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Les Miserables

The Last of Sheila

Chillers


            Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) is released from a mental institution after being pronounced of sound mind by his psychiatrist, Dr. Bill Raymond (Robert Loggia) after 22 years. At the hearing preceding Norman's release, Lila Loomis (Vera Miles) shows up to protest, producing a petition that she's been circulating with signatures of 743 people who do not want to see Norman return to society. Lila is the sister of Marion Crane, one of Norman's victims (from the first film), and the widow of Sam Loomis, who was Marion's boyfriend at the time of her death. When the judge refuses to acknowledge Lila's petition, she vows to see Norman returned to the institution to pay for his crimes.Dr. Raymond takes Norman back to his old home, the gloomy mansion on the hill behind the Bates Motel. A car is parked by the motel, which belongs to Warren Toomey (Dennis Franz)--the current owner of the motel. Dr. Raymond offers to introduce Norman to him, but Norman says it can wait until later. Walking up the steps to the house, Norman thinks he sees someone in his mother's bedroom window. Dr. Raymond says there hasn't been a tenant in the house for years. Norman admits he is just nervous about being back after such a long time away.Inside the house, all the furniture is covered up with sheets. Dr. Raymond asks Norman if he wants to stay somewhere else, but Norman insists on being back at home. Dr. Raymond reminds Norman that, with him living back at home, the memories from his past are likely to reoccur, but he is confident that Norman can handle it now. Dr. Raymond regrets that there won't be a trained social worker to check in on Norman occasionally, due to budget cutbacks, however Norman says that at least Dr. Raymond will come by from time to time to see him. Dr. Raymond informs Norman that the telephone has been reconnected, and that he is to report to work at noon for a pre-arranged job as a short-order cook and dishwasher at a diner down the road from the motel.After Dr. Raymond leaves, Norman takes his suitcase upstairs, and picks up the phone receiver and hears the dial tone. He sees a piece of paper under the phone, and picks it up. It is a note from Mother. It says, "Norman, I'll be home late. Fix your own dinner. Love, M." Suddenly, Norman is startled when he hears Mother's voice calling to him from her room. Norman then has a memory from his childhood. He sees his adolescent self reflected on the doorknob. Mother says, "Norman! What did you put in my tea? (sounds of a glass breaking) I'm gonna get you for this, Norman. I'll show you what happens to bad little boys who poison their mothers--I'm gonna kill you! Her door slowly opens, and then a hand falls to the floor, writhes for a few seconds, and then lays still. Her door slams shut and Norman lets go of his suitcase, which tumbles down the stairs, his clothes spilling out.Norman arrives at the diner, and introduces himself to a kindly old woman named Emma Spool (Claudia Bryar) who works as a hostess, waitress and cashier. She takes him back to the kitchen to meet Ralph Statler (Robert Alan Browne), the owner and short-order cook. Norman's other co-workers include a grouchy waitress named Myrna (Lee Garlington), and Mary Samuels (Meg Tilly), a young waitress who is less than stellar at her job, only having worked there for the past four days. Emma Spool gets Norman an apron and tells him to take the meal orders while dishwashing and helping Ralph around the stove. When Mary accidentally knocks a pie plate off a table, sending a piece of pie and a large knife to the floor. Ralph angrily asks her what happened. Norman covers for Mary and says that he did it. Ralph lets Norman off the hook and gets him started with some duties, including reading off orders that the waitresses bring back.Later that night, Norman leaves the diner and starts to head back home, when he hears Mary shouting on a payphone, arguing with her boyfriend. She hangs up the phone, and when Norman asks what happened, Mary claims she has been thrown out of her boyfriend's place and needs a temporary place to stay. Norman offers to let her stay at the motel for free. They start walking just as a thunderstorm is forming in the sky. They get back to the motel just as the rain starts pouring down. Norman goes into the office and reaches for the key to cabin #1, but he grabs a different key instead. He tells her to wait there while he checks the bed linen in the cabin. Then, Warren Toomey enters, startling Mary. He asks her if she wants to rent a room, but she says that Norman is taking care of it. Norman comes back, and tells Mary to go up to the house and wait for him. She leaves, and Norman puts a handful of drug paraphernalia down on the desk and questions Warren about it. Norman discovers the motel is now a sleazy hookup location run by the equally sleazy Mr. Toomey. Norman fires Toomey and tells him to be gone by the next night.Back in the house, Norman makes a sandwich for Mary. She finds a knife in a drawer and asks him to cut it for her, and he is very nervous about holding a knife again. He reluctantly cuts the sandwich, but Norman's odd behavior is creeping out Mary. She initially decides against staying with him, but Norman convinces her to stay by telling her that this is the first night back in the house after being institutionalized for so long, and is scared to be alone by himself. Norman takes her upstairs and gets some bedding for her to use. Mary goes into Norman's mother's room, but Norman suggests she sleep in his room. Norman is apprehensive about going into his mother's room, because he tells her that is where some of his "troubles" happened. Mary coaxes Norman into the room by reassuring him there are no ghosts in there. The room is mostly bare, except for some of the furniture which is all covered up with more sheets. The bed mattress is rolled up as well. Norman goes into his room and tosses the bedding on top of his bed and closes the door so she can get settled in for the night. Norman says goodnight, turns the lights off, and sleeps on the couch downstairs. Mary jams the door shut from the inside by putting a chair underneath the doorknob.The next morning, Norman is at the diner chopping lettuce when Mary comes in. She tells him she has decided to stay with a friend in town, rather than with Norman. Just then, a drunk Warren Toomey walks in, and goes to the kitchen window and talks to Ralph and mockingly inquires about Norman's job performance and then he sits down in a booth. Norman is reading off more orders that are placed on a wheel, while Ralph prepares the food. Mary starts to take Warren's order. Instead, Toomey insults her and suggests that she and Norman had slept together the previous night. Norman is slowly becoming angry at Warren's remarks, but tries to maintain his composure. Norman grabs an order off the wheel, but instead it is a note from Mother! It says "Don't let that whore in my house again!" Norman is shocked by this, and bumps into the french fry fryer, spraying hot oil on Ralph's arm.Enraged, Norman confronts Toomey, and Toomey picks a fight with Norman in front of the customers. Norman sees a knife laying nearby and Warren goads Norman into picking it up and using it. Norman doesn't pick it up, and Warren calls him a "chicken," and then leaves. Norman is so traumatized by seeing the note, that he quits his job.Later that night, Mary comes back to the house and tells Norman she has reconsidered and would like to stay with him. She was very impressed with how he handled Toomey earlier. Mary goes upstairs to take a shower. Afterward, she has a funny feeling that she is being watched. In fact, there is a small peephole cut into the wall opposite the shower, and someone's eye is seen looking through the hole at her.Norman is playing the piano in the living room and is startled to hear a loud car horn blaring below. Warren Toomey is outside and he is very drunk, and he is honking the horn to get Norman's attention. He shouts that he is packing his things and moving out. Then the phone rings. Norman answers it, and after a pause, he says angrily, "What? Who is this? My mother is dead! Mr. Toomey, if this is you, you're sicker than I ever was!" Norman hangs up and looks out the front window. The lights to the office are still on, and Norman is convinced it was Toomey who called. Just then, a figure in a black dress comes into the office and murders Toomey by stabbing him as he packs to leave the motel. The murder goes unnoticed, as "Mother" spends all night in the motel parlor cleaning up the evidence of her crime.The next day, Norman's doctor, Dr. Raymond, pays a visit asking Norman why he quit his job at the diner and Norman tells Dr. Raymond that he has decided to dedicate himself to fixing up his motel to make it a legimate business. Norman also tells Dr. Raymond that he has been receiving notes as well as annymous phone calls from someone claiming to be his late mother. Dr. Raymond agrees to look into it.Up in the house, Mary is putting on makeup when she sees a flicker of light relfected in the bathroom mirror and realizes that there is a small hole in the wall leading to Mother's bedroom. Worried, Mary runs out of the house and down the hill where she meets with Norman still talking with Dr. Raymond. She casualy introduces herself to Norman's doctor and explains that she used to work at the diner as well and is now staying on the property to help Norman fix up his motel. Dr. Raymond thanks Norman for his time and drives away.Dr. Raymond goes to the police station in nearby Fairview where he meets Sheriff John Hunt (Hugh Gillin) and tells him about Norman telling him about receiving prank phone calls from someone claiming to