“
Y FIRST REACTION WAS, ‘OH, GOD, WHAT DO YOU DO WITH PSYCHO III?’” RECALLS CHARLES EDWARD POGUE OF LEARNING HIS SCREENPLAY FOR DAVID CRONENBERG’S REMAKE OF THE FLYHAD CONVINCED UNIVERSAL STUDIOS HE WAS THE MAN TO ESCORT NORMAN BATES AND HIS MURDEROUS MATRIARCHAL ALTER EGO BACK TO THE BIG SCREEN.
Pogue began his journey by revisiting Alfred Hitchcock’s definitive 1960
shocker. “I had only seen the original movie once,” he recalls. “I knew it was a good movie; I now realized it was a great movie.” A screening of 1983’s Psycho II provoked a more mixed response: “I
thought it was a better than average sequel, but I didn’t care for the pandering to the dead-teenager crowd and I didn’t like it messing with the original mythology.” That film memorably concluded with a confession by Norman’s kindly
neighbour Mrs. Spool (Claudia Bryar) that she was his real mother, earning her a spade to the back of the head and a seat by the bedroom window over- looking the Bates Motel. “[But] I just wanted to return to the original Psycho’s mythology,” Pogue
admits. “Mother is Mother, not Mrs. Spool.” Pogue also decided to check two new guests into the Bates Motel, a
wannabe rocker named Duane Duke (Planet Terror’s Jeff Fahey, getting in touch with his inner scumbag), who threatens to expose Norman’s secrets, and, even more shockingly, Maureen Coyle (Diana Scarwid), as a suicidal nun with a fateful resemblance to Marion Crane, who steals his heart. “What I wanted was Norman falling in love with someone as broken and
fractured and insecure as himself,” Pogue explains. “My favourite review came from an alternative paper in LA that said Psycho III and The Fly were the two best love stories of the summer of ’86. Of course, the reviewer didn’t mention the one connection between the two films: me.” The complex, macabre screenplay caused a sensation
at Universal, and convinced Anthony Perkins not only to reprise the role that had defined his career, but to try his hand at directing as well. “I think what so attracted him to the script is that it was really tailored to him and his style and nu-
ances as Norman,” says Pogue, who fondly recalls his time with the late actor, who died in 1992. “Tony and I had a very good relationship. We were both from the theatre and so we spoke the same language. He also worked like I work. We sat at his house and went through the script page by page, line by line. Very little of the script changed at all.” Unfortunately, Universal execs felt Psycho III needed to up its violence quo-
tient to compete in a market awash with Freddys and Jasons. But it appeared the studio meddling was ultimately for naught when the film opened in eighth place at the box office and grossed just under $14.5 million by the end of its domestic run. “I think the insistence [for more violence] ruined the end of the movie,”
says Pogue. “I had always seen the movie as Norman’s journey to light. Though he is going to be locked up for the rest of his life, he has purged his demons, been restored to sanity and, as he says, he’ll ‘finally be free.’ ... But toward the end of filming, I got a call from Tony saying the studio wanted one of those Brian De Palma shocker endings, like Carrie’s hand shooting out of the grave, so I suggested the final shot in the car. I said, ‘We move in on Tony in the back seat à la the final shot in the original Psycho. He gets a demonic grin on his face, then pulls Mother’s mummified severed hand from under his coat and starts to stroke it.’ I truly thought this will be some- thing that they will see doesn’t really fit and can easily be cut out. Well, stroking the mummified hand is the last shot in the movie; so much for Norman’s journey to light.”
Sister Of Mercy: Diana Scarwid plays Norman Bates’ love interest, suicidal nun Maureen Coyle.
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