a glamorous place to be. The overhead shot and push in to the hotel room is not like perry of, like, you know, to catch a thief. It's not mount rushmore, you know what I mean it's. It's a very dingy, dirty place.
Speaker 1The film takes place on the road, at a used car. You know stop at a shitty motel. I mean it's sort of like the underbelly of America, which coincidentally, I mean unexpectedly, seems glamorous to us now because it's nostalgic, but at the time this would have been very dirty, dingy. Material he touches on more than anything else is the atmosphere of the open road, of, like the sort of bric-a-brac, shitty constructed places, right the you know, you know what I'm saying this sort of.
Speaker 2Well, yeah, I mean also just think about in terms of isolation. There's no cell phones, there's no modern means of communication. She's she's isolated and she's stranded at this motel, basically, more or less, and it's not a nice place to be.
Speaker 2There's no overt threat of harm and, in fact, what's kind of ironic that she spends one night in her car sleeping on the side of the road and the police comes over and questions her about that and says well, wouldn't it have been better if you'd pulled over into a motel and spent the night there, because that would be much safer than staying on the side of the road? And of course, it's literally quite the opposite. It's also about the fact that she ends up at this dingy, dirty motel and you ultimately meet your death there in the shower, in one of the the worst dump on earth, where you spend your last moments being ripped to shreds by this psychopathic killer.
Speaker 1And that's one thing I wanted to point out too is I don't want to hear from anybody that the psycho murder of Janet Leigh doesn't hit hard anymore because it's not gory enough. It's such a disturbing scene even for a film that's 60 years old, I mean it's, it's beyond disturbing, because we meet a character with agency, with goals, with aspirations for life, with you know pleasures and wants and desires, and this person is just cut down in the most unceremonious and brutal way possible, left to die in a shitty motel yeah, and everybody disposed of in the most in a swamp worse than, yes, you're buried in the swamp in a wrapped in a shower curtain in your car.
Speaker 2So even afterwards you're humiliated, even after death.
Speaker 1Oh, it's brutal, it's horrible.
Speaker 2It's very sad For stealing money, which is bad. No, we're not defending that, but, like you know, was that worth it? Was that worth her dying over being murdered? You know she didn't deserve it.
Speaker 1That's such a fun thing about the movie too is the sort of like the subversion of the hitchcock mcguffin, which the money very much is. People, people have made a lot of the hitchcock mcguffin and the funny thing is that it doesn't matter, right? I mean like it's something that norman base takes no notice of.
Speaker 1You know, it's um, yeah, it's uh, but yeah, janet lee dying. I mean, I could not imagine being a viewer in 1960 and seeing this unfold, where you're latched to this character for 45 minutes and then to see her die and think where is the movie going to take me next? And that was my point. I asked you originally what fault you find in the film, and I suppose the shock of the reveal of Norman as the killer perhaps worked just as well to equal out the shock of Janet Leigh's death. I feel like the film kind of loses steam after that point a little bit.
Speaker 2After the shower scene I do.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's fair. It's not as suspenseful, for the most part because I think because it's we know what's coming. I think if you didn't know what was coming it it retains that. But the meat of the film that's the best part is marion in her struggle at work, her plan to steal the money. She's on the road in a rainstorm driving to the meeting, norm Norman for the first time and then climaxing with the shower scene. Yes, the murder of Arbogast is not as enthralling as the death of Marion so that's one thing.
Speaker 2And also, vera Miles and John Gavin are nowhere near as compelling characters in this movie compared to Janet Leigh, and Norman takes a back seat almost to a certain extent. After the shower scene he's put, he's put on the ropes, he's kind of in a very different place than he was when we first met him. He's a lot less interesting of a person. And then the movies carried by Vera miles and John Gavin, who are, they're fine, but he clearly had he apparently had a big beef with vera miles, that he did not want to glamorize her at all in this movie and and made her as boring as possible, which I don't get, oh yeah yeah, you know what, though I think he might have been right because had you brought in another janet lee for that role.
Speaker 1Now, I think that when you get to the remake that gus van sant identified this as a problem and gave that, gave us an actress to play that role. Now, I think that when you get to the remake that gus van sant identified this as a problem and gave that, gave us an actress to play that role who is very charismatic in a different way. Right, yeah, because vera miles is sort of like the um, janet lee, if you like, squinted a little bit. Right, we go from a 10 to you know. You know I'm saying Right, like I don't want to speak.
Speaker 2Even the boyfriend comments and thinks that it's her at one point, right.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, well I you know, Matthew commented again just on how, how brutal the scene is too, and it's like you think about this, it's like when I mean, how sadistic was Hitchcock to like cut to that drain of her blood going down the drain, and it's just like, dude, this is like so it's brutal, right? Yeah, oh, it's, it's. It's really quite a scene.
Speaker 2And also, I think being in black and white is much more impactful than than the color, the color version that we see in the remake. It doesn't add any level of extra intensity. No, in fact, it looks more fake to me at least yeah, yeah. Cause we'll get there.
Speaker 1Well, and we'll get to Gus Van Sands, like editing in shots of storms and eyeballs and you know other cutaways, it's just just not to go too far into that.
Speaker 2But I noticed that in the Arbogast murder. I did not see it in the shower scene unless I was not paying attention closely enough.
Speaker 1It's there.
Speaker 2Subliminal.
Speaker 1He cuts to skulls and storms.
Speaker 2A random tree in a desert oasis.
Speaker 1Yeah right, U2 album covers.
Speaker 2it's like what are you doing?
Speaker 1yeah, yeah, um, yeah, the trembling colors. It has more impact than any slasher movie kills, no matter how brutal they are. 100, um. And then matt says I recall reading that they use chocolate syrup for the blood.
Speaker 1Yes, yes yes, they did, but her on the ground there with her face pressed up against the floor and zooming in on her eye, just, or dollying out or zooming out from her eye, just uh, just brutal, I uh also and and lots of people know this already, but I think it's worth bringing up apparently, the showing of the toilet was a huge controversy at the time too, which seems so ridiculous and stupid in retrospect.
Speaker 2But apparently a toilet had never been shown on film before and and he checked me a big point and stink about that we need to have this toilet movie to flush down important evidence.
Speaker 1Yeah, well, he's right. And also he makes a point of making Norman the creepy psycho character. The one who is has sort of like, like apprehension about referring to the idea of a bathroom. Right, yes, maybe to connect them to his sensors.
Speaker 2Yeah, he goes in and there's the, you know.
Speaker 1There's the.
Speaker 2She's like the bathroom, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, the Arbogast killing. So obviously we then cut from what is an incredibly sensational short film back to kind of our plot.
Speaker 2John gavin, for me flatline, terrible, boring yes, and hitchcock was not impressed with him either, as there's many quotes in the making of book. But it's uh, it's not, not, uh. I think he can get more expression out of a piece of wood.
Speaker 1Yeah, he was bad.
Speaker 2Although fun fact, the reason that he was not in Psycho 2, do you know why? Why, he was serving as the US ambassador to Mexico under Ronald.
Speaker 1Reagan. Oh, under Ronald Reagan. Oh, he's too busy. Is that why I figured he just died. No, he didn. Reagan, he's too busy, is that why I figured he just died?
Speaker 2No, he didn't die until a couple years ago.
Speaker 1Hey, Ronnie, can I be in Psycho 2? No, you got to go down and talk to fucking.
Speaker 2Mexico.
Speaker 1Okay, that's like a real job.
Speaker 2Yeah, especially to Mexico, an important country.
Speaker 1It's not like Switzerland or something which is usually a handout. Why'd they give him?
Speaker 2Mexico. The best handout is which country it's the US ambassador to the Holy See. That's the ultimate.
Speaker 1That's the best one.
Speaker 2That's the ultimate one to get, yeah.
Speaker 1When is someone going to get Martin Scorsese as the ambassador to Vatican City right?
Speaker 2I think there would be a mass protests for that, but anyway, no, no, no, no. He needs to make a vatican movie, but go ahead, uh, okay so after, after, uh, marion is murdered, I think, yeah, psycho does slow down. It's, uh, it becomes much more of a detective investigatory movie at that point, more procedural as we shift to arbogast and uh, lila and sam. Oh yeah, his name is sam loomis, interestingly enough, which then they co-opted for halloween, years later, to make their central character dr sam loomis not realizing.
Speaker 1The sequel would come out three years later, or five years later, I guess right, yeah.
Speaker 2So, um, yeah, it's, it's still good. There's nothing I would change or do differently, but it's, it's not the same movie after that after I'm sorry, what do you? Mean after after the shower scene.
Speaker 1It's not nowhere near in the same league, it's still excellent though, but it's just yeah, like you saying, we were talking about reading the book a few weeks ago and you were saying that it drags a bit towards the end the book drags way more.
Speaker 2by the end You've kind of like got it seen, it done, it got the picture. Do we need to keep the laboring the point at this time?
Speaker 1There's far too much internal monologue of norman and mother relationship that telegraphs the ending too easily. Yes, I would. I would say yes um.
Speaker 2Mother is much more of a character in the novel, though that when you start reading it, you actually think that she's a real person that is still alive in the movie, in the movie. You're kind of like suspicious, even from the get-go that there's something not quite right, because we never see Mother. We hear her, but we never see her In the book. It's much easier to manipulate you and make you think that he's having this conversation.
Speaker 1Absolutely yeah. So in that way the book sort of works. But I mean it's just too telegraphed towards the end when norman is having these kind of debates with mother and it's it's just too. It's sort of like, you know, the omniscient narration of his thoughts is too um, it gives away the, the idea, I think, but uh, but yeah, you're right, I mean, it's sort of it's sort of like why aren't we seeing this mother character, you know, in the movie right now? What now? I guess you could surmise as a viewer in the 60s that mother is going to be so grotesque and horrible. It's revealed that they're saving for the end, right, which was true in a certain sense, right, and I think this movie is just so out of left field and wild and unbelievable that people were just going with it, you know I mean now you asked for other potential criticisms and I I didn't mention it, but the actual murder of arbogast is always something that just looks very odd.
Speaker 2The way it's, the way it was decided I like it I. I have no problem with it, but it is very strange. It is very off-putting at the same time.