be his mother and wants a tap put on Norman's phone, but the sheriff refuses because there are no grounds for that nor has there been any evidence of a crime being committed as of yet. Dr. Raymond leaves and says that he will get to the bottom of what is going on at the Bates Motel.Later that day, while painting part of the motel building, Norman begins to doubt his sanity when he sees a figure standing in the window of this mother's old bedroom. He walks up to the house, where he enters his mother's old bedroom to find it looks exactly as it did 22 years ago. A sound lures him into the attic, where he is locked in by an unseen person.While he is up there, another murder happens in the basement of the house: two teenagers sneak into the basement to smoke pot and make out, but suddenly the figure in the black dress appears and knifes the boy to death. The girl escapes and later returns with the sheriff. In the meantime, Mary finds Norman sleeping in the attic, but the door is unlocked.The sheriff and his deputy arrive at the Bates house where they ring the doorbell and they question Norman and Mary (both of them clearly acting very tense) about the alleged murder. The sheriff investigates the fruit cellar where the killing took place hours earlier, but finds it suspiciously neat and orderly. Norman is confused and wants to admit that something strange is going on, but Mary interjects and claims that she has cleaned up the basement herself. Mary also give Norman an alibi by saying that she was with him all afternoon and they both were not in the house when the alleged murder took place. After the sheriff and deputy leave, Norman is aghast. "Why did you lie to the sheriff like that?" he asks. Mary says, "I had to say something, they were going to arrest you!"All the evidence suggests that Norman is back to his old ways, but Mary is insistent. "It couldn't have been you, you're not like that anymore." Later that evening, Mary is startled when she discovers someone looking at her through the peephole in the bathroom wall. She calls out to Norman, but Norman is downstairs and out of reach... so it can't be him. Mary draws a gun and starts checking the house, but the gun saddens Norman. "That's because of me, isn't it?" he says. They are horrified to find a bloody rag that someone has stuffed down the bathroom toilet. Norman is despondent, convinced that his blackouts are re-ocurring and that he is responsible for the bloody rag, and whatever crime it is connected with.Mary says she's going down to check the motel, and one of the film's many plot twists occurs. In the parlor of the motel is Lila Loomis--Mary's mother. She's the one who has been calling Norman saying she's his mother, even going so far as to dress up as her and allowing him to see her in the window, before disappearing and adding to his frail mental state. Mary has been helping her, and was responsible for restoring Mother's room at the house and locking Norman in the attic as well as leaving all of the notes from Mother for Norman to find at the house and at the diner, but Mary's growing feelings for Norman have been causing her to reconsider her actions. It also explains how she knows Norman could not have been responsible for the murder of any young boy in the basement of the house because he was locked in the attic during that time. However, Lila sees the murder as a happy coincidence, not caring if Norman would be re-committed over a murder that wasn't his crime.The next day, Dr. Raymond discovers Mary's true identity and informs Norman exactly who has been living with him. He also orders Norma Bates' body to be exhumed, just to prove to Norman that she can't be the one haunting him.Back at the house, when Norman confront's Mary, she admits to Norman that she has been part of Lila's ruse, but that Lila won't stop. "Why did you stop?" Norman asks. Just then the phone rings, and Norman angrily answers it right away, saying "Hello, Mrs. Loomis?" Suddenly Norman's tone changes and he says "I'm sorry... Mother." Mary gets angry and picks up an extension to confront Lila, but there's nobody on the line with Norman as whoever was on the other line hangs up when Mary speaks into the phone.Mary goes to Lila's hotel and they have a big fight that's overheard by a hotel bartender. Mary tells Lila that she wants her to stop bothering Norman, and Lila accuses her of being in love with a psychopath. Lila, convinced that she's winning the "good" fight, hurries over to the house for one final push over the edge for Norman. She is being followed by Dr. Raymond.Lila sneaks into the cellar and removes her "Mother" costume from under a loose stone in the floor. However, she is confronted by another "Mother" figure in a black dress and is killed with a butcher knife through the mouth. Dr. Raymond enters the house looking around, and sees the cellar door wide open. He enters the cellar, but no one is in sight (implying that "Mother" may have hid the body and slipped away through the cellar exit which is never locked). Norman enters the cellar and asks Dr. Raymond what is he doing there. The doctor tells Norman that he has been following Lila Loomis, but Norman seems oddly disinterested, making Dr. Raymond leave.Meanwhile, Mary discovers that Mr. Toomey's car has been retrieved from the swamp, with Toomey's body in the trunk. Sheriff Hunt questions Mary about being the daughter of Lila Loomis and that Dr. Raymond had visited him to inform him about his suspicions about her. When Mary overhears the sheriff talking to his deputies about bringing Norman in for questioning she slips away.Mary returns to the house and tries to get Norman to escape with her. "They'll lock you up again!" she pleads. Norman refuses to run, and instead tries to get Mary to admit to what she's been doing to him. The phone rings at the house and Norman answers and starts to speak to his "Mother". But it is Dr. Raymond on the other line calling from the motel parlor who tells Norman that he contacted the local phone company and they had traced the phone calls to the house from the parlor phone at the motel. Once again, Mary listens in and discovers that nobody is on the line with Norman (Dr. Raymond hangs up). But then, Norman begins talking about Mary to the voice on the phone and says "Oh no, Mother. You can't make me... KILL her..."Terrified, Mary goes down to the cellar and dresses up as Mother, complete with a large butcher knife, and goes to confront Norman in the outfit. It is at this point that things rapidly spiral out of control. Norman refuses to acknowledge Mary standing in front of him in the costume, so Mary instead goes upstairs to the extension phone and tries to talk Norman into hanging up. But she hears on the other end that Norman is only talking to a dial tone... for there is no one on the other line. Mary realizes that Norman has turned completely insane again due to her and Lila's manipulation of events.Losing sight of Norman, Mary is startled when someone grabs her from behind, and she plunges the butcher knife into Dr. Raymond, who has sneaked back into the house to expose Norman's tormentors. Stabbed, Raymond's body falls over the balcony and lands in the foyer. Mary runs downstairs and is confronted by a now deranged Norman, who swears to cover up for "Mother." "Norman, I am not your mother, I am Mary!" she frantically tells him. Norman tries to reach for the knife, but Mary stabs him in the chest. Norman backs Mary down the steps into the basement, and Mary keeps stabbing Norman, once in the palm of each hand. Norman grabs the knife blade firmly with both hands, with Mary still holding onto the other end, which severely cuts Norman's palms even further and a lot of blood pours out. Norman is weak from blood loss and stumbles on a pile of coal, knocking it loose and revealing Lila's body. Mary, distraught at seeing her mother's dead body, attacks him and is killed when the police enter and shoot her dead.At the police station that evening, the sheriff puts together a fairly inaccurate account of the what we know has happened, identifying Mary as the murderer of the teenage boy as well as Toomey, and that she may have killed Lila as well. Having received medical treatment for his wounds, Norman is sitting a short distance away in a daze and goes along with the story... and the movie goes on to its final twist.Norman returns to the Bates house where he shovels coal into the house furnace as well as wanders aimlessly around the house, now alone. A little later, Norman makes a sandwich for himself when a woman walks up the steps. Norman has boiled water and set a place for a meal when there is a knock at the back door; he answers the door to find Emma Spool, from the diner. Ms. Spool sits at the table and Norman gives her a cup of poison tea. Out of the blue, Norman asks her, "Are you really my mother?" She tells him that she is his real mother and that Norma Bates was her sister and his aunt. "I was too young to have a baby, besides I had problems of my own," she tells him, alluding to the fact that she as well was institutionalized. "You had already been put away by the time I got out. So I decided to wait for you." She reveals that she's the one who has been killing anybody who would make trouble for her son. As she sips the poison tea, she begins to gag.Norman suddenly kills her with a blow to the head with the coal shovel. Emma's chair collapses underneath her and she tumbles onto the floor. As she lies dying, Norman closes the curtains to the kitchen and then picks up her body and carries her upstairs to his mother's room. The audience hears the familiar voice of Mother, warning Norman not to go messing with "filthy girls" again. The final shots show Norman (murderously psychotic once again) reopening the Bates Motel and standing in front of the house... waiting.
    

