D.J. Fran Ambrose is the host of a radio talk show that deals with controversial subjects, with the current one being about matricide: murdering one's mother. Her special guest is Dr. Leo Richmond, a specialist in the field who first became involved with it 30 years before when he examined a young man who'd murdered his mother and then turned himself into her psychologically, proceeding to kill more people as a result. After talking with another young man who'd recently killed his mother, the two of them get a call from a mysterious man who only identifies himself as "Ed" and claims to be a "senior member" of Dr. Richmond's sphere of mother killers. Little do they know that the man they're talking to is none other than Norman Bates, out of the asylum and living in a nice house near Fairvale. He reveals that he's killed many people before and now, he's going to have to do it again. He then proceeds to recount his past history, starting with the first person he killed after his mother's death in the 50's, his father's death and funeral, and, most significantly, his tortured and uncomfortably intimate relationship with his mother, who could unexpectedly swing from sweet and loving to emotionally and physically cruel the next. As the show goes on, Dr. Richmond suspects Norman's true identity as he's the psychiatrist who examined him after he murdered Marion Crane in 1960 and warns Fran and her coworkers that any threat by Norman shouldn't be taken lightly. Fran tells them to check and see if Norman has been released from another institution recently while she and Richmond keep him talking. Norman continues telling his story, but Richmond's antagonistic way of questioning him begins to threaten to make him hang up, prompting Fran to tell him not to talk anymore. Richmond then leaves in anger at the idea that Fran is going to try to talk a psychotic murderer with help from a professional, especially when someone's life is at stake. At the same time, Fran is told that the Bates Motel has been closed for years now and Norman, after letting his real name slip, tells her that he's now married to Connie, a woman who was his psychiatrist in the institution where he was taken after his most recent string of murders. She's the one he intends to murder, for she allowed herself to become pregnant, despite his desire to be the last of the "Bates line" and his fear that any child conceived by them would be mentally ill like himself. And just like the murder of his mother, this time, it will be with his own hands.
Throughout his story, the question on everyone's minds is who Norman is planning to kill and, most importantly, why he would risk losing the seemingly great life he now has? As it turns out, it's his wife, Connie, who he plans to murder, and there was a hint about that early on when she called him to tell him what's going on with his birthday cake (the main story takes place on his birthday) and his voice when he talked to her was rather empty and emotionless, in spite of some "good news" she'd given him earlier. His reason for killing her is a simple one: she let herself become pregnant, even though he made it clear before they were married that he didn't want any children for fear that they might inherit his psychosis. Now, it becomes apparent that Norman, as we've always known him to be, is actually a frightened, emotionally tortured man rather than a sinister murderer. Before he reveals his reason to Fran Ambrose, he tells her that after his most recent spate of murders several years before, he wanted to either be committed permanently or be executed in order to protect the world from, "This aging bad seed called Norman Bates." He believes in the theory that psychopathy is a genetic condition, which is why, when he tells Fran of Connie's pregnancy, he's almost brought to tears by it, saying that she didn't tell him that she'd stopped taking birth control pills because, "She didn't want me to stop making love to her. And that's what we called it: making love. But it wasn't meant to bring forth another monster." He's also afraid that he wouldn't be able to be a loving father to it, telling Fran, "I might be well now but I'm not cured. I'll never be cured," and asking Connie herself, "What if I can't love it?" When he tells her this, Fran suggests that he called in because he might unconsciously want her to stop him but Norman insists that his mind is made up, although he does tell her that talking with her has helped with the empty feeling he'd had before (maybe he just needed somebody objective to open up to). And he makes one other thing clear: this death will be by his hands alone, with no influence from his mother. With that, he hangs up on Fran, has Connie meet him at the motel and house, drags her inside the latter, and prepares to kill her with a knife he had stored in his mother's bedroom closet. However, he finds it difficult to do so, and when he finally does corner Connie in the cellar and attempts to stab her, she assures him that he's not the murderous person he once was, that she'll be the antithesis of Mrs. Bates to their baby, and that it will love him. This prompts Norman to drop the knife, get his wife out of the house, and get rid of the past once and for all by burning the house down, during which he purges his inner demons by powering through the tumultuous flashbacks he has. When it's all said and done, Norman can finally be assured that he's free and he heads off with his wife to truly begin the rest of his life. This is why I'm glad they never did a proposed fifth movie revolving around the child; it's satisfying to see Norman finally get closure and peace of mind.