Speaker 1It's the fact that it's he's up against a rear screen projection and kind of falling backwards, like into flailing like that yeah but in that way it's sort of iconic because it's so, you know, sort of it calls attention to itself in a way that like brian de palma would do you know what I mean where, like brian de palma will use a split focus diopter shot and not try to even hide it. He's drawing attention to the fact that he's like doing something optically. That's a special effect. You know what I'm saying. And like with Hitchcock I don't know if he intended for this to look real, you know, but to me it's very stylish in the fact that it looks fake.
Speaker 2It looks, but it's also in a movie that is otherwise not fantasy driven by any means. This feels very fantastical and also he's like. I don't you wouldn't fall down the stairs like that. It's just very odd. So it kind of just takes you out of the moment but you remember, it's seared into your brain though. Yeah Right, I think, though. I think, though, if you show this to most modern audiences, that's going to be a hang-up for them. They'll be like, oh, that looks so big.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 2A movie that otherwise holds up exceedingly well. Also, that's one of the points. In terms of the screenplay, this feels very cutting-edge and forward-thinking for a 1960 movie. However, in terms of the screenplay, this feels very cutting edge and forward thinking for a 1960 movie. However, in just terms of the way people speak and the attitudes about what they're doing and all that, when you use the exact same script for a 1998 movie.
Speaker 1It feels incredibly old-fashioned I will perhaps disagree with you there on certain items.
Speaker 2Okay, do you want to talk?
Speaker 1about the remake now, or do you want to go into sequels and save the remake for the end?
Speaker 2I think, I don't know what do you think? I think we should just get it out of the way.
Speaker 1Let's just get out of the way. Yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2What's your thoughts on the remake? You know I used to like it. I used to a higher opinion of it years ago, but I think, especially in watching it in proximity to the original and then the sequels all very much close together, I was just completely bored out of my mind with the remake. Really, yes, the word that kept coming into my mind was stillborn. This movie is like dead on arrival. It's like being kept alive artificially. Yet there's no soul to this movie. It feels very hollow and empty.
Speaker 2The casting choices are very strange. They do not fit the characters in the way that we're used to at all For a movie that is designed to be so slavishly much like the original, designed in every way. We're going to reuse the same screenplay. We're going to reuse the same musical score. We're going to reuse the same musical score. We're going to reuse the same camera shots, the same shooting locations to a certain extent. And then the things that are changed feel very jarring and off-putting. And number one is the motel and the mansion for one, which are arguably some of the most iconic images from the original, are the sets, and that's changed to a very sleazy modern motel facade. And then the casting choices Other than Save and Hesh. Vince Vaughn does not do it for me at all, as Norman and Julianne Moore is fine, but the others do it for me at all, as Norman. Julian Moore is fine, but the others. Viggo Mortensen feels out of place as Sam, and William H Macy is kind of lost on me as Arbogast.
Speaker 1I had a different opinion.
Speaker 2The remake of Trembling Colors says I agree, the remake bores me so much I can barely get. Again. I was kind of off the snooze land by midway throughling Colors says I agree, the remake bores me so much I can barely get it. Yeah, and again, I was kind of like off the news land by midway through.
Speaker 1No, no, I disagree. I was fascinated by the remake. I had never seen it.
Speaker 1I always wanted to see it. I watched it in conjunction with the original. I loved it. I thought the fact that it exists is amazing. Gus Van Sant should be applauded for being able to smuggle a college film experiment through the studio system, and I just you know, dude, this is a fascinating piece of film artwork. In my opinion it is. It's a treasure. It's amazing that it got made, because what it sort of illuminates for you is film techniques that worked in the 60s but don't work now or are bizarre and jarring, which is a great way to like analyze modern movies and their progression to the future. So like, think about arbogast's um introduction in the original, that very, very tight close-up. For whatever reason, it works in black and white, and then it is a totally bizarre failure in the remake.
Speaker 2right, now I guess your.
Speaker 1Your opinion on whether or not the remake is a failure or or a success depends on what you think you should get out of it. I mean, what do you? What you? You know what I'm saying, like, oh, I should be entertained, right? I know that there's somewhere on the internet a Steven Soderbergh recut called Psychos, in which he will take the shot reverse shot, moments of certain scenes and he'll have Anne Heche play with.
Speaker 1Perkins right, which sounds fascinating. I have not seen it. I thought the remake was an incredible experiment, like so worthy of doing, incredible that it ever got made. It helped me appreciate the old movie in so many more ways. Right, like you said, there are parts of the script Like when John Gavin tells Janet Leigh but when you get married, you're going to swing right. Um, like you said, there are parts of the script like when john gavin tells janet lee but when you get married, you're gonna swing right. Okay, that doesn't fucking mean anything in 1998, or what the hell does that mean? Right, swinging has a new concept now. Like, what the fuck are you talking about? Right, yes, now, I thought that the updates that he made were very deft.
Hitchcock's Style and Production Decisions
Speaker 1Um, because john gavin is just sort of like a guy in um hitchcocks. In this one he's a blue collar dude, a little rough around the edges. Good old boy and I. I was actually shocked at how well um, the dialogue transcended the time, based on, simply, the delivery of the actors. If I could get actors in my movie to sit down and watch both of these films back to back, if I could possibly ever do that, I would, because I could explain to an amateur actor. Hey, see how you read lines. In different ways you can interpret, you can have a whole different scene if you just kind of bring something different to the mix, right, like ann hayes is doing all of janet lee's lines, totally different character, right yeah now.
Speaker 2Now, the way that you just said that, um, the way you described janet lee's marion when I brought up the thing about when she invited Norman in, I can see that as someone who has Anne Heche's version of Marion doing that. However, she is actually quite repulsed by Norman instead in her version of the movie, which is very different than what we saw in the original. So it's kind of like jarring in terms of her version of the character. You would actually expect, maybe, her to do this, but she's in, in, in actuality, repulsed by this character and would never do that to begin with oh well, it's also a great sort of cultural study, because you could see how that original scene doesn't play in 1998.
Speaker 1Well, and why not? Well, I guess people are more savvy now. We've devolved into a more low trust society, you know. So I mean this.
Speaker 2These are things that are illuminated through watching the updates that they made but also because vince vaughn is a much creepier and I don't mean that in terms of how he's acting, it's just his physical appearance and everything is not as comforting a presence in the movie as you, as anthony perkins is to her in the original. So there's definitely a sense that you would not feel comfortable opening up to this person the same way that someone would to Perkins in the 1960 version. So it's kind of like that too there are multiple problems with Vince Vaughn.
Speaker 1I thought his performance was just fine. Um, it was an interesting choice because, you'll remember, vince vaughn had not become the comedy guy at this point. No, he was the indie darling swingers guy. You know what I mean? Yeah, um, and also, vince vaughn is is handsome in a way that women appreciate. That's not apparent to men, right, and so, uh, he has to play up the creepiness thing to make it work. You know what I'm saying? Does that make sense to the chat?
Speaker 2I understand what you're saying, but I think what made what made Norman Bates so iconic as a character in the original when played by Anthony Perkins, was that he was so disarming. Played by Anthony Perkins was that he was so disarming and so, yeah, uh, hidden as to what he truly was, that that makes him much more monstrous than you see, than if you see someone who, on the outside is actually just very ugly or um alarming. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1I, I'm with you, it takes away something when.
Speaker 2Vince Vaughn was immediately suspicious that this guy is going to be a freaking murderer.
Speaker 1Like who would have been a good two thousands era like Alan coming maybe like, or even like killing Murphy nowadays killing Elijah, would you know right, they could have done it back then, but that's sort of like this one's also too stocky.
Speaker 2It just doesn't feel right to me.
Speaker 1He has no feminine qualities. Vince Vaughn is a very masculine man.
Speaker 2So, in order for this, to sell this he has to be creepy, right?
Speaker 1Yes, and so the sort of masturbation interlude is added.
Speaker 2He's creepy in the wrong ways. He's creepy as a imposing force, which is not what the character is meant to be. Uh, he's in that regard, yeah. So yeah, I don't disagree with you about the experimentation aspect of the movie and and the fact that it's it's it's a fascinating piece of film history and all that. I don't disagree with any of that and it's perfectly watchable. But if you had the choice, would you ever choose to watch the 98 version over the 60 version?
Speaker 1I mean no, I would never show somebody the 98 version in absence of knowledge or, you know, a previous viewing of the original, because it wouldn't make sense right, yeah, but I mean that's kind of cool.
Speaker 1I mean, like we did live in a period of time in the 90s where, like, they could engage you with the idea of experimentation, film history as a blockbuster movie. I mean, uh, van sand even said that where people like, why do a shot for shot remake, he's like, well, number one, I wanted to do it and number two, it's a great way to sell the movie. Right, like you know. You know I'm saying like, yeah, I would much. If you're gonna remake psycho, this is the way to do it. Like to remake it with okay, fuck off, just go watch friday the 13th, part 8.
Speaker 2Right, you know I'm saying there's, and I I I agree with you because even if you wanted to make the argument that you could adapt the book a little bit more, there's not much left to adapt in the book. That wasn't done in the original film and in fact the changes that were made to the screenplay from the book were actually in the movie's favor and that was changing the physical description of norman and also making marion physical description of Norman and also making Marion the focus of the movie in the beginning that we, that is, the character that we, the audience, identify with and follow until her demise. The book starts with Norman and mother in the beginning and it's kind of like you're wondering what's what's the point of this, what's the point of this movie, or how are we going to get to what we know psycho is? I?
Speaker 2think those changes are made for the better.
Speaker 1This isn't the thing, exactly where it's like. Well, john Carpenter wanted to remake the thing from Another World, but then he went back to the source material, which there's more there. This is a fine novel. If you read it, you'd get a kick out of it, especially if you've seen the movie. But anything that was left out of Hitchcock's film, any elements I think, are expanded upon in the sequel movies to where you don't need to. I'm going to remake the book psycho. It's not exactly a classic. It's fine, it's not needed.
Speaker 2No, no, no, it's a very easy read, though it's very it's very quick. It's a very busy read, though it's very quick. I got through it in a day and a half or something like that.
Speaker 1It's a very easy quick read, Totally enjoyable though. Robert.
Speaker 2Block, by the way, wrote three episodes of the original Star Trek series. Did you know that?