Psycho II

Remember My Name


            This probing and multi-layered investigation of love, sex, and commitment plays off China Blue's, Bobby's, and The Reverend's situations against each other. This probing and multi-layered investigation of love, sex, and commitment plays off China Blue's, Bobby's, and The Reverend's situations against each other. Each's sexual frustrations are extrapolated to the larger and symbolic factors of American life. China Blue is the woman in search of sexual fulfillment that includes love, but in her disappointment, she becomes a prostitute by night, career woman by day. Bobby's marriage has mutated into sexual frustration that is also shown as lack of honesty while husband and wife struggle with commitment gone sour. The Reverend is partly a symbolic representation of Christian confusion about sex and love and partly a representation of China Blue's confused and disappointed search for an authentic man/woman relationship. The story is not that simple, however, as it contains searing inditements of Christian salvation methods, the mixture of frustrated sexual longings and Christian condemnation of sex, and society's confusion about sex, marriage, and authentic loving relationships. As the prostitute, China Blue, that character is complex in her dual life, her unlikely opening of herself to a client (Bobby), and her brutal accessments of human sexual nature while leaving open the hope of "true love." The story will not resolve into these simplifying statements, however, because all the relationships are multi-dimensional.
For example, the hard bitten China Blue is tender and understanding in the strong scene where she is hired to give a dying man a last sexual thrill. That scene rises way above this description because of honesty of the ill man's pain and of China Blue's sensitivity to that pain. In another scene, China Blue is picked up in a limo by a "Wall Street" couple who dally with her while discussing a business deal, equating the couple's removal from real feelings and substituting money games. Her encounters with several male clients explore sexual domination and submission, especially with one (censored*) scene which graphically shows the brutality of a policeman-customer with Blue, but it must be taken as a larger contextual condemnation of violent sex as rape. Bobby appears a typical American male, frustrated in his marriage, longing for honesty, and trying hard to emerge from his teenage ideas into maturity. The price of divorce paid by the children is also referenced in a brief scene; thus, Bobby's divorce is with a large price, and he admits that and other dimensions. The story does not allow any easy or pat answers.
The Reverend is the most difficult character because he appears to harbor genuine caring for China Blue, but has his own twisted sexuality and confused idea of applying his Christianity to contemporary sexual mores. That he is made into a mad man, wanting to kill China Blue with a sharpened dildo, may push the story into horror elements that jar with the rest of the depictions. The final scene where he is killed by China Blue has to be taken symbolically (what will happen when the real police arrive?) in its brutality and unreality, although it does allow China Blue to throw over her "China Blue" life symbolically and be able to bond with Bobby.
Overall, the story is a search for authentic feelings and relationships in a world significantly corrupted by lack of trust and confused Christianity and inauthentic sexuality.I wrote more but the web site lost the rest.
    

Crimes of Passion

North Sea Hijack

Ten Days Wonder


            On board his millionaire father's tanker ship, Nick Kegan (Jeff Bridges) phones his lover, Yvette Malone (Belinda Bauer), and leaves a message on her answering machine. Just then, a family associate named Keifetz (Richard Boone) arrives on the ship by helicopter with a man wrapped in bandages. Inside a doctor's office, the injured man, Arthur Fletcher (Joe Spinell), mutters a confession as an orderly transcribes; Fletcher had assassinated Nick's half-brother, the President of the United States, on February 22, 1960. Fletcher claims that he and one other gunman were hired by a man named Casper, Jr., for the job, after which Fletcher hid his rifle in Room 903 of the Engleson Building in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Fletcher did so because he waned to be able to prove that he was the real killer. Nick inquires about Willie Arnold, the assassin who was determined to be the lone gunman by the Pickering Commission. However, Fletcher dies before he can answer so Nick heads to Philadelphia to look for the rifle.At the Engleson Building, Nick uncovers the weapon, but, just as he and his companions prepare to leave, a young woman on a bicycle (Barbara Richert) rides past their vehicle and pops her chewing gum. In an instant, Nick's associates are shot dead by an unseen sniper. Panicked, Nick runs to call his father, Pa Kegan (John Huston), but instead is connected to John Cerruti (Anthony Perkins), the mastermind behind the Kegan empire. When Nick reports the incident and his whereabouts, Cerruti promises to send help, but the vehicle and the rifle inside are stolen by an unseen person as Nick waits.Sometime later, Nick is chauffeured to Pa Kegan's desert estate, where he is greeted by the Japanese butler, Keith (Toshirô Mifune). Later that evening, Nick sees his emotionally unstable mother, Emma (Dorothy Malone), and is rebuked by his father for leaving the ship. When Nick reports Fletcher's confession and the incident in Philadelphia, his father storms away. However, Pa wakes Nick in the morning with a plan to expose the assassination conspiracy.Sometime later, Pa sends Nick to meet his former political rival and one of the richest men in the U.S., Z. K. Dawson (Sterling Hayden). Driving into Dawson's Tulsa, Oklahoma, ranch, Nick is cornered by WW II tanks. Dawson surfaces from a hatch, arguing that he was not involved with the assassination and implicating the Philadelphia Police Departments Captain Heller and his sidekick, Ray Doty (Michael Thoma).On an airplane to New York City, Nick receives a call from Pa, who reports that they no longer have witnesses to Fletcher's confession; Keifetz was killed and the ship's orderly broke his neck in a fall. Sometime later, Nick meets Doty, who remembers that the man implicated in Fletcher's confession, Casper, Jr., was connected to the Philadelphia police through a club owner named Joe Diamond (Eli Wallach). According to Doty (in a long flashback sequence to the 1950s), Diamond bribed Captain Heller (Brad Dexter) for access into the police station so he could kill Willie Arnold after the presidential assassination. Gangster Gameboy Baker (Ralph Meeker) arranged the assassination because the president did not return favors for the mafia's $2 million campaign contribution and Arnold was their scapegoat.Sometime after his meeting with Doty, Nick returns to New York City and makes love to Yvette. In the throes of passion, the young woman agrees to marry him but later retracts her promise, claiming that Nick is more intimate with her answering machine. When Nick returns home to his apartment, he is attacked by his maid, but he gains the upper hand and has her detained.At lunch the next day, Nick asks Yvette to help him track down Diamond through National Magazine, the magazine for which she works. Soon, Yvette directs Nick to a Cleveland, Ohio, diner, where he meets gangster Irving Mentor (Irving Selbst) and bribes him for information. Mentor reports that Casper, Jr., figured in the assassination because he was connected to a Hollywood studio that lost $50 million when one of their stars killed herself over an affair with the president. Just then, the same woman on the bicycle who popped her gum before the shootings in Philadelphia brings a dead cat into Mentor's diner and Nick chases after her as the restaurant explodes. The unknown woman again gets away.Nick returns to New York City, where Pa debunks Mentor's story and orders Nick to meet with imprisoned gangster Frank Mayo (Tomas Milian), who was given special leave for the interview. When Mayo suggests that Nick is being misled, Nick heads to National Magazine headquarters and learns that Yvette is not actually an employee. Later, the hostile doorman (Joe Ragno) at Yvette's apartment insists that she does not live there.Returning home, Nick finds Keifetz, who admits that he faked his death and encourages Nick to use Cerruti's intelligence connections to find Yvette. At Pa's financial headquarters, Cerutti tells Nick that Yvette was kidnapped by Casper Jr., and recounts a new version of the assassination. According to Cerruti (in another flashback sequence), a Washington, D.C. madam named Lola Comante (Elizabeth Taylor), who obliged the president's fondness for sex, offered him a $2 million campaign contribution from Mayo and his mafia associates. When the president discovered that Pa was behind the deal, he ended their relationship, leaving Pa financially and emotionally devastated.Changing the story yet again, Cerruti confesses that he arranged for Nick to meet a fraudulent Z. K. Dawson in Tulsa. The real Dawson and his daughter, Yvette, were the true perpetrators of the assassination; Yvette, formerly known as Maggie Dawson, was the president's mistress. Nick discounts Cerruti's story and insists on learning Yvette's whereabouts. As Nick fractures Cerruti's arms with a baton, he breaks down. Cerutti claims that Pa spent millions of dollars to support his son's presidency because it benefited him financially, but he was displeased by the president's liberal politics and so it was Pa who had him killed. Pa created an elaborate hoax to confuse Nick, including the employment of an actress named Jenny O'Brien to play the role of Yvette. When Cerruti says that Jenny is "tied up" at Kegan Medical School, Nick leaves... only to find her body in the morgue.Sometime later, Nick confronts his father in his office, but Pa claims that Cerruti masterminded the assassination to augment the Kegan coffers and blackmailed Pa into keeping quiet. When Nick attempts to call the police, Keifetz and an officer break into Pa's office and Nick thinks the men are there to back him up; however, Pa announces that Keifetz is an assassin with orders to kill Nick. Defending himself, Nick grabs the officer and uses his gun to fire at Keifetz, who shoots back at the officer as he dies. Nick chases his father onto the high-rise balcony and finds Pa clinging to the rail of an enormous American flag. As Nick reaches for his father, Pa falls to his death, tearing the flag in half with his body as he calls out to Nick: "put my money in South America!". Nick staggers away, but tells the secretary that he will return because he cannot escape his family ties.Sometime later in the final scene, Nick calls Yvette's answering machine to hear her voice one last time.
    

