However, Mary's growing friendship with Norman has convinced her he is no longer capable of killing. All of this was an attempt to drive Norman insane again and have him recommitted. Mary altered his mother's bedroom and locked Norman in the attic so she could change it back. In the parlor she is surprised by Lila, her mother Lila and Mary have in fact been making the phone calls and notes, even posing at the window dressed as Norman's mother. Norman is horrified, believing he has committed another murder, but Mary insists he is innocent.
That evening, Mary and Norman find a bloody rag stuffed in the toilet. He fears he may have killed the boy, since Mary told him the attic was unlocked when she found him. After the sheriff leaves, Norman rebukes her for lying. Mary claims they were out walking together at the time. The sheriff arrives and questions them about the boy's murder. Mary finds Norman in the attic and he shows her his mother's bedroom, only to find it back to its state of disuse.
As they try to climb out, the boy is stabbed to death. They notice a female figure pacing in the next room. Meanwhile, a teenage couple sneaks in through the cellar window to have sex.
A sound lures him to the attic, where he is locked in. While Norman is renovating the motel, he hears voices in the house, and enters his mother's bedroom to find it exactly as it was 22 years ago. Becoming increasingly sympathetic to and impressed by Norman's fight to keep his sanity, Mary takes up permanent residence in a guest room at his house. Shortly after, a figure in a black dress stabs Toomey to death as he is packing to leave the motel. During a work shift, a drunk Toomey picks a fight with Norman, who suspects him of leaving the messages. Norman's assimilation into society appears to be going well until he begins to receive mysterious phone calls and notes from "Mother" at the house and diner. Norman offers to let her stay at the motel, then extends the offer to his home when he discovers that the motel's new manager, Warren Toomey, has been using the motel to deal drugs. After work, a young waitress at the diner, Mary Samuels, has been thrown out of her boyfriend's place. He reports to a prearranged job at a nearby diner, where a woman named Emma Spool works. Bill Raymond, Norman takes up residence in his old home behind the Bates Motel. Marion Crane's sister Lila, the widow of Marion's former lover Sam Loomis, vehemently protests Norman's release, but her plea is dismissed. Having never been convicted of murder-he was found not guilty by virtue of his insanity-Bates is released from a mental institution by the court, after being deemed mentally sound. Twenty-two years after his killing spree, Norman Bates has overcome his delusions and accepted that his mother is dead. The film was followed by Psycho III (1986).Īljean Harmetz of The New York Times wrote that a sequel being made 22 years after the original was "unusual". It received mixed-to-positive reviews from film critics. Psycho II was released on June 3, 1983, and grossed $34.7 million at the box office on a budget of $5 million. The film marked Franklin's American feature film debut. In preparing the film, Universal hired Holland to write an entirely different screenplay, while Australian director Franklin, a student of Hitchcock's, was hired to direct. The film is unrelated to the 1982 novel Psycho II by Robert Bloch, which he wrote as a sequel to his original 1959 novel Psycho. However, his troubled past continues to haunt him as someone begins to murder the people around him. Set 23 years after the first film, it follows Norman Bates after he is released from the mental institution and returns to the house and Bates Motel to continue a normal life. It is the first sequel to Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho and the second film in the Psycho franchise. Psycho II is a 1983 American slasher film directed by Richard Franklin, written by Tom Holland, and starring Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, Robert Loggia, and Meg Tilly.