Speaker 1Oh, I didn't know that, no.
Speaker 2Yeah, three of the very weird. They're like the horror-themed episodes he wrote what Are Little Girls Made Of, which is the one where Christine Chappell's ex-husband is making everyone turn into robots or something like that. And then Cat Spa, which is the one where they go to the Halloween planet, where the people turn into cats and skeletons and stuff like that. And Wolf in the Fold, which is the one where Scotty is actually Jack the Ripper.
Speaker 1Haven't seen any of those.
Speaker 2Definitely try those out.
Speaker 1Great. So I was going to say too about one more thing, about the remake William H Macy. I liked a lot as Arbogast. He's fine, even though I had to make him wear a little fucking dumb hat. That was stupid, because it's shot for shot. You gotta have him have the fedora, you know? Yeah, that's not true because, like you know, julianne moore's got headphones on and is like okay, can we just say that that is the that is the dumbest, dumbest, dumbest line of dialogue to change from let me, let me get my walk man let me get my walk man, like did we really need that?
Speaker 2because?
Speaker 1nobody uses coats in 1998 anymore.
Speaker 1I don't know, was that a joke? Was that funny back then? I don't know. But the second remake I'm glad it was made. Anyone who's talking inordinate shit about it, like the reviewers, who are like, why would you ever even make this? What a dumb idea. It's like fuck you. This is very interesting. There's never been anything like it before. Um, it was a big swing. I don't even know if it was intended to be a hit right. This is gus van zant being highly weird on the dime of Hollywood, and so well he had a lot of you know goodwill after goodwill hunting, if you will.
Speaker 2You know he had a blank check to make whatever he wanted and, from what I've read and listened to, they would present him with a list of proposed projects or properties that were available at universal, and this was on the list and so he was like, oh okay, psycho it is it's a great point from matthew which says, uh, they reinterpret shakespeare all the time.
Speaker 1Why not do a new version of a film classic? Yeah, and that's the cool thing about this, that um sort of applicable to like a uh, a play, right Now, the form of plays are all about performance and set design. Remakes of movies happen all the time, right, but to do it in the sort of shot-for-shot way that he does which, by the way, I had been told by certain people that it's actually really not shot-for-shot Well, it's pretty goddamn close, right. And I know there are certain scenes, like the beginning with uh and haitian vigo, where the shots there's a dolly that moves around a little more than it did, but, and there's, the depth of field is a little deeper than it was in the 60s. Um, on some of these shots, the close-ups are a little closer, but the blocking is just about the same. I mean, you know, I mean it's like very similar. It's a really incredible thing that exists.
Speaker 2The opening shot for the Phoenix skyline was apparently what Hitchcock intended to do, yes, but was unable to capture due to limitations in budget and technology at the time. To have that helicopter shot that dollies into the window where they are.
Speaker 1So that's fine but also, like you mentioned, the subliminal cuts of weird artistic avant-garde expressions during the murder scenes are bizarre that was beyond bizarre to me because, as a filmmaker, when, with your mission being, I'm doing a shot for shot, well, it's like what more example of what you want to recreate and try to attempt to restage and understand better would be the shower scene. You'd think that would be the most shot for shot. He would have done right. Do you think that the shower scene is as impactful in the remake?
Speaker 2Less he deviates, do you think it's as impactful in the remake? Less I agree. I think it's much less impactful and also the way the the rest of the musical score is pretty much the same, like just re-recorded by danny elfman, but the shower scene music feels weirdly off and is not as striking for that moment. I don't know what it is I'm with you.
Speaker 1I'm so with you. There's something odd.
Speaker 2It takes you, takes you away and you're like distracted because everything else is the same.
Speaker 1But now this is different at this important, key moment it's not as impactful and, uh, there's something weird and tinny and hollow about it, which is bizarre, because the cool thing is that, you know, bernard herman's score is used. Now, supposedly, danny elfman sort of reinterpreted it right. The sequences in which, uh, janet marion crane is driving and they use the score are incredible and I was thinking exactly the same.
Speaker 1Wow, like this is terrific, right, um, and the one that scene I really liked was the uh, the cop scene well, that feels exactly like they found the same actor there, that's James Remar.
Speaker 2Yeah yeah, he's terrific yeah he's so good and um that was the exact same location I was thinking it was.
Speaker 1It looked exactly the same. Yeah, it was very cool, um trembling color, says. I'm surprised that rope hasn't been remade several times, considering it's such a contained film and could be done easily technically wise. I it's too talky for modern audiences. I think, yeah, it's a great movie and also, I would say the second most impactful is terms of, like, visceral quality. I've talked to you about this before, ryan, but like rope to me is a is a hard movie to watch. I love rope, but like oh, it's brutal.
Speaker 2Like makes you squirm oh god, I'm just.
Speaker 1I'm not just like playing here, I'm being real, like I remember. I remember I saw Drew Barrymore on Turner classic movies and she was introducing her favorite films and one of them was rebel without a cause, a horrible movie that I hate. And she was saying, oh, it's got such staying power, it's, you know it still works. No, it doesn't.
Speaker 1It's a fucking horrible movie and I disagree with you on that fucking horrible movie and, um, I disagree with you on that but I don't want to get into it. It's so dated, you know, and look I'm, I'm not a dated guy. I don't like that movie at all. And um, I think james dean is like horribly miscast as a loser and um, I, I can't even. You know, it makes me squirm more than the psycho murder is when, when they're all doing animal noises in the fucking planetarium, it's like the one of the most cringe inducing.
Speaker 2Okay, we're getting a little off topic.
Speaker 1Sorry, but um, I was going to say rope, like the fact that they invite the parents of the murdered kid over the house to have dinner on his like. Coffin is like so perverted.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, well, you don't see a thing, but it's like oh my god, you know it's, it's uh, it's interesting because I used to not like rope. I watched it for the first time many, many years ago, probably in high school, and I just didn't care for it didn't care for it at all, and then you were going on and on and on about it. So I gave it another rewatch, maybe last year or whatever, and a totally different opinion, much more appreciative of it, and it's definitely that I love now.
Norman Bates: Character Analysis and Performance
Speaker 1So, in my opinion, is is about it's about, um, academia, I think, more than anything. But Jimmy Stewart is the villain in the film. Oh, I didn't intend for anybody to do this, I just wanted to talk about it and bullshit about it in my class. It's like no, fuck you, dude. Like you know this, these things have power and like you know, you know what I'm saying. Uh, that's a you know, that's the cool thing about it. But I was gonna say this is sort of self-indulgent here. But, uh, the remake of rope, that'd be tough if, if I were to talk to any young college film student, I was planning on doing a shot for shot remake, very stripped down, black and white, of notorious. And I never did it. And it's one of the great like regrets of my life is as a college kid I didn't remake notorious. It was a script is so good, it's minimal characters and you know whatever. But we can move on to Psycho 2.
Speaker 2Yeah so.
Speaker 1I'm glad you enjoyed it?
Speaker 2I definitely enjoyed it. I did I mean Psycho, the remake. Just to finish. I'm glad you enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot less than I have in the past, so we'll see. Okay, psycho 2. What did you think of this one?
Speaker 1I was shocked at how much I liked it.
Speaker 2Good.
Speaker 1Excellent. Yeah, the cool thing about Psycho 2 is that it's got a great premise and script and um, it's a really interesting and, I think, natural evolution of the first movie in certain ways.
Speaker 1So if you haven't seen psycho 2, the cool thing about it is that norman is like the good guy in the movie which is a really interesting and cool direction to go with it, because I had thought initially, okay, this came out in 1983, so obviously somebody at paramount or wherever I universal was sitting, universal was sitting around and saying, okay, halloween, friday the 13th, what do we have?
Speaker 1Psycho, fucking, do another one right. And so I thought it would be sort of like a repeat retread with more gore. What I didn't expect is that it's like a um, very, I would say like the movie has pretensions of ideas about oh, uh, you know, when is somebody innocent and when can we? He be forgiven for his past crimes? Okay, fine, it's all very boilerplate. It's not incredibly profound. You know they're trying to go for something with that, but the cool thing for me was just like the innovations of the plot and where they decided to take the character of norman um, which I very much appreciated. If you guys haven't seen it, norman is released from prison at the beginning of the film. We bring back what's her name?
Speaker 1vera miles vera miles to play the elderly version of her character from Psycho, and she's enlisted her daughter. She's not that elderly when you were 50, you were old as shit in the 80s, not so much anymore. There was no such thing as a MILF in the 80s. It didn't happen until the late 90s.
Speaker 2Now Perkins looks good for his age.
Speaker 1In the movie he looks great, he's terrific in the movie too. It's like but but to pitch that and say, hey, norman's not the murderer, like he's the victim of people trying to make him go crazy.
Speaker 1Yeah, they're gaslighting him, to use an overused expression which is such an interesting way to go with the movie I thought it was terrific, I loved it and also to expand on the lore a little bit in a very modern way to where you know. Norman refers to the diner in the first movie and they go OK. Well, he does, you know. And so they go OK. Well, we'll make that a reality, we'll put that into the film. It's a. It's a sort of slavishly devoted, devoted film directed by the guy who did a favorite of ours, road games, and in that he doesn't sell out, he brings, he ports over the same theory that worked for road games, which is slow, burn and engage you with the characters, and it works. And there's also something else he did in road games which is just sort of like suggestion of violence, suggestion of something impending, some doom encroaching, and it keeps you hooked. I thought it was a terrific movie. I really liked it.
Speaker 2Yeah, no, I really really enjoyed this one. It's much more psychological thriller. It's much more implied violence. It's much more wondering is Norman going to snap again or has he ever? Was he ever cured, to quote cured to begin with. Now, interestingly enough, that someone who was real, you know in the, is the character in the movie is someone who was released from a psychiatric mental prison. There's never any real talk about him checking up with. He does check in with his psychiatrist every once in a while, but you'd think like they'd be going there and like forcibly medicating, as if this movie would make nowadays. We'd be seeing them like trying to forcibly medicate him or go to ridiculous therapy sessions or something like that. So there's none of that. But he is a very sympathetic character in this movie, especially when you realize that the people are trying to drive him insane again just so he can go to jail. So people basically Vera Miles and her, I guess you know movies like 40 years old at this point. Yeah.
