Psycho III (1986)

The reason why Psycho III is one of the creepiest of all the horrors from the eighties is watching Jeff Fahey sitting nude in weird lighting covering his private parts with a lamp. Perkins, who also serves as a director on this one, wanted him to be completely nude - but Fahey prefered a lamp. Which make it's more... strange. I've read a lot of reviews calling Psycho III more to a typical slasher, but nothing could be more wrong. This is twisted stuff, man. Norman is back at his motel, but falls in love with a renegade nun. A digusting journalist is efter him and he hires Jeff Fahey to run the motel during the days... so life is really fucked up for Mr Bates.

This is a dark and nasty treat for fans of Psycho. Way more gory than part 2 and a strong cynical approach to humans. Which is okey, because life isn't that easy. Perkins handles the direction extremly well, and shows of a talent for directing that he sadly enough didn't get so many opportunities to do. The script isn't so clever as the two first parts, but there's enough of original ideas and tension to make up quite good little movie. It has more black humour than before, but it's very, very black. Perkins and the scriptwriter spreads out a lot of Hitchcock-refrences through out the movie and it works fine without being parody. The acting is fine, as usual. Diana Scarwid is more than good as the ex-nun who stops by the motel.

Perkins goes berserk with the gore here. It's not a Fulci-movie of course, but it's strong and graphic - and it hurts. The murder in the telephone booth is obvious a tribute to the shower scene, but with more blood. The scene in the toilet is right from a Friday the 13th-movie, but manages to be much more powerful and sadistic. But together with this violence there's a good story and interesting characters, which makes it even better.

One of the strongest ideas with the whole Psycho-series is that we root for Bates. We know he's dangerous, but he's a product his familys insanity and he really means well. It's just that his darn mother shows up whenever he starts being happy. In a better world, Bates and the nun, would have been the perfect couple out there at the desert motel. 

But life's shit and we all know that it will never gonna be alright.