As much as I do like Psycho IV, it's kind of hard for me to watch because of the scenes between the young Norman and his mother. You have that moment where, during his father's funeral, Mrs. Bates unexpectedly tickles little Norman's (Ryan Finnigan) side, causing him to giggle out loud and then she slaps him, admonishing him, "Don't you have any respect for the dead?!" And then, that's counterbalanced by a much happier scene between the two of them in the woods near the house where they go out to have a picnic and they have fun, even when it starts raining. Scenes like this, especially the part where they're twirling around while holding each other's hands, as the adult Norman remarks, "I know that in the cosmic scheme of things, little boys are small. But some days... little boys can be giants," makes the harsher, more abusive moments between them even more disturbing. This leads us to Henry Thomas' performance as the teenage Norman who, upon re-watching the film, doesn't have a lot of dialogue but does a superlative job regardless. He plays Norman in two different parts of his life: when his mother was alive and the first couple of years after he killed her. In the former, we see Norman as a dutiful son who more or less worships his mother and does love her, despite the horrible things she often does to him. However, it's made clear that, because she's the only female in his life, he's been developing rather... unorthodox feelings towards her as he's entered puberty. Those scenes are especially uncomfortable to watch, like when his mother forces him to get in bed with her and hold her when she's scared by a thunderstorm, after she's forced him to take off his wet clothes, leaving him in only his underwear. As he's sitting there with her, he realizes, as the adult Norman says, he's gotten a little too big for his britches and quickly ducks out of her room and into his own. Even worse is a moment where she makes him wipe orange-flower water on her because it's hot and, after she appears to be aroused by it, she rolls around on the floor with him, tickling him, and he ends up on top of her. That image itself is just wrong but it's made even worse when he gets aroused, which sets her off in a bad way. Watching him take her verbal and physical abuse, like when she makes him throw out some pornography she founds in his room while he's still in his underwear, saying that the rain might wash the dirt off him, and when she puts a dress on him and shoves him into the closet after she felt his erection, calling him a little girl and saying all his penis is good for is making "wee-wee," is very hard to watch, but Norman simply takes it until she brings home her boyfriend, Chet. Her ignoring him in favor of Chet, the both of them treating him like crap, and their endless marathons of sex push him over the edge to where he ultimately poisons them.
In the flashbacks that take place in the years following his mother's death, Henry Thomas is basically playing a younger and more reserved version of Anthony Perkins' portrayal in the original. We see Norman when he gets his first sexual kicks from a teenage girl who tries to get him in the sack, his timid nature and fear of what'll happen if his mother "catches" them in the house, and the first time her persona takes him over completely, making him stab the girl to death while wearing his mother's clothes and wig. It's suggested that he felt he might have been able to do it in the parlor behind the motel office, which he tried to get her to go into, and didn't want her to go up to the house because he was afraid that it would be easier for him to succumb to Mother up there, which is what does happen. Later in the film, you see a flashback of him in a car with an older woman and the two of them are making out very passionately. This gives us a rare glimpse of Norman being sexually aggressive; in fact, she says that he's got a tongue like an elephant's memory. For me, that scene and comment says that Norman truly wants to have normal, healthy relationships with women and doesn't want to hurt anybody but, because of the Mother persona, he's unable to do so. Sure enough, when Norman's making out with this woman, he makes an excuse to get out of the car by saying that he has to give his mother her meds, feeling his other persona beginning to go wild with jealousy. You can hear "them" arguing with each other up at the house and, after it stops, you see it's because Mother overruled Norman again and decided to get rid of the woman through him. This is the one instance in this film where you hear her voice (Alice Hirson) come out of Thomas' mouth and, as it was with Perkins before, it's more than a little unnerving.