Speaker 1Lily Tomlin.
Speaker 2Norman falls for this very striking young woman who he meets at the diner, who's been kind of bullied by the diner owner because she can never quite get anything right. She gets dumped by her boyfriend and so you know, creepy old man basically asked her.
Speaker 1Oh, would you like to come stay at my? Motel that I own, you know, and of course she invites herself in and all this stuff and and you, as the audience, are watching that and you're like, don't, don't go to the hotel because not because you don't want lily tomlin to die, but you don't want norman to relapse you're like, don't, don't.
Speaker 2Yes, precisely, you know, yeah, yeah and she keeps tempting him in the most provocative ways at every step of the way. Right, um, let's make us and and it's there's very much many callbacks to the original film, but not never in a distracting way that feels like they're doing it just as a wink, wink, nod, nod, like to please the audience, like they would nowadays like, for instance, when he goes to the um, the motel office, and he's about to grab the key for cabin number one at one point, or let me make you a sandwich, and then of course he can't handle the knife. He gets like ptsd, basically for holding a big kitchen knife, and so he gives it. You know, he gives it to her, but then she's like no, no, here, take the knife.
Speaker 2Take the knife and you're like no don't give norman the knife don't do it.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's great. It really is like it keeps you totally hooked, you're with it all the way and, um, it was well directed. There were moments where you're like, okay, here's, we have to throw a bone to the audience, who's used to halloween 2 and friday the 13th, part 3, and have like the scene where the the teens, they want to go into the Norman Bates home and fuck in the basement. Like, okay, great idea, you could break into the hotel and have a bed, right, yeah.
Speaker 2Of all the places to go, let's go to the murder house in the basement.
Speaker 1Dude, could you imagine it's hard enough to close, but to convince your girl we have to do it in a fucking abandoned house basement.
Speaker 2Dirty old mattress that's probably mold-infested.
Speaker 1Terrible. I think the movie strains a little credulity when they introduce the idea of the second mother. That was the real mother and you're kind of like.
Speaker 2Yes, I think it redeems itself by in part three, they retcon that out of existence, that this was basically some crazy old lady that thought she was Norman's mother, when actually she's not. She's Norman's aunt.
Speaker 1Well, that's the part of the part three that I was like. When the journalist is being confronted by Norman and she starts rattling off like three movies worth of exposition, I'm like, yeah, how invested am I really in the mythology of norman bates, here in his house, in his hotel and the fucking diner you know, what I mean right in his world, not not to jump the gun, but that's that's the big problem with part four.
Speaker 2The beginning is that how much are you really invested in the origin story of mother Bates and her?
Speaker 1problems. How much longer can we lean on the iconography of the old house and the hotel and the diner, you know? How much more can we get out of this and every other little tangential side character that got referenced in the first movie? You know what I mean.
Speaker 2I think it works for the first three.
Speaker 2I agree as far as part two goes um, I had something go ahead oh, just interestingly enough for the history of this movie, this was going to be a cable movie when it was first being in, uh, first in its inception, that was going to be a made for cable movie and anthony perkins was not interested in reprising his role. But after the script came in, he read it and he signed on and so it became a theatrical film. So that's, that's kind of an interesting tidbit to his history.
Speaker 1The other thing is I'm trying to formulate my opinion on the conversation that's happening in the chat about black and white versus color on this movie and for whatever reason, I feel like the first film is very dream like and we're entering a state with norman bates to, where the scales have fallen from his eyes in a certain way and we're seeing things clearly and my opinion the color version works because it brings these things that are scarier in black and white, like the hotel and the house, into more of a realistic relief with color, if that makes any sense.
Speaker 1I don't know if that was the intention. Also, I think you have the psychological, thematic element of painting, of repainting the hotel in yellow that never gets finished, which I think is sort of a um metaphor for norman's progress. He's continually interrupted while painting this house. Had he finished painting the hotel? Would that have been a new start for him with color. And I also don't think the film maybe it's the version I watched I don't think the contrast would work, like if you I mean maybe you'd have to just up the contrast more on the sequel, but I think the sequel exists better as sort of this coda idea to the first movie and trying to pair them together with black and white. I don't think makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2I think it looks fine in color. The colors are very subdued. It's not very distracting or off-putting like the color in the 98 remake is off-putting. The color in the 98 remake is off-putting because everything is grossly bright and fluorescent.
Speaker 1It throws it in your face with the lime green opening title.
Speaker 2Yeah, the lime green opening title, but also just the fluorescent lights in the bathroom to even accentuate whites, and things like that are very off-putting. This is very subdued, and especially as you spend a lot more time in the Bates mansion than you have in the original film and so you get a very old-fashioned sensibilities through that aesthetic. I mean, they're living even beyond anything that would have been contemporary in 1960, let alone 1983 at that point. So you step back into another world at that point too. Colors are very dark, muted, and so I don't think it's distracting by any means.
Speaker 1I think maybe what it would have worked is had you, if you were to desaturate the film as Norman degresses in his mental state to where it's black and white at the end. I think that would be effective.
Speaker 2Did you like Dennis Franz in the movie as the sleazy hotel manager who gets his?
Speaker 1confidence. Yeah, I liked Robert Laggia as well, who I can't eat. I remember him from lost highway. You seen lost highway, the David Lynch movie oh, I fucking hate tailgaters. He's so great in that. And also Tim and Eric's Million Dollar Movie. He's great in that as well. I paid a billion dollars for this piece of shit.
Speaker 2For this movie. Most of the victims I could be wrong, because it's been a couple weeks now, but most of the victims are people that we don't necessarily feel much sympathy for is that would that be a fair assessment and that's I think what, what?
Speaker 2also, because even if you think that Norman has relapsed and that he's back on a murder spree, he's killing the people that are hurting him or are causing him pain, and that doesn't justify it, obviously, but it's like you get it psycho. Three, I think, has a problem because he starts killing just random people for no reason yeah, the girl at the party in the bathroom. Yeah, the girl on the toilet and it's like it's just there the the girl in the um phone booth, so we need to kill yeah, we need to up the body count, basically in part three yeah, for no reason
Speaker 2so. So that I think works to two's advantage. It's also just a very. It has a lot of irony, a lot of camp value to it that is makes you feel disarmed at the same time of driving up the suspense in other parts. So all of the little cult, even the things like where he's working in the diner and he's flipping around the wheel with the order slips on it, and then he finds the one that all the notes from mother, and you kind of chuckle and you kind of laugh because it's, it's so ridiculous the message on there and it says like love, love, mother, and it's deadly serious because you know that either he's imagining it or someone's gaslighting him. But it's also kind of like humorous to a certain extent.
The Gus Van Sant Remake Discussion
Speaker 1What I liked, though, was this idea of mystery. Like I was engaged with the idea of who the killer was right, and you do get multiple sort of red herring ideas. Ultimately the I'm your secret real mother. I was like, okay, you know, I guess you tied that up a little bit. Um, I I thought too. The one thing that bothered me was this idea of there only being a small pocket of the town that was against norman's rehabilitation, the good old boy sheriff being like well, he did his time and he's, he's better now. I'm like come on, what you know. You know I'm saying to where they were so offended by the idea that norman maybe could be behind the murders.
Speaker 1It's like give me a break, right yeah that guy'd be the first dude pointing a finger at norman again.
Speaker 2It's very suspicious that all of a sudden he's back and then two minutes later people start dying in horrible stabbing murders.
Speaker 1You know, yeah, what are the odds well, we don't have any evidence, norman, so stop drawing conclusions we gotta check your house out, son yeah, exactly that's that old, good old bush sheriff would be the first dude like fucking blocking norman back up and I can't, and right um, funnily enough, in part three he's like you played me like a fool, norman, I was on your side. Yeah, anything else. On part two, I feel like I didn't talk enough about it, because there was a lot that I really enjoyed about it.
Speaker 2The only kill scene that is just absolutely ridiculous is Vera Miles' kill scene. That poor woman, oh my God. The only kill scene that is just absolutely ridiculous is Vera Miles kill scene.
Speaker 1That poor woman.
Speaker 2Oh my God, Could you imagine her going through the face?
Speaker 1Oh my God, dude, that poor gal. Like she came up in the Hollywood studio system. They probably taught her how to talk. They taught her how to hold a teacup, how to be prim and proper, how to act, the mid-Atlantic accent. And then the 80ss. She finds herself getting stabbed through the face and it's like yeah, this is, this is movies.
Speaker 2Now, sorry, you know what I mean, right you're lucky to get the natural course of uh career progression.
Speaker 1You know I know you're like 42 years old or whatever, but like you know you're old now. So, like you know, I'm saying this is what 42 looks like in 1983. But um no, I uh, I really enjoyed it. I found myself fairly interested in the twists and turns of the screenplay, and I guess we didn't talk about anthea perkins's performance, but it's good it's very good.
Speaker 2He's very subdued, very cautious, very. It looks like he's spaced out for a lot of it yeah huge state, and so it makes sense with is he doing it or is he not doing it?
Speaker 1he doesn't know in a great, in a. In a way, though, it's kind of a brave choice, because I mean, anthony hopkins is a guy who sort of pops in and out of films throughout the late 70s and 80s, but he never had perkins sorry, he never had a uh, a role that matched norman bates, and so his big debut as the star again, it would have been, I think, an easy choice to try to choose scenery and let people know why they liked you in the first place and get back on the stage. But he makes the brave choice to do what the script asks of him, which is to be sort of this victimized character that is just kind of likable to the audience, right.
Speaker 2No, I agree, it's also. It's also very nice to see someone like that who that was his. It is for for better or for worse, psycho is his career defining role.
Speaker 2Now some people some people may have resented that that this movie, amongst everything else that you did in your career was the, was the movie that everyone else that you did in your career was the was the movie that everyone will remember you for and then to to lean into it in your later years when you know let's face it at that point I mean how many other big roles where his name is going to be above the marquee is he going to get so to lean into it and play off of that? It's a very smart decision that I don't think a lot of other actors of that time period, of that caliber would have necessarily done. They might have felt it was beneath them, but it was a smart thing to do and it kind of made him more relevant as the years went by.