Winter Kills

Mahogany

The Glory Boys


            In the year 2130, the deep space research ship USS Palomino is on a search for intelligent non-human life on other planets. The crew is comprised of Captain Dan Holland (Robert Forster), Lt. Charles Pizer - the hotshot first officer (Joseph Bottoms); utility droid LF#396, informally known as VINCENT (voice of Roddy McDowall); Dr. Alex Durant (Anthony Perkins) - navigator and science officer; Dr. Kate McCrae (Yvette Mimieux) - medical officer and empath, who maintains a telepathic rapport with VINCENT via her ESP; and embedded journalist Harry Booth (Ernest Borgnine). After five years of fruitless searching, the Palomino is now on her way home for a refit when VINCENT notices a large, swirling blue accretion disk and recommends a course correction. VINCENT identifies the disk as a black hole, the largest discovered in recent history.While the crew nervously discuss the destructive potential of black holes, VINCENT reveals something else: an apparently derelict ship standing off from the black hole's event horizon (line of no return) and somehow able to remain stationary when it almost certainly should have been sucked in. Pizer and Booth are more shocked to see a ship so far from home (when the Palomino should have been the first spaceship to reach this deep in space) than they are to see the black hole. VINCENT identifies the ship as USS Cygnus, with the German scientist Hans Reinhardt (Maximilian Schell) commanding, which disappeared nearly 20 years earlier after failing to heed recall orders after its mission, the same as Palomino's, was declared a failure. (In addition, Booth remembers Reinhardt as arrogant, pompous, and utterly heedless of the value of taxpayers' money.) The Cygnus, however, holds another significance for the crew of Palomino: its XO, Frank McCrae, is Kate's father.Against his better judgment, Holland accepts the recommendations of Pizer and Durant and comes about to rendezvous with Cygnus. As they approach, they come under the influence of the black hole's tremendous gravity. But at their closest approach, the gravity ceases. Durant speculates that something from the Cygnus is responsible, but no one aboard can decide what that might be. The Palomino suddenly falls away from Cygnus and is very nearly sucked into the black hole. Palomino escapes but is badly damaged and now needs spare parts. So when Palomino once again comes under the protective influence of Cygnus, the crew start to look for a way to board--when suddenly Cygnus blazes with light, as if to welcome them.Palomino docks with Cygnus, and the crew, except for Lt. Pizer, disembark. They enter a vestibule, where automatic laser fire destroys their guns and knocks out VINCENT -- he is not seriously damaged, but his combat protocols are now offline. Holland radios Pizer, telling them they have been disarmed, but uninjured, before the crew moves forward. Then they board an automatic cart, part of a ship-wide transportation system, and ride in comfort to Cygnus' conning tower. They ride a hoist to the tower cab, which they find occupied by a crew of "humanoids" with hooded robes and mirrored faceplates. Though the humanoids ignore them, they do get the attention of an oxblood-colored levitating war machine who wordlessly challenges VINCENT to a face-off. Before the two robots can go into combat, Dr. Reinhardt emerges from the shadows and orders them to stand down. He identifies the war machine as Maximilian, his cybernetic master-at-arms.Reinhardt says that he is the only human aboard. Cygnus was disabled by a meteor storm, he and Frank McCrae stayed behind to make repairs while the rest of the crew left Cygnus in an attempt to reach Earth, never to be seen again. The elder McCrae has since passed on. He also admits, or rather avows, that he refused to obey his recall orders because he proposes to reconnoiter the black hole--and pilot his ship "in, through, and beyond" it, to another dimension that he is sure exists.Their conversation is interrupted when a squad of armored "sentry robots" brings in Pizer under arrest. Reinhardt smooths the situation over and then offers to provide spare parts for the Palomino. Pizer and VINCENT take charge of requisitioning the parts they need, and they meet LF#28, informally known as BOB, (voice of Slim Pickens), an old rusted sanitation droid who has languished since the human crew's disappearance.A little later, Holland happens upon several of the humanoids conducting what looks like a funeral for one of their own. He also finds crew quarters still containing furnishings and uniforms, a finding totally inconsistent with a wholesale abandonment of the ship. Elsewhere, Booth discovers the ship's on-board garden--which is as big as a jungle and easily "big enough to feed an army," and notes that its mute groundskeeper is sporting a notable limp. The crew of Palomino reassemble to discuss what they have seen--and while Holland very much wants to accept the spare parts and depart from Cygnus as rapidly as possible, Durant and McCrae are curious about Reinhardt's black-hole reconnaissance plans. Reinhardt launches an experimental probe-ship to reconnoiter the black hole's event horizon, then invites the Palomino crew to a dinner party, where he will explain his research.While Reinhardt entertains the Palomino crew in his spacious, Victorian-inspired dining hall, VINCENT hangs out in a shooting gallery with BOB and several sentry robots, led by their prototype, Captain STAR. BOB explains that STAR had been the master-at-arms until Reinhardt built Maximilian, and is also responsible for much of the abuse BOB has endured over the years. STAR challenges BOB to a shooting match, and wins only because he had distracted BOB by bumping him as he was shooting. BOB then confesses that he let STAR win on purpose, to avoid retaliation. Outraged, VINCENT challenges STAR to a match. Though STAR again cheats, VINCENT still manages to beat him, and STAR is so angered by his defeat that he ends up literally blowing a fuse. BOB, impressed, asks VINCENT to meet him in the parts-storage bay.Inside the dining hall, Reinhardt is eagerly discussing his research with his new guests. Eventually, Maximilian notifies him that the probe-ship has returned, and Reinhardt excuses himself to debrief the pilot. After he has left, Holland and Booth discuss the inconsistencies they have discovered in Reinhardt's story. Holland and Booth are now convinced that Reinhardt is insane, but Durant wants to give him the benefit of the doubt.Now able to speak freely, BOB restores VINCENT's combat protocols to 100%, and tells him the real story: the humanoids are not robots at all, but are in fact the crew of Cygnus, reduced to drone-like mentality by a series of laser prefrontal lobotomies. As the two robots are reconnoitering the sick bay where some maintenance lobotomies are taking place, two sentry robots discover them. VINCENT and BOB destroy them and hide the evidence. They then