This is the only time we ever get to see what Norma Bates was like when she was alive and, my God, did they hit the nail on the head when they got Olivia Hussey to play her! There's no other way to describe her performance than as the mother from hell. It's clear that she has a lot of mental illnesses, such as possibly schizophrenia and a type of personality disorder, and, as Norman himself tells Fran Ambrose and Dr. Richmond, what's scary about it is how
unpredictable she is. One minute, she's warm and loving and then the next, she's being incredibly
cruel for no reason (Hussey said she based her performance on a friend of hers who was similarly mentally ill). For instance, when she discovers that pornography in Norman's room, she smacks him with it, calling him a dirty little pig, and sends him out in the rain in his underwear to throw them in the garbage, continuing to call him a pig, even saying, "Dirty as your whole whore-mongering sex!" at one point... and then, after he throws them away, he turns around to see her standing there with a raincoat for him, her demeanor now softer and sweeter, saying, "Some day I'm going to wish I'd been firmer with you." As you might expect, anything she finds unclean or overly sexual really gets under Norma's skin. She's so sexually repressed (Norman says that she was very frigid towards his father), in fact, that she doesn't seem to realize that her more intimate interactions with her son are causing him to become aroused, which he can't help since she's the only woman in his entire life and which she horribly punishes him for. Like I said, that scene where she symbolically castrates him for getting a hard-on while he was lying on top of her by putting a dress on him, smearing lipstick on his face, calling him a little girl, and locking him in the closet, giving him a pitcher to pee in, as she says, "You're gonna stay locked in there until you learn not to say 'no' to your mother when she tells you you're a girl," is so hard to watch. However, the most appalling thing she does to Norman is when she becomes angry at the news that a new freeway is going to be built far away from the motel, which will cause them to lose business, and she takes it out on him. When he asks why she's hitting him with the newspaper when she comes storming out of the house while he's minding his own business, smacking dust out of a carpet, she yells, "Who else can I hit?!" and, after she rants about the road, proceeds to unleash some type of pent up resentment she's always felt towards him: "What the hell good are you if you can't show a little sympathy?", You just know how to cause trouble. Because of you, my bladder's damaged. I can't hold water. That's why I'm always running to the toilet! Did you know that?!", and, worst of all, "I was fine until I gave birth to you. You caused a lot of damage. I should have gotten rid of you the day I found out I was gonna have you. Not one thing you've ever said or done has made all I've gone through with you worthwhile! Not one blessed thing! I should have killed you in my womb. You sure as hell tried to kill me getting out of it!"
This apparent resentment can be seen under the surface in other scenes, like when she talks about how she's dying of the extreme heat and that, "You'll wish you'd been better to me," she asks him if her skin disgusts him when he's hesitant to use his fingers to rub water on her, and she says, "This is one morning you're not going to ruin for me." Her relationship with Chet Rudolph is infuriating for a couple of reasons. One is the way the two of them treat Norman, with Norma almost seeming to take pleasure in rubbing Chet in his face when she makes it clear that he's going to work at the motel and live in her house (the way she looks at Norman when Chet comes down into the kitchen and kisses her neck is one that's meant to irritate him), as well as when Chet belittles him, with the two of them laughing at him after Chet knocks Norman down during the boxing lesson. Her acting that way is possibly something else that could stem from her aforementioned resentment towards Norman. Even worse than that, though, is the sheer hypocrisy of it all: she gets on to Norman for his interests in sex, women, and the like, but it's okay for her to go out to a bar, meet Chet, take him home, and let him drill her constantly. Taking that into account, it's not hard to understand why this was what finally pushed Norman over the edge. And speaking of which, instead of being shocked, horrified, or hurt when he realizes her has poisoned the two of them, Norma's instant reaction is rage and she's obviously out for Norman's blood, in spit of her weakening condition. I think that action speaks volumes.