Speaker 2Well, I have to imagine he probably had a conversation with Leonard Nimoy about this subject, right, because I think their careers sort of parallel in certain ways to where they wanted to be known and I think their careers sort of parallel, in certain ways, to where they wanted to be known for and they yeah, I mean they both are laid yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, they. I mean they parlayed their success in a certain role into a director's gig. Obviously it was more successful for Leonard Nimoy. It went on to make a few movies you know three men the baby people don't really remember now, but it was quite the hit back in the day um, star trek three and four. But he directs part three and um.
Speaker 1I was very excited to see part three, knowing he directed it, because it was exactly what I thought it was going to be and the kind of movie I like to watch, which is um, or get excited to watch, which is one in which you are trying to prove you've got chops right. So you can see, in psycho 3 the style and the tricks are like in, out, in full force right. I could take inspiration from that, especially from older movies, because they are tricks that are doable, like. I think about the moment, too, where there were multiple times I had to rewind and figure out how something was done. The style is at 11. I don't want to hear any conversation about how Psycho 3 should be in black and white because the use of color is so strong in the movie.
Speaker 1I think about moments where Norman is lit almost entirely by green light, or that moment in the rain outside the car where it almost looks like a proto-style Sin City kind of shot, and the moment in the bar where the barkeep turns towards the television. There's whitewater rafting on television and we get sort of this imperceptible close-up cut to the television that you think is initially her watching it, and then it pans over and it's the television in Norman's room and I'm like the television in Norman's room, yeah, and I'm like oh, that's cool, like that's, that's, that's a great little little trick there, you know. So that's that's what I liked about part three, not so much the story or the plot, which I kind of honestly zoned out on. I mean, it was a little overwrought, dramatic, the characters are drawn to 11. But uh, what are your thoughts on psycho 3? I?
Speaker 2like it, definitely a step down from from two. It's definitely, as we mentioned before, trying to match its contemporaries in terms of its body count and, you know, blood lust. I don't think that that necessarily diminishes it for what it is I think it introduces a lot of other interesting concepts and um takes on this like again.
Speaker 2We're always aping the same um ideas and motifs from psycho one, but this one plays with them in different ways and adds a very interesting religious aspect to it that I would have never thought to. To introduce like, for instance, we our main character, our new Marion stand-in because we have to have a Marion stand-in for every movie and this one, literally, is like a dead ringer for her is this ex-nun who escapes the convent after she inadvertently causes the death of another nun by pushing her off the roof of some of the bell towers, some ridiculous thing, and so she's on the run. She hooks up with norman uh, thinks that he is a troubled soul that needs to be, you know, redeemed. She's actively trying to commit suicide and in fact we get probably one of the more interesting plays on the shower scene that, yes, a parody in and of itself from the Simpsons, or something like that.
Speaker 1But it's done so well, it's creepy.
Speaker 2It is. It's scary, it's creepy, because he's relapsing after the events of Psycho 2. Like he's, whatever shred of sanity that he held on to after being out of the hospital is totally gone at this point. After they gaslit him into insanity and he killed Mrs what's her name? Mrs? I don't remember the lady. Um, so mother's back, you know he, he has a new stuffed mother and he's off his rocker again. So, um, this new nun, she's feels guilty about what she did. She's go checked into the motel. She's gonna take a bath. Norman dresses up as mother to go kill her because he reminds her of Marion. As he pulls back the shower curtain, she's in the bathtub, filled with blood, with her wrists and the blood's like squirting out of her arteries there.
Speaker 1Kind of shocking it is.
Speaker 2It's quite shocking. What's even more shocking is that it snaps him out of his psychosis and he brings her to the hospital.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2That's bizarre.
Speaker 1She's the girl that's going to save him.
Speaker 2Yes.
Speaker 1And she is such a pathetic sort of character In the rain. Jeff Fahey, guitar rock star guy. He's great in the movie, jeff Fahey, guitar rock star guy, who he's great Like in the movie he's he's giving a slasher film performance and he's he's chewing it up and he's great. But she is a very like sort of sorrowful, sad character in the film and I was, I was thinking, are they going to kill this poor lady too? You know, like, like, like, like a la janet lee? Uh, because, like you said, norman is back on the stick in this film. He's back in the garb, he's wearing the mother clothes, he's doing his thing, um, but you know and very casually too.
Speaker 2It's like there's nothing yeah he has. No, he has no like no remorse or no inclination that there's anything wrong. Psycho 2, he is constantly on edge, thinking that what's going on? Am I going crazy again? Am I descending into badness? And now he's in a blissful state of ignorance to the fact that he is going around murdering people.
Speaker 1Yes, yeah, and he's doing it. I mean he attacks like a party party, very 80s slasher style and, um, to be crude, the kill is good, you know. I mean it's like it's a great moment when he kills the hooker or the gal outside in the phone booth and they cut down the feet. She's in the glass and it's like it's like it's very effective, it's, it's well well done. I mean both that and the bathroom killing of the girl. I mean there you would get your money's worth if what you were looking for was sort of a fred of the 13th style movie. But also it's got a lot of style and moments that resonated with me and were effective.
Speaker 1Set pieces like when jeff fahey is not dead and chokes carmen while he's driving, and the water scene. I mean those are great, I mean're really well done. But the movie is sort of like to me a reel of set pieces that are like it's like, it's like a, you know, a um, an audition reel for a director, you know, which is fine, you know, but like there's a lot of really like the journalist character you know, but like of all the characters in the movie, to not get their comeuppance, exactly, not get, but to not get their comeuppance, I agree, slashed, that's the one that you want, because, she was horrible she's making life miserable for norman and she is the quote hero by, you know, exposing him and it's, it's totally contrary to what we're, what we've been trained to feel for this character, you for Norman.
Speaker 1I mean the visuals are on. I mean they're at a 10 in this film, oh yeah, and especially the death of the nun girl at the end of the movie, where she falls down the stairs oh it's great.
Speaker 2Into the arrow.
Speaker 1It's the Arbogast remake. Yes, you know.
Speaker 2But your sister in the heart doesn't, does it not, you know? Through the head oh, through the head. Yes, that's right yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1So it reminded me a little bit of like this this is where sort of you start to get to a place in a series where, like you're over watching the original movies to mine any kind of detail you can. Oh, did you realize? In the first movie there was a statue of an angel with an arrow like let's bring that back. Like you ever see the brady bunch movie part two. They hilariously played on this with like the brady bunch. If you ever watched the original show, they had this like horrific statue of some sort of like indian elephant in their house all the time. Never, never, commented upon. It was an element of the show. And in the second movie they decide to say that it's actually like filled with heroin, which is quite hilarious.
Speaker 1Yeah, very funny, but it reminded me of that you know what I mean. Like where you're just scanning the original text for any kind of story bit you can mine out of it.
Speaker 2Yeah, you know perhaps the best moment for me at least the one that sticks out in my mind for this movie is after he kills the girl, I think in the bathtub, no, excuse me, in the toilet. He disposes of her body in the ice machine. Oh, that's great. And then when they're going around looking for this girl, the sheriff's like oh, okay, well, we inspected the entire motel and we didn't find anything. Let me grab some ice. And he grabs a bloodied ice cube and he puts it in his mouth.
Speaker 2And you're watching Norman as he's like. Oh man, that's terrific.
Speaker 1You know what Perkins I'm done now? Dude Trembling Colors says Anthony Perkins, as a director had cool choices and he could have had a second wind as a horror director. Yeah, absolutely, the guy had style. I mean he had ideas. He was a really effective director. I think this movie lives on its style right. And the performances. I think Jeff Fahey he's good. I mean I like his confrontation with Norman where he gets hit in the head with the ashtray and they go at it and like he has that ultimatum where he's like, well, I'm going to hit you up for cash, like you know. I mean I thought that was a good twist and I thought he was good in the movie.
Speaker 2I thought it just seems like the movie is sort of running on fumes, in of like a code at a part two. It's like there's no real like thrust.
Speaker 2In my opinion, right, it's only able to to exist because he's norman is not caught at the end of part two because he gets off the hook, right that's the only way part three can even exist, and and the fact that he does get caught at the end of part three means that there's nothing left to do, because what are you going to have him? Do? Break out of the mental institution or get released again. There's not much. There's nothing left to do, because what are you going to have them? Do? Break out of the mental institution or get released again, there's not much there's not much left to do here and you? Can't, I would say for the third time, you know.
Speaker 1I would say we were talking. We were talking about the book, and if you want to get an idea of what a cinematic portrayal of Norman's conversations with his mother from the book would look like in live action, it's this movie, right, um? And also, I guess you get new things like we've never seen norman in the transitional state of uh wearing mother's clothes and doing her voice and performing as her during the murder. Well, you get this in this movie. I mean, whether that's something we needed to see, you know, I guess is up for debate, but it's new. You know you get that now, right, um?
Speaker 2but yeah, the desecration of the mother corpse at the end of the movie is quite good yeah, it's over right.
Speaker 1It's like uh, mother's dead now and norman says I mean they kind of ruin it with him having I mean it's a good ending with the secret hand in his.
Speaker 2Oh, that's fantastic, that's great.
Speaker 1But, like you know honestly though, like when Norman at the end was like you're going back to jail now, son, and he goes, but now I'm free, you know I go. Ok, this movie has justified its existence because this is now the end, Right, but then when he did the okay, I'm doing the repeat of the smile.
Speaker 2Look at the camera from part one I was like, okay, so, but it's, it's so great because he's got the severed hand and he's good.
Speaker 1I mean, if you can't knock him for it, it's a good ending to walk out the door with right, the only thing that they could have done if they made a real psycho for would it have been an interesting?
Speaker 2I just thought it was now, maybe not. Maybe. Maybe have him in the mental institution for a movie and somehow he's able to get loose and go around and kill people in there. That could have been a movie.
Speaker 1Yeah, that could have been a great movie.
Speaker 2Someone helping him inside or something like that, some orderly who was a true crime guru?
Speaker 1A super fan.
Speaker 2Yeah, helping him or going around and implicating, there you go.
Speaker 1Could have been psycho 4. I was gonna ask you you bought the robert block collection of the books, part two and three, and, as I understand, the uh part two and three of the books are not in line with the films at all. They're totally different did?
Speaker 2you happen to get to any of this, do you?