rejoin Holland, Pizer, and Booth, who have returned to Palomino while Durant and McCrae have remained in the conning tower cab with Reinhardt. BOB tells the three men what really happened to the crew: that when the recall order was refused, Frank McCrae attempted to relieve Reinhardt of his command. Reinhardt accused Mr. McCrae of mutiny and then killed him. He then had his sentry robots capture the rest of the crew and subject them to the prefrontal lobotomies that have turned them into "humanoid robots." Meanwhile, Reinhardt and Maximilian discover the remains of the two sentry robots BOB and VINCENT were forced to destroy, and decide that it is now time to "liquidate" their guests.Holland orders VINCENT to use his ESP to contact McCrae and order her to return to Palomino with or without Durant, and to "tell her why." With that result, McCrae tells Durant that Reinhardt is a murderer, and that the apparent robots who are running the tower-cab systems are really the original crew. Durant removes the faceplate from a crewman, revealing his human face beneath. McCrae is nauseated at the sight-- Maximilian suddenly breaks off from his post and summarily executes Durant. Reinhardt scolds Maximilian, who nevertheless returns to his post. Reinhardt then appeals to McCrae to somehow "protect him from Maximilian"--whereupon McCrae denounces him to his face and says, "If there is any justice at all, the black hole will be your grave!"As a rejoinder, Reinhardt orders McCrae taken by force to sick bay to be lobotomized. Aboard the Palomino, VINCENT tells Holland that Durant is dead and McCrae is being taken to sick bay. Holland, VINCENT, and BOB then rush to the Cygnus' sick bay, rescue McCrae, and destroy half a platoon of sentry robots in a pitched battle, to the horror of Reinhardt, who watches on a video monitor. Reinhardt orders the sentry robots to terminate any unauthorized humanoids on that section of the ship, then instructs Maximilian to let Palomino take off and then destroy it at a distance with the Cygnus laser cannons, while he continues to prepare to dive into the black hole.When the allotted time passes, Booth is eager to write off Holland and McCrae as dead and leave. Pizer refuses, insisting on a rescue attempt. Succumbing to cowardice, Booth feigns an injury so that Pizer will let him return to the ship. Holland, McCrae, and the droids find themselves pinned down by sentry robots as they get closer to the Palomino, but Pizer, armed with twin pistols, manages to outflank the attackers. Booth then tries to take off in the Palomino alone. Endangering the Cygnus and himself due to his poor piloting skills, he nearly hits the conning tower before Cygnus' laser cannons shoot him down-- Palomino then crashes into Cygnus in a near-miss that causes some minor, but critical, damage. The Palomino crew now have only one avenue of escape: the probe-ship.As the Cygnus gets closer to the accretion disk, it is pulverized by a hailstorm of meteors, severely compromising its hull and taking its emergency reactors and null gravity generators offline. The Palomino survivors must dodge a large, red-hot meteor that crashes into the ship and traverses the entire main corridor, and pass through the ship's garden after it, too, is breached, all the while dodging and battling sentry robots.In the conning tower cab, the humanoid crew receive alarming signs that the ship is now subject to structural overload. Reinhardt orders Maximilian to prepare the probe-ship for launch. As Maximilian starts to leave, a seven-foot video monitor tears loose from its fastenings and crashes to the deck, pinning Reinhardt beneath it. In a hint of the poetic justice that he will eventually receive, Reinhardt cries out for help, first to Maximilian, who apparently deserts him to make his/its own escape in the probe-ship, and then to his lobotomized crew, who of course cannot understand him.Maximilian reaches the probe-ship docking hoist first and ambushes the surviving Palmonino crew. After BOB is taken offline and Pizer is knocked out, VINCENT attacks Maximilian, giving Holland, Pizer, and McCrae time to board the probe-ship. VINCENT and Maximilian fight using every gadget at their disposal, culminating with Maximilian catching VINCENT in a bear hug-like grab and attempting to electocute him. VINCENT responds by using his cutting armatures to disable Maximilian's antigravity stabilizers, which sends him spinning out of control through a hull breach and into the black hole.BOB, too weak to function any longer, says his goodbyes to VINCENT, who then reluctantly abandons BOB and boards the probe-ship. Holland lifts off as the Cygnus, now twisted into a lump beyond all recognition, is caught up in the whirlwind of stellar detritus that surrounds the black hole. Holland tries to set a course away from the black hole, but nothing responds. VINCENT soon realizes that the ship has been programmed to follow the course that Reinhardt had set for it: a straight dive down the vortex funnel of the black hole. Unable to alter that course, the three humans decide to "pray that Reinhardt was a genius."The probe-ship takes its straight dive down the black-red vortex and into the black hole. As it does, the crew start to hear voices--Reinhardt's and their own--repeating words spoken long ago, an effect of the tremendous time dilation as space-time is bent.Suddenly the viewpoint shifts to Reinhardt, floating out of control in the reddish vortex of the black hole in the same pose that he assumed when the seven-foot monitor in the tower cab crushed him. Then he catches up with Maximilian--or rather, Maximilian, who has been waiting for him, now takes him in an unbreakable embrace and draws him closer--until Reinhardt becomes Maximilian, which the viewer realizes because Maximilian's charged-coupler optical device is now a simple visor, out of which Reinhardt's frightened eyes suddenly stare. Worse yet, Reinhardt/Maximilian finds himself standing on a basalt promontory over a fire-covered craggy landscape, accompanied by his lobotomized crew. As the view withdraws from Reinhardt/Maximilian and pans down and then forward to show Cygnus' crew and then the fiery lake behind them, the viewer realizes that they are all, quite simply, in hell.Then a church-window-shaped portal opens, and the viewpoint rushes through it and through an arched corridor, through which a robed figure, arms outstretched, floats past the viewer and forward. Next, the viewpoint picks up on the probe-ship, now heading toward the viewer and out of a nebula-like star. Aboard, Holland, Pizer, McCrae, and VINCENT awaken from an apparent trance and realize that they are headed toward a bright light in space--not the harsh, lethal light of a star, but a very pleasant, warm light. They sit back and let the probe ship take them toward the light--which is apparently a white hole: the portal of heaven. The so-called four survivors of the USS Palomino have put the black hole behind them forever.
    