Out of all the sequels, this is the one that feels
the closest to the original Psycho to me, which is understandable since they brought back Joseph Stefano to pen the script. He, in turn, decided to virtually ignore the two previous films, which he didn't like, and looked back to the original for inspiration. As a result, I think the movie has much more in common with it than Psycho II and III which, as much as I really like the former and feel that the latter does have its merits, felt more of the 80's time period and the slasher craze, particularly the latter. While the main story of this film is set in 1990, there's very little that really pins it to that time aside from the
phones, the more modern radio equipment in Fran's studio, and the like. Also, a good chunk of the film takes place in the two decades leading up to the original's timeframe, which is where it feels the closest to it. In those sections, I feel that the movie is just a few notches higher than the original's seedy feel, with the same notion of casual sexual activity and rather deviant behavior happening during this era that's often remembered as rather prim and proper; granted, here we actually see it, whereas it was mainly implied in the original, but the feeling is still the same, even when Chet and Norma are really going at it. Another connection between the two is the relative lack of graphic violence. This is definitely the least gory of the sequels, with the only really bloody part being the first murder we see young Norman commit, while the other killings are bloodless strangulations and poisonings. It's the same way in the original, with the shower scene being quite gruesome for the time and the only other murder being not nearly as graphic. And finally, instead of having Sheriff Hunt, Ralph Statler, or any of the surviving characters from the previous two films make a return appearance, the one returning character in the main story other than Norman, Dr. Richmond, is from the original. What's more, most of the story centers around characters who've been dead for a while but we've always known about (Norma Bates, her lover, and Norman's other implied victims before his murder of Marion Crane), Norman's attempt to bring his mother back to life that was detailed at the end of the original, and the locations of the house and motel leading up to the events of the first film.My favorite callback is the way Stefano shows us that Cabin 1 in the motel had a lot of history to it long before Marion Crane spent her last, fatal night there. According to Norman, the hole in the back wall of the parlor was made by his father, no doubt to spy on women who stayed there (he's more than likely the source of Norman's own voyeuristic tendencies), and it's through that hole where Norman, after coming home from school early one day, sees his mother absolutely losing her mind and going on a destructive rampage for no reason. This is likely when Norman first understood how sick his mother was. More significantly, Cabin 1 is where he watches his mother have sex with Chet for the first time after she brings him home from the bar he used to work at. Speaking of the parlor, we learn that's the place where he tried to get intimate with Emily before he got distracted and she took the opportunity to sneak up to his house.
While most of the callbacks to the original are very inspired, there are times where, like Psycho III, where the movie is reminiscent of it a bit too much. Unlike that film, though, it's not as blatant and is mainly confined to lines of dialogue from the original that are recycled. The one that really stuck out to me is when Dr. Richmond repeats his line of matricide being the most unbearable crime of all, especially for the son who commits it, and later on, Norman says almost the exact same line. Another repeat from the original is when young Norman yells, "Mother! Oh, God, Mother! Blood! Blood!", after his first murder (which, after being heard in Psycho III as well, is really getting old), as well as when Norman mentions, "My trusty umbrella," when he meets up with Connie at the motel. It's an odd thing to do, too, because I think it had stopped raining by that point, meaning that Stefano only wrote for him to have it so he could repeat the line. The one that I find the strangest is when both young and adult Norman use the phrase, "Not inordinately," with the former saying it twice during the first scene with. What's strange about that line is, while it was said in the original, it was Marion Crane who said it, not Norman. Odd mistake considering that it's from the same writer as the original, although I cut him some slack since it had been 30 years. Like I said, not as egregious as the previous movie but still borderline to me.
Stefano's decision to almost completely ignore the events of the past two films, particularly the subplot with Ms. Spool, does make for a confusing continuity. There are hints that it's still acknowledging that the previous films did happen, as Norman mentions that he was recommitted after a more recent spate of murders, but the timeline doesn't add up, as he says the last murders took place four years ago. There were four years between the productions of Psycho III and IV but, in context, Psycho III takes place only a month after the events of II, which is set in 1982; therefore, Norman should have said that the last murders happened eight years ago. But, given Stefano's open dislike for the previous movies, I hardly think he paid that much attention to their details in the timeline when he wrote this script. Plus, isn't it a little hard to swallow that Norman would be released again after the people he killed upon being let out the first time, regardless of the pull his psychiatrist-turned-wife might have? As for Ms. Spool's part in the story, her having murdered Norman's father out of a jealous rage is completely ignored here and Norman instead tells Fran Ambrose and Dr. Richmond that he was stung to death by bees. You could argue that his already warped state of mind, combined with what he went through in the last two movies, Norman doesn't quite know what to believe anymore and is just going with what he wants to see as the truth, but still, the continuity here does have some apparent, confusing holes in it.