Speaker 1have a desire to. Yeah, eventually, desire to.
Speaker 2Yeah, eventually. Yeah, psycho to the book came around concurrently with the movie, I believe, and was like a satire on Hollywood slasher movies to a certain extent, so they were not interested in adapting that at all. And then Psycho 3, which is, I think, called Psycho House, came out in 1990 or 91 or something like that.
Speaker 1Okay, so we'll transition into what the actual part four was, and I hate to end this. I mean we talked about the remake before, which could have been a great crescendo to the show. Because, I'm sorry, audience, I failed in my charge I did not watch part four. I'm so sorry, brian. Five movies, a lot. Five movies is a lot. I'm sorry, it is a lot.
Speaker 2Yeah, um, psycho four is not good. This was the first time that I had ever seen it. As I mentioned earlier in the in the stream, I'd actively avoided this movie because prequels just don't do it for me and I feel like we knew enough about the history and legacy of Norman and Mother that to see it dramatized was not necessary. What else are we going to get from this? And maybe people who watch the Bates Motel TV show may feel different, as that is the entire premise. Basically is a prequel series. I think I watched like one or two episodes of that and I was like how are you going to mind this for an entire season or more?
Speaker 1Can I ask you some questions on part four, like do we see the dramatization of Norman poisoning his mother and boyfriend? Yes very much.
Speaker 2To the letter. Uh, yeah, we get to. We get to meet the mother's new husband, who is a total asshole okay, he's a bully.
Speaker 2he bullies norman, he tries to make norman into a real man and of course norman's like a shy and kind of simpering mama's boy and not interested in you know I don't remember what activity they were going to do like you know, pass the football around or do you know some other kind of sport thing. The movie is both a sequel and a prequel, and when it's a sequel it's actually a sequel to part one. It actively eliminates part two and part three from the story. So yeah, so they ignore the events of part two and part three from from the story.
Speaker 2so yeah, so they ignore the events of part two and part three.
Speaker 1So what?
Speaker 2this is is norman has been released from the mental institution he's now actually, he's now actually married and living a normal life, more or less, and he calls into a radio talk show that's hosted by cch pounder, who's fantastic. She's. She's the best part of the movie, in my opinion. I love, I love her. I don't know if you're familiar with her. No, you ever seen her on tv okay?
Speaker 2donald's not a quarter pounder cch founder oh okay, oh yeah, sure sure she's got a fantastic voice and having her be a radio host was a great choice here. But anyway, they're doing a radio talk show about matricide and people who killed their mother, stuff like that. So of course Norman's listening and he calls in and he's like you don't know what you're talking about. I'm the expert on killing your mother and all that. And so through this narrative device he relates his entire life history and he alludes to it at a certain extent, that he's going to now kill his wife.
Speaker 2And the reason that he's going to kill his wife is that she's pregnant and he is deathly afraid that his child will carry on the insanity and the evil that his mother had and that he feels that he has. And this is what's driving him to this inflection point overwrought, acting from Olivia Hussey as Mother Bates, who's going through wild swings of mania and depression at different times, belittles Norman, humiliates Norman as a child, makes him dress up in women's clothing, punishes him by making him get naked and go outside, and the weirdest moment, of course, is when they're like wrestling on the floor and like playing with each other in a very incestuous kind of like sexual way and norman gets an erection.
Speaker 2Yeah, this is a television film yes, this is a television film, I mean you don't see it, but but she feels it and she immediately snaps and, you know, makes him, uh, go to his room and actually sit in the closet and tells him to like, when he needs to go to the bathroom, he needs to urinate, by squatting down in a bowl in the closet.
Speaker 1Yeah, what? Okay, this sounds like the prequel to the last 15 minutes of Hitchcock's Psycho, which we don't care. You know what I mean. Like, yeah, prequel to the last 15 minutes of Hitchcock's psycho, which we don't care. You know what I mean. Like, yeah, this is, oh, this is the psychological Freudian you know.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, for sure it's. It's all of that. It's all of that, but played out in a very mundane and uninteresting way. Yes, Henry Thomas, who was in ET, plays a young Norman Bates. He's quite good. There's a lot of moments, though, that are just absolutely ridiculous. It makes you wonder is Norman pathological because of some innate characteristic?
Speaker 1Who cares?
Speaker 2Nature versus nurture. But also, he's so weird. There's all these young, hot, attractive women that are coming on to him at different points in his life and he could not be more disinterested. And he, like, he takes this one girl, is literally throwing himself at him, throwing herself at him. He, she convinces him to bring her up to the house, and you know they're about to go to bed, and then he's like, oh, let me go check on my mother.
Speaker 1And then he, he, um, kills her okay and this is before mother has, like, totally humiliated him and, you know, psyched him out the thing I liked about and appreciated about part three too, was that it did try to be a sequel to part two. I mean, like you know, this whole idea in in sequels to be mick garris and be like you know what part two and three were bad. I'm doing the sequel to part one as part four, like come on, get over yourself well, I think they wrote themselves into a corner sure did you could just do the prequel.
Speaker 1You don't have to do the you know well, because then if you did the prequel only you.
Speaker 2You would not have Anthony Perkins. Right, right, right. So yes this was, I think, a Showtime made-for-TV movie, Okay so it had some violence in it and stuff. Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 1I've got Trembling Colors in the chat saying that Mick Garris is the biggest hack and tries to milk his connection to other better directors to an obnoxious amount. Mick Garris is an interesting character. There's a very, very famous interview that gets included on a lot of criterion discs and goes around the internet a lot. It's good, called fear on film, in which john landis, carpenter and cronenberg are interviewed. They're interviewed by mick garris.
Psycho II: A Surprising Sequel
Speaker 1He was always sort of this kind of if you know comics roy thomas style hanger on to like other bigger talents, right, I would say his biggest success was the stand miniseries um, based on the stephen king book for television in the early 90s. But his biggest movie is like sleepwalkers, the stephen king adaption. Stephen king really liked him and he got to do a lot of stephen king stuff critters too. You know he's. He's a staple on like um trailers from hell on joe dante's website. But yeah, I don't have strong feelings about him either way. Maybe he's a hack. Um, maybe I'm a hack too. You guys will be able to find out when my movie is released. But your thoughts on the direction of the movie?
Speaker 2It's fine. I wish, especially after hearing you talk about Part 3, perkins wanted to direct this one himself as well, but he was not allowed to by the studio and I think we would have had a much Different movie in retrospect had he been allowed to add a little bit of flip, because think about it I mean you haven't seen it, but when all the scenes with him as norman, it's him on the telephone calling into a radio station, it's very flat, it's very boring, it's very uninteresting. The scenes otherwise are. You know? Know, they're okay, there's nothing. It's a very forgettable and boring exercise.
Speaker 1That's why the Bates Motel TV show didn't appeal to me either, and apparently I've just been informed that there was an 80s version of this.
Speaker 2There's an 80s TV pilot. Yes, I forgot about that. I have not seen it. Okay, didn't get off the ground.
Speaker 1The only thing with Norman Bates I don't, please guys. Here's the thing Norman Bates is a great cinematic character. The reason that Psycho is a beloved movie is because it's a steel trap, amazing thriller film and not because the mythology of Norman Bates' psychosis is so interesting. It's not Right so that we need to pathologize Norman Bates for the end of time. I don't care.
Speaker 2It's also because of him, because of Anthony Perkins and the charm and the charisma that he brings, to being this character that we should not like, we should not root for, we should not be in approval of. But we love him. We want him to succeed to a certain extent for a lot of this, especially the sequels, where he is the true protagonist I mean the fact that he's absent from most of part four, just as the narrator, is a huge loss.
Speaker 1That's weird. Well, I'm glad I skipped it. I don't think I would have had a different opinion than you, because it seemed like we're pretty aligned on our thoughts, except for when it comes to the remake, which for me is just sort of a. I admire the gumption behind it.
Speaker 2Oh, I don't disagree. I don't disagree, I just find it boring.
Speaker 1Anything after he did Good Will Hunting and he was like I want to do a student film experiment with Big.
Speaker 2Spice. Yeah, for you know and Trembling Colors makes the analogy to Texas Chainsaw Massacre for them doing Leatherface Origins and all that. And it'd be like imagine if we had Freddy Krueger, the origin story movie, where we see him as the janitor working in the boiler room.
Speaker 2Don't care, It'd be like who cares the premise is interesting the screenplay for 4 was actually written by Joseph Stefano. He didn't write that many movies, but he wrote the screenplay for this. Screenplay for this, I don't know. We didn't talk about um alma, hitchcock's wife alma, who was a very important part of the script process for all of his films, and I know stefano got credit for the screenplay for psycho one, but like I wonder how much of that was written by him and how much was written by hitchcock's wife doing rewrites? Because really, yeah, yeah, oh yeah, you should watch the, the movie Hitchcock with Anthony Hopkins.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, no, definitely check that one out. It's a very easy breezy watch it's. It's very different than the the nonfiction book that it's based on, which doesn't talk about Alma much at all, but she's like the focal point of that movie and her contributions to Hitchcock's films as being a strong associate.
Speaker 1The screenplay for four Was that real or did they just beef up Helen Mirren's performance?
Speaker 2No, I think it's legit. I think it's legit, but the screenplay for four, the cadence and the dialogue just feel very off and clunky and kind of old fashioned in the wrong way. So I question what his true contributions and overall, you know, importance of his role there. Oh, one more fun fact it was filmed at universal studios Florida park for.
Speaker 2Oh one of the few films that ever was. Yes, they had constructed a psycho Bates Motel and mansion that were present at the park for many years. They tore them down later in the 90s and built a Curious George playground over it.
Speaker 1Oh, that's too bad. Is it haunted by the spirit of Mother Curious George?
Speaker 2I don't know. There was also the show at universal where they where they would show you?
Speaker 1Oh, that would be cool.
Speaker 2They made the psycho shower scene. They would reenact it on stage and they have the breakaway like rotating shower. Really they they would show you the shower in the front and then they would flip it around and open the wall and show you. This is how he did the shower scene oh, how perverse yeah, no, it was great and they'd have an audience member come up on stage to be mother really you can look it up on on youtube. It still exists out there and that's cool, I will yeah, and then afterwards you could go and see.