The Black Hole

Someone Behind the Door


            Allan leaves paint cans and thinner next to a heater one night, which causes a fire that kills his father and disfigures his sister, Katherine. He goes hysterically blind. After an eight-month stay in the mental hospital, Allan begins to come to terms with his resentful feelings toward his father and sister, and with the guilt that caused his blindness. Now he can see blurry images. He takes his doctor's suggestion that he talk about his feelings into a tape recorder. He tells the machine about his sister's mysterious new boarder, Harold Dennis, a university student who only speaks in a whisper due to a throat injury. He tells the machine how ambivalent he is about Olive, the woman to whom he was practically engaged before the accident. His finds his resentment over his sister's near-incestuous relationship with their father has not gone away, especially after learning of her work raising money to get the great professor's name on a new wing of the library. Allan learns that Katherine's boyfriend, Eric, had gone to Australia just after the fire, supposedly to make his fortune. Allan wonders if her disfigurement was the main reason he had left.Olive tries to repair her relationship with Allan, but her insistence that he join her in a ride downtown goes badly. He's waiting for her in the car when he gets the idea that a group of students are laughing at him. And then the roomer comes up and whispers to him menacingly. Despite his near-total blindness, he gets behind the wheel and drives off. He soon crashes into a street lamp, but without much damage to himself or the machine. But it's clear he's not well enough to be out in public.Things grow worse for Allan. He's sure the roomer is out to murder him. And who is this roomer anyway? Allan can't really see him. Is he really this Harold Dennis, or is he Eric, the boyfriend supposedly in Australia? His nerves grow worse. When a delivery boy comes to the door, Allan is so frightened that he accidentally slices his hand with a kitchen knife. Later, his fears drive him out into a thunderstorm, where he faints and lays for hours before someone finds him.A doctor making a house call tells Katherine that Allan should go back to the mental hospital. Meanwhile, Allan is dreaming about his childhood, especially about his cruel father and mocking sister.Allan manages to avoid the hospital for the time being. But now he's sure his life is in danger. He calls a cab to get himself out of the house, but the driver turns out to be Eric. He even whispers like the roomer and claims he has a cold.He's still in the house and terrified. But Olive tries to allay his fears. She tells him that the roomer can't be trying to kill him because ... there is no roomer. Olive says that according to Katherine there is no roomer and never has been one. Allan has been imagining his existence. But Allan knows better. The roomer's whispering is on his reel-to-reel tape recorder.In a way, Katherine's lie is no lie. There is no roomer. Katherine has been impersonating him, trying to drive Allan mad. And kill him. She traps him in the pantry and starts a fire. Allan manages to escape and learn the horrible truth about his sister. Even her disfigurement is a lie. Allan rips off the prosthetic patch over her face and finds that her scar is gone. She had had it removed, but wore the patch to make him feel guilty. It turns out his sister hated him for murdering their father. ("Murder" is her word.)Later, we find Allan and Olive happy together. Allan has recovered his eyesight. He receives a letter from his sister. She tells him there really was a Harold Dennis and he had really rented the room. But he called later to explain that his mother had died and that he wouldn't be needing the room after all. That's when she conceived the idea of impersonating him to drive Allan mad. In her letter, she asks for Allan's help and says that owing to his generous nature he's sure to give it. She wants him to speak to her doctors on her behalf and encourage them to release her. She has been incarcerated in the same hospital he had once been in.
    

How Awful About Allan

Twice a Woman


            In 1925, in Bastrop, Texas, Gid Frye (Anthony Perkins) narrates in voice-over as he watches his best friend Johnny (Beau Bridges) kiss Molly Taylor (Blythe Danner) outside a schoolhouse on election day. When Molly leads Ikey, a farmhand, inside to vote, Gid teases Johnny and suggests that he date Sarah Peters. After Johnny leaves, Gid takes a walk with Molly, kisses her, and asks whose girl she is. Molly thinks she is too silly for Gid, commenting that Johnny is silly but only Eddie White (Conard Fowkes), another boyfriend, is as silly as she. After Gid compliments her beauty, she suggests that maybe she is Gid's girl and they embrace. Ikey rides past on his mule and Gid suspects Johnny paid the farmhand to spy. Gid complains that he and Molly must keep their relationship secret.One day, Johnny and Gid work on a farm together, and Gid presents Johnny with a new saddle. Gid's father, Mr. Frye (Ed Binns), forces Gid to plow a field despite his protests. He tells his father he wants to go to the Texas Panhandle with Johnny to find work.Sometime later, Gid visits Molly at her house and asks her to go fishing. Molly says she received a postcard from Johnny, but Gid doesn't care to see it. Kissing Molly in a field, Gid suggests they get married. Resisting the idea, Molly tells Gid she will do anything but marry him. Molly undresses and runs into a pond, but Gid stays behind and she accuses him of being too careful.One evening, Gid visits Sarah Peters (Susan Sarandon), who tends to several illegitimate children inside her home before joining him for a walk. They kiss, and Sarah mentions marriage, but Gid does not respond. At her home, Molly shows Gid her black eye, explaining that her father, Mr. Taylor (Claude Traverse), hit her, but only because she provoked him. Gid apologizes for not swimming with Molly and says he loves her. As she undresses him, he walks away to latch the front door. Upset that he left the room, Molly yells at Gid not to leave her again. Waking up in her bed the next morning, Gid asks Molly why there is no blood on the sheets, and she casually confesses she was not a virgin.Heading to a livestock market, Gid and Johnny ride a train. Gid wants to know if Johnny plans to propose to Molly, conceding that, because Johnny made love to her first, he should have the first chance to marry her. Johnny says he thought Molly lost her virginity to Gid, and the men realize that Eddie must have slept with her first. Gid claims he will marry Molly despite being her third lover.Back in town, Gid asks Molly to accompany him to a dance but she has promised to go with Eddie. At the dance, Johnny fights Eddie, and the sheriff intervenes. Johnny and Gid work on a ranch outside town, but Gid becomes homesick and returns, finding his father ill but unwilling to go to the doctor.One night at Molly's house, Eddie crosses paths with Gid upon his arrival and informs him that Mr. Taylor accidentally drank lye and died. After Eddie leaves, Molly rushes outside to vomit. That night, Gid lies in bed with Molly and comforts her. Johnny sends word to Gid from the ranch, promising to visit Molly soon. One day, Eddie surprises Gid with the news that he and Molly were married one week ago, warning Gid to stay away from her. Mr. Frye consoles his son, asserting that a woman's affections are random and he shouldn't sulk. Gid later finds a suicide note from his father and realizes he has gone to shoot himself.At Mr. Frye's funeral, Molly asks Gid to visit her soon. Sarah approaches after Molly leaves, and Gid takes her hand. Sometime later, he and Sarah marry. Gid describes his new wife as proud and scared, but not generous, and admits he is still in love with Molly. At a secret rendezvous, Molly tells Gid she has always wanted him to be whole hog in love with her. She says she wishes he wouldn't worry so much about what others think, but Gid wonders if he is incapable. They make love, and she tells him she is ready to have a baby and wants Gid to be the father. He agrees to impregnate her. Returning home, Johnny joins Molly and Gid on the Frye farm. Gid helps a cow birth a calf, and Molly kisses the newborn animal. Months later, Molly shows Gid a bump on her abdomen, confirming she is pregnant with his child.Twenty years later in the year 1945, the voice-over narrative shifts its focus to Molly's point of view, as she recounts the events of the past two decades: Eddie died two years after they married; Matt, the son belonging to Molly and Gid, joined the US Navy and went to war in the Pacific; and Molly's second son, Joe, whom Johnny fathered, died in action in Germany a few months ago. Outside her house, Johnny tells Molly that Gid is buying another ranch. After Molly asks for his help planting tomatoes, Johnny says he came to court her and they make love. One night, a tornado hits and Molly retreats to an underground shelter.The next morning, Gid, who is still married to Sarah, checks on Molly and they embrace. Before she prepares breakfast for the two of them, Molly receives a letter from Matt and hides it from Gid. When he comments that their son may be tougher after the war, she cries, aware that Matt hates her for being an adulterer. Molly recalls that her alcoholic father instructed her to marry Eddie because, though he didn't have any money, he drank and would treat her like a wife should be treated. After she was married, everyone in town became aware of her affair with Gid. In town, Molly receives a telegram that Matt has died. Gid drives by, offers her a ride, and takes her home where they mourn in silence.That night, Gid announces to Molly that he cannot see her romantically anymore, though hes still madly in love with her. Molly wants to continue to sleep with him, believing he and Sarah no longer have sex. She asks if Gid is ashamed of her, like Matt was. Gid responds that he is ashamed of them both. Molly wonders why she does not feel shame and says she believes that love justifies adultery. Gid demands to know why she wouldn't marry him years ago. Molly admits she thought Eddie needed her more, but she was wrong. Gid agrees to come by when he can risk it, but Molly angrily sends him away. Molly reads the letter she received from Matt before his death, in which Matt reacts to the news of his brothers death and says he hopes he is killed as well. He writes that he will never forgive her for sleeping with Gid out of wedlock, and promises she will not hear from him again. Molly burns the letter, saying she knew it would break Gid's heart and cause him to stick by her.Sometime later, Molly asks Johnny if he disapproves of her. Johnny says he is not the type of person to be ashamed and assures her they raised a good son. Molly wishes that Gid felt the same way. One day, Gid delivers a puppy to Molly. Afterward, she says she badly wanted to touch him, seeing that he needed it, but did not want to tempt him.In 1964, the voice-over narrative shifts again, this time to Johnny's point of view, as he visits a terminally sick Gid in the hospital and presents him with a prank toy that shoots a fake snake out of a can. Teasing his friend, Gid pretends to have a heart attack. Johnny helps him break out of the hospital early, and Gid asks to go to Molly's house. Two days later, Gid leaves to go back to the hospital despite Molly's attempts to make him stay. While working on a windmill, Gid tells Johnny he might leave Sarah to live with Molly for the remainder of his life, believing it will give him peace. Johnny agrees that it would be good for both of them. Moments later, Gid falls off a ladder on the side of the windmill. As Johnny drives him to the hospital, Gid dies from his wounds.Later, Johnny consoles Molly at her house. When she sees that he is sexually aroused, she tells Johnny not to feel ashamed and they make love. The next day, Johnny asks Molly how she would feel about getting married. She turns him down but says he is welcome in her home every night. Johnny recalls that, in his will, Gid left Johnny one thousand acres and a pickup truck; however, he only left Sarah a pocket watch. Johnny remembers the day when he and Molly kissed outside the schoolhouse and confesses that he sent Ikey to spy on her and Gid.
    