Like its predecessors, Psycho IV is very well-shot by Mick Garris and his cinematographer, Rodney Charters. Even though it was made for cable, it has the slick look of a nicely-budgeted studio movie, with some top notch set design and a very rich lighting and color palette. The scenes in Norman's kitchen are lit well and have a nice, orange color in the close-ups on his face, especially near the end when he becomes distraught as he tells Fran that his wife allowed herself to become pregnant, but my favorite shots take place in the flashbacks to the timeframe after he killed his mother. The first scene where you see Henry Thomas looks gorgeous, with the rich colors of the motel lights, bathing the scene in orange, pink, and blue, and the colors from the constantly bursting fireworks, which make Emily's murder look surprisingly beautiful. The same goes for Norman's later murder of the older woman, Gloria, which has deep red colors cast over it, most prominently, again, in the close-ups of his face. Something else that connects this movie firmly to the original is how, as in that film, all of the locations are normal, average-looking, everyday places, save for the Bates house, which, conversely, served as the main setting of the previous films. All of the sets look really good, like Norman's suburban house, the cold, gray-colored interiors of Fran's radio station and the asylum where Connie works, and, most interestingly of all, we get to see the Bates Motel and the house both when they were in their prime and as old, abandoned husks of buildings ready to be torn down. It's odd seeing the house with a fresh coat of paint on it (I never expected it to be yellow) and for the interiors to be full of life and then, at the end, seeing it rundown and abandoned, filled with cobwebs, dust, and cracks in the wood (the dark lighting in that sequence is very well-done too). And, like Cabin 1 and the motel parlor, I like that Stefano gives other parts of the house some history. Not only is Norma's bedroom where Norman poisoned her and Chet but it's also where he committed his first murder after he developed his split-personality, with the same closet that his mother locked him being where he kept the wig and butcher knife. I also like the idea that the fruit cellar where Norman kept his mother's corpse is also the place where she finally succumbed to the strychnine after he dragged her down there.
Garris also creates some noteworthy camera shots and movements and deals with the film's composition in an interesting way too. The opening credits are peppered with quick, random close-ups of various things like a knife being pulled out of a holder and being used to cut a tomato in half, Fran Ambrose lighting a cigarette, the equipment in the studio being turned on for the show, a clock in the studio ticking towards show-time, blood going down a sink drain that's very reminiscent of a shot in the shower scene (incidentally, this is the only sequel to not feature footage from it), a suture being sewn through white, dead flesh, and a birthday cake being decorated with the
signature, "Happy Birthday, Norman." After the opening credits end, the first thing we see is another close-up, this time of Raymond Linette's mouth as he described how he murdered his mother, and there are more significant ones throughout the film, most notably when a memory causes Norman to become so tense with anger that he cracks an apple clean in half with his hands. Some interesting camera movements include the introductory shot of Norman in his kitchen, where the camera slowly moves toward him as he has back to it and turns around right when it gets up to the back of his head, giving us a close-up of his face, and a shot where the camera goes around and around the characters as Dr. Richmond argues with the people at the radio station about ratings meaning more than lives. Most fascinating, though, is how Garris, like Anthony Perkins himself did in his direction of Psycho III, lets us get into Norman's mind so we can experience the flashbacks and his personal demons the way he does. There are times where the adult Norman is present in the flashbacks, like when he's standing behind his father's coffin during the funeral scene or appears to be standing in his mother's bedroom, watching her and Chet have wild sex, and when he remembers the good memory of the picnic he and his mother had in the woods near the house, the light in the kitchen changes and we see him looking out the window at the scene as it begins. It gets across that he's not just remembering them but rather reliving them, as is made clear when the flashback of young Norman being locked in the closet dissolves on a close-up of him looking through the crack of the door to him in the present laying on the floor, with Henry Thomas' pleading voice fading into Perkins' as he's saying the same thing. And finally, during the finale as he sets fire to the house, we get to literally see Norman purging himself of his inner demons as he sees visions of the people he murdered, including Chet and his mother, coming back to haunt him and he manages to get around them in various ways. The last one is the most significant, where he sees his mother's skeleton in a rocking chair in the fruit cellar and it bursts into flames before disappearing. And the film ends on a shot of that now empty rocking chair, as Norma's old crone voice can be heard yelling at Norman to let her out when the cellar doors slam shut, signifying that he's finally locked her away for good.