Speaker 2You could like interact with the Statue of Liberty. Torch from Saboteur From.
Speaker 1Saboteur.
Speaker 2Yeah, you could hang from the Statue of Liberty torch with a blue screen and then they had the merry-go-round from Strangers on a Train.
Speaker 1Really.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, I only remember this in passing. I remember going to it a couple times, but it was closed in like 2003 and replaced by Trek.
Speaker 1Who the fuck has seen Saboteur since then? Do you know what I?
Speaker 2mean yeah.
Speaker 1Well think about it.
Speaker 2That's what's so cool is, like you know, late 80s, early 90s, they were like let's make an alfred hitchcock attraction at a major what? And?
Speaker 1you know why would you have to hang out the mount rushmore? Hang off mount rushmore build a.
Speaker 2Got it porch, yeah, got it, yeah.
Speaker 1And then they closed it and put Shrek in there or you could have done the jump into San Francisco Bay Vertigo right well, I had to choose what they could work with or the let me think the ponder the redwood forest with Jimmy Stewart Vertigo.
Speaker 2So anyway, overall 3 out of five. Oh you, if you want to include four, yeah well, I would, I would.
Speaker 1I would ask you, though, like you know what possessed you like to, to make me watch these films. I mean, are these movies that are close to your heart?
Speaker 2two and three and one not particularly, but one is, one is One is definitely One is a great movie.
Speaker 1I really enjoyed exploring it again and studying it and being in the world. But you know what I gotta say, it's not my favorite Hitchcock movie by a mile. I mean, it is a curiosity in his oeuvre. I would say that ended up defining his career. But for me I'm a North by Northwest rear window rope. You know I'm a North by Northwest rear window rope, you know?
Speaker 2notorious guy right? Yeah, I'm very much a fan of the, the Cary Grant ones. Those are, those are my, those are my favorites. So suspicion, notorious Northwest yes. I'm also a sucker for torn curtain, Like I said yeah. I confess oh, and life Sucker for Torn Curtain. Like I said, yeah, I confess oh and Lifeboat.
Speaker 1I love Lifeboat Absolutely. Lifeboat's great, yeah, I also. I really like his early British stuff. So Foreign Correspondent was American, but it's sort of a British style movie. And then the 38 Steps is tremendous. 39 Steps, 39 Steps Sorry. Yeah, the 39 Steps Sorry is tremendous. And 39 steps sorry. Yeah, 39 steps sorry. And uh, the lady vanishes. Okay, those are terrific. Man, you've seen those right yeah, yeah, yeah I was hoping to talk about those.
Speaker 1Both go ahead oh no, no, go ahead I was going to talk about the lady vanishes in the 39 steps in the context of like part two of my movies that took us to war series, but nobody watched the first part so I might just do them separately.
Speaker 2Any thoughts on Marnie?
Speaker 1I just watched that again for the first time in a while you know, marnie is one of those sleeper movies that, um, yeah, that was post psycho, wasn't it? Yes, yeah, uh interesting.
Speaker 2Also, I was supposed to be Grace Kelly. That was supposed to be, yeah.
Speaker 1I. I think it works better with to be headroom. To be honest, I know he wanted Grace Kelly and Grace Kelly was too busy being princess of Monaco to do it. Yeah, Tippi Hedren. To be honest, I know he wanted Grace Kelly and Grace Kelly was too busy being Princess of Monaco to do it. I think it works better with Tippi Hedren. I don't believe that Grace Kelly would have a debilitating condition. Do you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2I think it would have been a totally different movie entirely.
Speaker 1The problem with.
Speaker 2Marnie is that she's so unlikable for most of the movie that it makes it very hard for you to sympathize with her well, and it's all the characters are unlikable oh, dude, there's so much to talk about with marnie.
Speaker 1I thought about doing a marnie video because the I, the, the themes of feminism and masculinity are so combustible. The idea of Sean Connery being so manly he forces her to be normal is crazy. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2Yeah, snap out of it.
Speaker 1I'm going to stage something that you snap out of. I'm going to tame you.
Speaker 2Just to respond to the comment I do like Marnie, I just don't think it's as great as anything else. I mean, I think I gave it two and a half stars on on letterbox, which might be unfair.
Speaker 1No, that's what the fuck. No, you're nuts. You're crazy like, but like. You know what? There's also this idea you're crazy. You're crazy like. That's no. No, the. The stealing from the safe scene alone is three stars. Give me a a break. I know your ratings are different than mine. I give everything I like three stars. Everything gets three stars.
Speaker 2Two and a half for me is I liked it, but I don't love it.
Speaker 1Two and a half for me, is it's shit. No, no.
Speaker 2Psycho on Letterboxd. I give the five rating. I never like the five rating.
Speaker 1I never give anything five stars.
Speaker 2I don't want to misrepresent my opinion on Marnie. I did enjoy it, but I don't think it's anywhere near as good Even in his post-Psycho output. I would definitely rather watch Topaz any day of the week over Marnie.
Speaker 1I like the rear screen horse scenes and um it's just such a downer, though, like and then it's a total downer and let me kill my horse.
Speaker 2Let me do this my life is miserable, why doesn't my mother love me.
Speaker 1You know, there's way too much explanatory. Let me go back to the house where the trauma happened and Bruce Dern was a John for my mom and it's like, yeah, that I can see as being interesting in 1960. It's no longer that interesting or scintillating. You know what I'm saying. But yeah, sean Connery, I, he, he is. He would have been a terrific Hitchcock technicolor protagonist and it's cool to see him in that sort of James Bond mode in the kind of Technicolor realm before he became balding, mustachioed. You know, I just watched the Great Train Robbery recently in which he's terrific, right, but you never get that that Bond Connery era doing anything different. And but I, marnie, I enjoy it's just, it's just overly Freudian. Yeah, it is, it is, and it's like the only set piece is the robbing from the safe.
Speaker 2You know, yes, where, where's the cleaning lady is on the other side of the room and she's, yeah, it takes her heels off and yeah, yeah, it's good, but the birds is.
Speaker 1It's never resonated with me at all.
Speaker 2Yeah it's fine, I I like it but it's. You know, I used to used to think that people thought the birds was his like biggest film or most famous because every time you want to get the box set it's always got crows on it. You know, I mean, yeah, right, hitchcock, it is tippy's tippy hedronit herself is just not in the same league, in my opinion, as you know, grace Kelly or Kim Novak, or you know.
Speaker 1Kim Novak is not in the same league as Grace Kelly. Or or no, she's not, or or whom I think um no, uh, casablanca um.
Speaker 2Ingrid Bergman.
Speaker 1Ingrid Bergman and Grace Kelly were his two great stars. Okay, Kim Novak, I think is kind of bland.
Speaker 2I think it works for her to go.
Speaker 1Both her and Eva Marie Saint are far too icy for my taste.
Speaker 2What about. Joan Fontaine in Suspicion.
Speaker 1Yeah, but Ingrid Bergman could have been into that too. She was a great foil for Cary Grant, for me Grace Kelly, rear Window and To Catch a Thief, one of the most radiant beauties to ever exist. On Silva, one of the most beautiful women of all time, although, Karen Black quite good in Family Plot.
Speaker 1She's good but Karen Black is not. Come on, let's be real here. Karen Black is cool. She made a lot of great movies, but Grace Kelly, yeah, Trailing Colors no one is in the same league as her. The scene when Scotty Ferguson in Rear Window Okay, what's his name in Rear Window, Not Scotty Ferguson, that's vertigo. She wakes Jimmy Stewart up. Oh, I remember window in her just terrific little black and you know dress with the tool and her gloves. It's like she's just unbelievable.
Speaker 2Oh, and the dialogue from her right.
Speaker 1Yeah, which is her least effective role because, uh, um, ellen for murder, right yeah, which is her least effective role because, what's his name? George, the last weekend, ray Moland. Sorry, yeah, I was getting mixed up with George Saunders, but Ray Moland is so good in that movie that you want him to win, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2One of my all-time favorite actors.
Speaker 1Love him.
Speaker 1He's the best uh these are the kind of people it's like you wish that they just had like read the dictionary and recorded their entire voice yeah and make ai versions of their, of their voice to to exist nowadays, you know yes, and if you have you ever seen foreign correspondent, okay, so like um george sanders in that movie, terrific oh yeah, george sanders, in anything, though come on he's so good, all about eve, he's great, you know, like yeah, I mean he's uh the acerbic wit of george the acerbic wit. Yes, very british, very posh, very, very.
Speaker 2You know I love it, but yeah, everyone is a total monster in that movie, including including him who shows Eve that you know, hey, you're, you don't. You may think you're the biggest fish in the pond here, but you're not going to. You're not going to treat me like that. She gets her comeuppance from him.
Speaker 1Exactly, he's terrific. Uh, so dial m for murder for me is is a movie I really like, but also one that, after the murder fails, totally loses steam no, I disagree yes, it does, because I'm asked to like a very um, who's the male protagonist?
Speaker 2um the actor the good guy I don't remember.
Speaker 1Let's see yeah, he sucks. He's very similar to uh doesn't matter though.
Speaker 2It's all. Oh, bob cummings yeah, terrible no, bob cummings is not terrible no, he's bad and it's, it's.
Speaker 1He's very, very similar to John Gavin. He's a total John Gavin.
Speaker 2No, no, no, Bob Cummings is totally much better than John Gavin.
Psycho III: Perkins Takes the Director's Chair
Speaker 1Let me find you out. Ray Milan, I'm like no bitch. Hitchcock just fucked with me for an hour trying to get me on Ray Milan's side, and I was. And now that Grace Kelly evaded death, like I'm not, you know, the better Frederick Knott script or the better movie is Wait, wait Until Dark.
Speaker 2I have not seen the Michael Douglas remake, which is, I believe, A Perfect Murder. That was the remake of Dial-In for Murder.
Speaker 1I didn't know that.
Speaker 2Yes, there's an interesting article on Wikipedia. I was looking at that. You can see remakes of Hitchcock films and there's some that are just like you wouldn't expect it. Hold on, Let me see if I can find it.
Speaker 1Michael Douglas, I'm trying to kill my wife.
Speaker 2On this article. I don't I have to go back and rewatch it, but they list Mission Impossible 2 as a remake of Notorious that is dumb.