Lovin' Molly

WUSA

The Sins of Dorian Gray

Psycho III


            On a local radio show, the host and D.J. Fran Ambrose (CCH Pounder) is discussing matricide with Dr. Leo Richmond (Warren Frost). The doctor, having written a book titled Mother Killers which details "boys who kill their mothers", talks about a 30-year-old case in which a young teenage boy committed matricide, and then dressed as his mother and went on a murderous rampage. The next caller, requesting to be identified as 'Ed', claims to be personally connected with the show's theme. Ed, who is revealed to be in fact Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) tells Fran and Dr. Richmond that he has killed many people before and that he is "gonna have to do it again".Norman then proceeds to tells a story about one of his murders; A frisky young teenage girl named Holly (Sharen Camille) arrives at the Bates Motel c. the 1950s, with a young Norman (Henry Thomas) sitting on the porch of his gloomy house on the hill overlooking the motel. The flirtatious girl asks to see Norman's room, and when young Norman attends to one of the motel guests, she sneaks into the Bates house. After disrobing, the girl lies in bed for a very nervous Norman, who decides that he had better check on his mother. It appears that Norman's mother is upstate that a "whore" is in the house, and she wants Norman to kill her. When the girl goes looking for Norman in the master bedroom, she sees the mummified remains of his mother Norma Bates. Norman (dressed as his mother) kills the girl by stabbing her to death.In the present day, when Dr. Richmond asks where 'Ed' was when he killed his mother, an agitated Norman hangs up the phone and turns off the radio. It is revealed here that Norman is living in a fancy suburban house somewhere in Fairvale, California. Just then, Connie (Donna Mitchell), Norman's wife, phones him from the hospital where she works and asks if he may pick up his birthday cake from the local bakery since she has taken an evening shift at the hospital. After hanging up the phone, Norman turns the radio back on where he hears Fran telling the listeners that she would like to hear from 'Ed' again. Norman calls the show and talks about his father, who died as a result of an allergic reaction to bee stings, when Norman was six-years-old. Fran reminds the listeners that she is speaking with a man who has killed his mother. Norman chips in saying "plus her boyfriend with her."In another flashback, Norman narrates that he was practically running his family-owned motel by the time he was age 15. He speaks in a eerily close and intimate relationship with his mother Norma (Olivia Hussey) (whom she named her only son after her). He also talks about her mother's perculiarities: "She'd been sweet one moment, and the she'd suddenly turn mean for no reason in the next". Norma Bates (who is implied to suffer from schizophrenia and borderline-personalty disorder among other mental illnesses) would occasionally throw maniacal tantrums and she seemed oblivious to her sexual frankness towards her son. One day, when the two of them are playfully rolling in the grass near the Bates house, Norma realizes that her son is getting sexually aroused, and she punishes him for having "dirty thoughts" by forcing him to put on one of her dresses, and she then smears makeup on his face and locking him in a closet.During a break for 'Ed', Dr. Richmond expresses to Fran his suspicions that Ed is actually Norman Bates. He says that if Norman makes a threat, it should not be taken lightly. Fran tells her station co-workers to check out the records in Fairvale, California to see if Norman has been released from an institution.Norman comes back on the air and continues telling his life story. It seems that Norma is upset about a new freeway being constructed so far from the motel which is making it loose business. She reprimands Norman for not showing sympathy and blames him for her bad bladder, saying un-motherly things like "I should have killed you in my womb. You sure as hell tried to kill me by getting out of it."Fran and the others learn that Norman no longer runs the Bates Motel for it was closed down seven years ago (after the events in Psycho III). He spent a second time at a mental hospital where he met a nurse at the ward where he spent, named Connie, who helped him get better. Norman was then released after being deemed sane once again. He married Connie two years ago and has been living with her ever since.Norman continues his story by saying that some time later his mother met a man named Chet Rudolph (Thomas Schuster), who coaxes Norman into boxing, only to punch him too hard. After inadvertently saying his real name, Norman then talks about committing another murder, that he brought over another young teenage girl, named Gloria, from town and, after kissing in Chet's car, he brought her to the motel and then killed her, and dumping her body into the swamp behind the motel.Eventually, Norman says he must kill his wife Connie because she "let herself get pregnant". He wanted to end the "Bates line", but Connie stopped taking birth control pills. As Norman says, he will kill her with his own hands, "just like the first time." He then tells of a dark and stormy night when he added the poison strychnine to a pitcher of tea and served the poison to his mother and Chet while they were getting intimate in her bedroom. Chet drank the poisoned tea first and then Norma. When Chet began gagging and telling Norma (too late) that Norman just poisoned them, she then tries to attack Norman, who pushes her to the floor and watches them both die.At his mother's funeral and wake at his house, Norman carries his mother's dead both from the open coffin to the cellar, and replaces her empty coffin with weighted down books from the book shelf and closes the coffin lid to keep his secret. He then preserved her body via taxidermy and kept it off-and-on in the cellar for the next 10 years. In the present, Norman tells Fran that the "show's over," and he then hangs up and then goes to meet Connie at the Bates house.Norman drives to the closed down motel and up to his old house long-since abandoned. Norman attacks Connie with a knife. Connie manages to talk Norman out of killing her, and a frustrated Norman begins dousing his home with gasoline and setting everything on fire. Norman, frightened by the images of his mother and some of his many victims, is finally helped out of the burning cellar by Connie. As he walks away from his burning house, he tells Connie, "I'm free."In the final shot, the invisible ghost of Norman's mother is heard screaming in the cellar demanding to be released saying "Get me outta here! Norman!"We hear the crying of a newborn over a fade to black screen.
    

