DRIVE-IN SATURDAY
The time: Summer, 1960. The place: Cambria Theatre. The Dauphin, just a deranged shaver then, attends Psycho, an Alfred Hitchcock flick destined to become a classic. The famous stabbing scene makes a profound impression on the young Dauphin.
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DRIVE-IN SATURDAY
Slice O' Life
Edouard Dauphin
The time: Summer, 1960. The place: Cambria Theatre. The Dauphin, just a deranged shaver then, attends Psycho, an Alfred Hitchcock flick destined to become a classic. The famous stabbing scene makes a profound impression on the young Dauphin. For years, he will have a mortal fear of sneaking up on women in motel room showers.
The time: Summer, 1983. The place: Rivoli Theatre. Edouard stands on Broadway, elbow to elbow with Quentin Crisp, awaiting a screening of Psycho II, a sequel 23 years in the offing. Will this picture also have an impact on him? Perhaps he’ll soon have a lethal dread of sneaking up on women in renovated motel room showers.
Actually, the thought of an update on Norman Bates & Co. struck misgivings into many a reviewirig heart. Hitchcock is gone—and who really knows anything about this new director, Richard Franklin? Besides, Psycho is a film we’ve seen a million times. Purists even know it frame by frame. When it comes to a sequel, we’re not talking about Little Orbit, The Astro Dog II or Son Of If You Could See What I Hear.
No, we’re talking about Norman Bates, released from the nuthouse after 23 years and played by—who else—Anthony Perkins. Norman is anxious to resume his career as an innkeeper and is startled to discover that the legendary Bates Motel has sunk to X-rated status, the kind of place that offers hourly rates and nude photos of Elmo in each fantasy room. It’s enough to make a fella get another matchbook and check Air Conditioner Repair.
Instead, Norman finds work as a cook’s helper at a nearby greasy spoon, where he meets a waitress named Mary, played by newcomer Meg Tilly. Norman charms her with lines like: “You smell like the toasted cheese sandwiches my mother used to bring me when I had a temperature.” I must remember that one next time I’m chatting up a barmaid at Brenda’s Colonial Lounge out on Route 9W
But wait a sec, you’re saying. This is too cozy. Too nice. After all, this is Psycho II. You are right, Boy Howdy Breath. Soon the sleazoid hotel manager meets an untimely end. There is a string of vicious murders and suspicion naturally focuses on poor Norman who has trouble finding a knife in the kitchen drawer. “I j-j-just moved here,” he explains in the best Roger Daltry impresson of ’83, “I d-d-don’t have any c-c-c-c-utlery.”
Out of the past—and the original—comes Vera Miles, sister of the Janet Leigh character offed while doing the splish-splash., She hurls charges at the hapless Norman, stopping just short of calling him a lanky John Hinckley. Dauph got the feeling the 1960 Psycho’s John Gavin would’ve been right there with her only Prez Ronnie made him Ambassador to Mexico and he’s probably down in Tijuana celebrating the devaluation of the peso.
Things look dire for Norman, especially when he insists he’s innocent because his mom is to blame.
But guess what? Nah, don’t guess. ■ See the picture. You’ll laugh. You’ll ■ cringe. And maybe you’ll learn I something about Motel Manage■ ment. Norman did. See you for ■ Psycho III, Norm, but not before the I year 2006, OK?
Doo doo doo doo.
Doo doo doo doo. ■ I
Sure, you know it as The Twilight I Zone theme, but what have you I heard about the movie? Skip the first I two episodes, the third isn’t bad and I the fourth is a killer, right? It’s what I everyone is saying and The Dauph I is here to tell you don’t bother with I the whole thing. Twilight Zone—The Movie is doo doo doo doo and maybe even caca caca.
Flick is directed by four different guys including Steven Spielberg, who is beginning to get very tiresome with his limp attempts to evoke the wonders of childhood. Being a kid sucks, Steve. Almost everyone is bigger than you, they make you go to school and you have virtually no cash flow. George Miller, who directed the last segment, should go back to making Road Warrior movies, where at least people got their heads bashed in. That leaves John Landis and Joe Dante, who should retire from the biz completely.
Stay home and watch the real thing free on the box—it has Rod Serling too.
Do you like brains?
The Dauph’s not talking here about some delicacy at a Cambodian eatery, but brain movies which have been a kind of sub-genre among horror films over the years. You may recall The Brain Eaters, Donovan’s Brain, The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, Brain From Planet Arous and The Dauph’s personal fave, They Saved Hitler’s Brain.
Add to the list The Man With Two Brains, a film which, to some, is just the newest Steve Martin effort, but to others is a bona fide brain picture. Never a big fan of the goonish Martin, Dauph still had to admire his excursion into the world of brain movies. Steve plays a surgeon who falls in love with a disembodied brain that lives in a jar. He even is ready to murder his wife, the sensuous Kathleen Turner of Body Heat, so he can devote himself to this winsome medulla oblongata. If that sounds brainless to you, catch the movie— it’s food for thought.
And it’s not even a sequel or a remake.