Speaker 1I agree, remember the part, when Cary Grant got his mission and his glasses exploded while he was climbing Mount Everest, or whatever.
Speaker 2I do remember a big hubbub when Disturbia came out, that people were like oh, it's the rear window with Shia LaBeouf.
Speaker 1Yes. Rear window with Shia LaBeouf yes, but, by the way, when I was in high school, that was the movie to see because it was kind of scary and it was PG-13, so we could go you know, what I mean.
Speaker 2For all the little tea bonkers to go to.
Speaker 1What fucking remakes?
Speaker 2Huh.
Speaker 1I'm just looking at these remakes and they're all kind of a stretch.
Speaker 2Should we talk about who is? Is there a modern day hitchcock? And if there is, uh, of course, the one that comes to mind is uh m night shamalan, for instance would you, would you say that's no, you don't think that's fair at all? No, no, I don't you know, people were. People were comparing him to him back, at least during the initial era.
Speaker 1I could see that. I could see that too, not just because he, but he's a writer-director. Hitchcock was not a writer-director.
Speaker 2We're not comparing exactly.
Speaker 1That's very important.
Speaker 2I think it's more an apt comparison.
Speaker 1One of the main reasons why everyone was like oh M Night Shyamalan's Hitchcock, because he's also widely known and can sell on his name. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2He appears in the movies too, so there's that.
Speaker 1Yeah, no, Come on, Hitchcock was one of a kind. He was a one of a kind dude. He was very weird from a very particular time and place. Maybe we have to wait for M Night to die before we hear about his foibles and hang-ups and problems and weird sexual fantasies and piccadillos. But like, come on you know, what I mean.
Speaker 1Sure, yeah, okay so Tremblay Culler says the closest to Hitchcock anyone ever got was De Palma, but he tried so hard for the role it kind of eliminates him. I agree, Like so hard for the role, it kind of eliminates him. I agree, like diploma, diploma works so hard to be hitchcockian that he ended up creating his own kind of style and we also talked about I talked about diploma earlier in this book, which I'm a huge diploma fan and like with diploma we were talking about the falling down the stairs scene. Diploma would do that kind of a thing to draw attention to himself.
Speaker 1Hitchcock wasn't trying to do that, but like the very act of drawing attention to himself I find rather stylish and fun and I try to emulate that as well. So I draw a lot of inspiration from De Palma in making my own humble movie and he's a favorite of mine, for sure. But he is a Hitchcock alkylite and he would say that himself, that he wasn't trying to be the next Hitchcock. What he was trying to do was he thought Hitchcock was so innovative and cool that everybody should be trying to rip him off and that all he was doing was making movies in the style of Hitchcock which more people should do. And he was like Hitchcock created a whole new form, all new style. I'm a disciple of him and I'm doing this.
Speaker 2Stress to kill. It's fantastic, love it great movie body double.
Speaker 1Great movie. That's a rear window remake body double blow out obsession yeah, obsession is a vertigo.
Speaker 2Remake yeah, and interestingly, there's a lot of there's a lot of vertigo parallels in Dressed to Kill as well.
Speaker 1Yes, but Obsession much more so. Have you seen Obsession? No, it is almost as much. I mean, if you want to do a double feature of Hitchcock remakes, watch Gus Van Sant's Psycho and Obsession. I'm not watching Gus.
Speaker 2Van Sant's Psycho again, for another 10 years at least. What's the point? What's the point of watching that again?
Speaker 1Trembling Color says Blowout was more of a remake of Blowup. I disagree. Have you seen Antonioni's Blowup? No, no, I didn't talk about blow up in my blow out review and I probably should have. But antonioni's blow out shares themes from blow up and depalma has mentioned blow out, a blow up when he talks about blow out. But uh, blow up to me is not as effective. I get why. It would have been very cool at the time. But, um, you know, that's a great point for matthew. Yeah, cape fear is an excellent yeah. So I mean who? Um, joe dunn baker very much plays an Arbogast role in that film. The remake with De Niro and Nick Nolte. What do we got? Are we good?
Speaker 2I think we beat this dead horse enough. But yeah, I think this was a good topic and a good series to take a look back at. I'm glad that you were able to watch them, even though you'd never seen the sequels before.
Speaker 1Yeah, I probably never would have, so thank you for opening me up to that world. I appreciate it For sure.
Speaker 2What is our next endeavor? We have a couple things on the docket.
Speaker 1I think I'll tell you guys Did I freeze. Can you hear me?
Speaker 2I can hear you Either I'm frozen or you're frozen. I don't know.
Speaker 1I think I'm frozen, because I'm frozen on my own television. You're still going, though, so there must be some kind of issue with my camera.
Speaker 2I can hear you though.
Speaker 1Thank you, matt. Thanks for tuning in, buddy, we have to get you on as a guest next time. So, um, this is me just. You know, I'm just with. Life is just taking a stall so, guys, I'm sorry if I haven't.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, I haven't put out a. I haven't put out a. I haven't put out a video in a long time. I have two scripts that are done. I just need to record them and edit them for Michael Crichton's coma and David Kronenberg's video drone. I'm working on my own feature film currently, and then our next stream is going to be night gallery and you're going to walk me through this.
Speaker 2Okay, so that's the next one. Okay, that'll be fantastic. I want you to put a laundry list of episodes.
Speaker 1Okay, okay, yeah, that next one. Okay, that that'll be fantastic laundry list of episodes. Okay, okay, yeah, that's gonna be the next one. Uh, my wife thanks you. She got to sit through these at night, but, um, I think we'll try to. Yeah, I think we'll try to sneak in, if we can. A 2024 summer wrap-up where we talk about I think we decided on the bike riders, twisters, wolverine and um trap. You're really going to make me sit through.
Speaker 2Deadpool and Wolverine Really.
Speaker 1I haven't seen it yet either.
Speaker 2I don't know if I can, I just don't know if I can.
Speaker 1I don't. I'm really not looking forward to it, especially after all the cameos have been spoiled. But yeah, trembling Color says great appearance on Low Res' podcast. Yeah, thank you. I appeared on the Low Res Wonder Bread podcast. Talk about Furiosa. So if you guys are a fan of his, check him out. It was a good show.
Speaker 2I think it's behind a paywall, but yeah. It might be better instead of Deadpool. Like are you going to see Alien Romulus?
Speaker 1I will see that. Okay, we're trying to get viewers here. We're trying to get viewers in the house. We got to fucking see.
Speaker 2Do you know how many people are going to be turned off when I say how much I end up hating Deadpool?
Speaker 1What if you like it? What if you think it's good?
Speaker 2From everything that I've read, it looks just everything that I despise about modern superhero movies.
Speaker 1I'm with you. I'm with you. You know, and that's the crazy thing too, is it's like this thing made a billion. How did they make a billion dollars without me? I didn't see it. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2Yeah, I have no interest.
Speaker 1Zero, I am the guy that you're looking for. How'd you make a billion without me?
Speaker 2I would have been the guy uh 15 years ago maybe, but uh nowadays not so much grown men not don't really want to watch a movie where deadpool eviscerates people while dancing to madonna's like a prayer that is not funny to me it. It's so ironic and funny.
Speaker 1Isn't that funny that he's killing people to a song. That is ironic, yeah, so funny. You're going to sit there with me.
Speaker 2Weren't those 20th Century Fox movies? Just so bad that's the joke LOL Blade.
Speaker 1Oh yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 2Which wasn't even a Fox movie, okay, anyway, that would be the whole review and people would be like this guy sucks.
Speaker 1How am I froze?
Speaker 2I don't know. Maybe turn your camera off and turn it back on.
Speaker 1You know what? There could be a Norman Bates Walking up behind me right now to stab me, and you wouldn't even know it because I'm froze.
Speaker 2Yeah, trap was quite good, though I did enjoy that One of Shyamalan's better recent injuries, for sure the alternative title for psycho actually really. No, that's it.
Speaker 1Did not know that that's a transvestite, a bad, a poor taste transvestite joke I made about, but uh okay maybe the chat will understand, sure, but uh, all right brother. Hey, it was great talk to you again yes, of course always, it's always a pleasure always great to see you yes, that is a perfect face for deadpool.
Speaker 1Yes, eyes closed that's what the people want to see. Here's what they want to see. They want us to hate it and I'm going to go to it and probably like it, and then I'm going to oh, and then I have to be in the position of like shitting on the movie. I like the cameos. It was so funny. You know what was funny? When they said fuck. That was hilarious.
Speaker 2Isn't it funny how Wolverine doesn't like him.
Speaker 1It's like the odd, it's like a buddy cop movie, but you know.
Speaker 2I gave you the list of Night Gallery episodes. I don't know if you can make it through all of those. If you need me to trim it down to say like which ones are like.
Speaker 1Yeah, you sent me a list. I was like reading an Allen Ginsberg poem. It was like fucking like 30 stanzas of shit.
Speaker 2I was like, how are they're segments? So there's episodes with multiple segments in them, so I chose the ones that you can like cut out, like just go to that segment.
Speaker 1Well, they an hour or how long are they?
Speaker 2Depends. Some are like 15 minutes, some are half an hour. None of them are longer than the longest one is they're tearing down Tim Riley's bar, which is like 40 minutes or something like that.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2Which is a great episode.
Speaker 1Okay, okay, which is a great episode. Okay, I'm excited. Anyway, let me know we have a guest that we're going to do JALO films with. I think if we can get to it.
Speaker 2Yes, send me a list of stuff to watch for that.
Psycho IV: The Beginning and TV Movies
Speaker 1I got an early start on Halloween for the Film Journal. I'm thinking I'm going to do Videod drone and Salem's lot the Toby for Salem's lot.
Speaker 2Salem's lot would be fantastic. I would love to see that.
Speaker 1Yeah, I'm reading the book now.
Speaker 2Oh okay, all right, everybody. Oh, just I'm going to plug my thing, Hopefully soon. The Chuck Norris karate commandos cartoon review Should have been working on for quite a while. So since that got cut from our initial when we were chit-chatting before the, when no one was watching, so I'm very excited for that, and everybody else should be too. I hope so. All right, it's been fun See you next time.
Speaker 1Have a good stream, brother. See ya, bye.