Psycho IV: The Beginning

Edge of Sanity

In the Deep Woods


            Following her mother's death, Kathy Thatcher (Mia Sara) keeps having dreams of a crypt, statues of unknown figures, a cloaked man with no face, a glassblower's studio, and making love to a man with a large scar on his abdomen. She thinks these may be related to the father she never knew, so she decides to fly from Chicago to Bucharest, Romania, to find him. All she has to go on is his name, Paul Alecsandri, a necklace with a pendant of the Cyprian family crest, a photo taken 20 years ago, and an address on the back of the photo.It is August 11, 1989, and Romania is still a police state with a very active secret police. To get support, Kathy first visits the U.S. embassy in Bucharest, where she meets consul Jack Devlin (Jack Coleman). After a rocky start, he agrees to help her look, but not until the next day. As Kathy leaves the embassy, she notices that she's being followed. Frightened, she hails a cab and notices that it's the same driver (Max) who took her from the airport to her hotel. Max (Dezso Garas) also agrees to help her. The first stop is the address on the back of the photo. It turns out to be a nightclub where she meets handsome Romanian musician Grigori Petescu (Robert Reynolds). Grigori says that he'll ask around for information on Paul Alecsandri, if Kathy will meet him for dinner tomorrow. The second stop is a statue that she recognizes from one of her dreams. Next, she also finds the glassblower's studio. She talks to the owner, Anton (Anthony Perkins), who says that he remembers her father, but that he was killed in a car accident many years ago.Devastated to find that her father is dead and the trip is for nothing, Kathy crashes an embassy function in order to talk with Jack Devlin. She tells him of her dreams, but he decides that Kathy isn't quite rational. The next stop is a Red Cross hospital where she seekx records of her father's death. They find them, but the records are incomplete. Kathy is advised by one of the doctors that this is a common occurrence, but she learns at least that Anton's story is true: Paul Alecsandri was struck by a car and died in 1966.That night, Kathy gets a phone call from Anton. He says that he has more to tell her about her father. Kathy learns that her father was active in the reform movement, wanted by the secret police, and that he barely escaped execution. It was only a few weeks after her mother took little Kathy back to the United States that Paul Alecsandri was killed under a very suspicious set of circumstances. Anton directs Kathy to her father's grave. Sure enough: Paul Alecsandri 1919-1966.Dinner with Grigori turns out to be nice, so nice that he wants to make love to Kathy. What Kathy doesn't know is that Grigori is a vampire. He doesn't use fangs; rather, he has a set of teeth on the tip of his tongue. An interesting thing happens at dinner, as Kathy is approached by a gypsy woman who notices her necklace. The gypsy crosses herself and runs away, claiming that the necklace is from the family Cyprian, reputed to be vampires.On her way back to the hotel, the cab driver (not Max) suddenly diverts from the hotel route, takes Kathy to a cemetery, and leads her to the same crypt she saw in one of her dreams, where he locks her inside. She is confronted by a Colonel Masolf. The colonel suspects that Kathy is an enemy of the state, claims that her father doesn't exist and that they are, at this very moment, in the process of digging up his coffin. Fortunately, Jack Devlin suddenly appears and intercedes on Kathy's behalf. Yet, the grave of Paul Alecsandri yields an unholy secret: It contains the body of a female. It appears that Paul Alecsandri might still be alive.Kathy decides that her next stop must be the Cyprian family castle, which, Max tells her, is located in Transylvania, and he drives her there. The tour guide, discusses the history of Cyprian Castle and mentions, "Some of the local villagers believe that Prince Constantine still lives, having been turned into a vampire over 200 years ago." Another unusual thing happens. Kathy sees a statue of Prince Constantine, and he is hooded and dressed exactly like the cloaked man in her dreams. Not only that, but the face on the statue looks like the face of Anton. Could Anton be a descendant of the Cyprian line?Back in Bucharest, Kathy goes out again with Grigori, who seems almost desparate to make love to her. She almost relents, but stops it when she notices the large scar on his abdomen. He is another person from her crazy dreams. Too late, though. The door opens and a group of vampires enter the room. Amongvthem is Anton, who turns out to be the dead Prince Constantine, a.k.a. Kathy's father. Kathy is placed in chains in a dungeon, along with a number of other humans on whom the vampires feed.The vampires are in an uproar. Constantine wants them to release his daughter. The vampires consider her parentage so unusual (vampire father and human mother) that they want to try mating her with one of their own to see if she can produce "human immortals", who they claim would be superpowered and able to go about in the daytime. Grigori is hellbent on procreating with Kathy, but her father manages to release her from captivity and get her to the airport in an attempt to get her out of Romania. For his treason, Constantine is tied to the floor in front of a window. His sentence is to fry in the sunlight in hopes that his suffering will force Kathy to return in a desperate attempt to save him.It works. While sitting on the airplane awaiting takeoff, Kathy begins to feel her father's death throes. She leaves the airplane at the last minute and goes back to the vampires' lair. She tries to enlist Devlin's help, but he betrays her to the police. Kathy overhears, runs away, and enlists Max's help instead. Max procures a windowless truck and a canister of kerosene and, together, Kathy and Max invade the lair.It's almost sunset. The first priority is to find Kathy's father. He is horribly burned, but she is able to release him from his bondage. Constantine is dying. Kathy offers him her blood, which he drinks from her wrist. As she cradles him in her arms, Max picks up an ax and advances on father and daughter. Max is the vampires' Renfield, you see, and he intends to carry out the tribunal's sentence to destroy Constantine. Just as he's about to swing at Constantine, Jack Devlin shows up and wallops Max in the back of head.A melee ensues. The sun sets. The vampires begin to wake up. Kathy and Devlin release all the human victims. Kathy sprinkles kerosene around and starts fires, which the vampires fear even more than stakes. Devlin, Kathy, and her father try to flee. Grigori catches up with Kathy, but at the last moment, in a show of fatherly love, Constantine seizes Grigori and the two of them are plunged into the inferno.In the final scenes, a few days later, Kathy returns to Cyprian Castle in order to say goodbye to her father's ancestry. Devlin follows, they kiss, and we all know where this relationship is going. [Original Synopsis by bj_kuehl]
    

Anthony Perkins

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