Like I said, the murders in Psycho IV are very akin to those in the original in that they're not very bloody and that the bloodiest one is the first one, where young Norman knifes Emily (Sharen Camille) to death in his mother's bedroom. Garris intended for it to be very similar to the shower scene, with a long buildup to it as Emily sneaks into Norman's house, he follows her after realizing what she's done, they end up in his bedroom where she gets naked and crawls into his bed, he fondles her a bit, and then, he goes to "check on" his mother. At this point, the other side of his personality wants her gone and demands that he kill her, which is when he takes one of her dresses out of the wardrobe (the exact same one used in Psycho III), walks into the closet as Emily sneaks into the room, feeling that he's alone in there, and mistakes Norma's corpse lying in bed as him feigning sleeping. As she tries to get a reaction out of the figure in the bed, Norman emerges from the closet in the dress and wig, brandishing the knife, and sneaks up behind her, getting to her right when the light from the fireworks outside reveal that the figure is a corpse. That's when she turns around to see Norman and screams as he attacks, stabbing her furiously, as the fireworks explode in the sky outside. Like the shower scene, it's done in very quick cuts, with reaction shots of her screaming, him stabbing, close-ups of the blood-covered knife, and the fireworks. Garris' one bit of deep meaning for the film comes here, as he says that this is a form of sexual release for Norman, with the blood standing in for the appropriate fluid that he can't produce. Interestingly, the fireworks and the lighting they create in the room make the scene feel like a dark take on the love scene between Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in Alfred Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief. And after it's all done, you see Emily's dead body with the knife sticking out of her, as young Norman yells, "Mother! Oh, God, Mother! Blood! Blood!" (Does he say that every time he kills someone?)
Aside from that fairly blood spectacle, there are also some other, minor makeup effects that manage to be wince-inducing themselves, like the aforementioned random shot of a complete white, dead section of flesh being sewn up. It might be onscreen for a fraction of a second but it's startling nevertheless and you see enough of it to make you go, "Ew," especially me since pale, lifeless skin like that of a corpse always makes my skin crawl. That's a lead-up to the shot of Norma's mummified corpse in the aforementioned scene, which is creepy in how emaciated and, worst of all, fresh it looks since it had been only a few years since Norman killed her at that point. Another one that gets me is when Norman, after he hangs following that flashback of his first post-Mother murder, ends up cutting his thumb open and has to put it in the running water of the sink, which is where that shot of the drips of blood running down the sink during the opening credits came from. You also see a shot of Norman's father's face during the funeral scene, although I don't remember the makeup effect meant to represent his being stung to death by bees being that disturbing, but there is another shot of Norman sewing up his mother's midsection after stealing her corpse and, while it's not graphic at all, the idea is creepy enough.
The second murder, that of Gloria (Bobbi Evors), the older woman who Norman is seen making out with in her car by the motel, is the most bloodless of them all. After a passionate bit of tongue-wrestling, Norman excuses himself to give his mother some medication, promising to take Gloria someplace private when he gets back. As she waits for him, Gloria gives herself a touchup and hears the sounds of Norman arguing with his mother but doesn't think anything about it... until he slips into the backseat of the car, throws a thin rope around her neck, pulls her head back, and, in his Mother voice, yells, "Drive, whore!" He has her drive to the swamp behind the motel and, after apparently killing her, drags her body out of the car and prepares to put her in the trunk, when she takes a breath and struggles to get away. Norman is forced to overpower her and strangle her again until she seems to expire. After checking for a pulse and appearing to find one, Norman puts Gloria's body in the trunk, closes it, and pushes it off into the water. But, as he watches it sink, pounding can be heard from inside the trunk as it becomes clear Gloria still isn't dead and she can be heard screaming as the car submerges completely, with Norman watching nervously. I'm not sure if that was meant to be real or something Norman imagined since he seemed confident she was dead before he put her in and appeared to thoroughly strangle her beforehand. Maybe he sucks at checking for a pulse? Either way, the idea of her still being alive and slowly drowning inside the trunk is more unsettling than any graphic murder could have been.
The climax begins when Connie arrives at the motel to meet up with Norman, who appears acting very sinisterly and drags her forcefully by her arm up the stairs, into the house. After a little talk about whether or not Norman would be capable of loving a child, he drags her upstairs, into his mother's old bedroom. He lets go of her and tells her to stay, but when she tries to walk out, he grabs her and shoves her against the wall, commenting, "You don't trust me. All that faith, and no potatoes." (Is that some old-time saying I've never heard before?) He goes into the closet
and takes out the butcher knife he kept under the floor, horrifying Connie when she sees him brandishing it, as she realizes he means to kill her. He walks up to her with it, preparing to slice her throat, but struggles with himself and hesitates, giving Connie time to run out the door and down the stairs. He chases after her and a
little game of cat and mouse follows, as he looks out the door to see that she didn't go out (I don't know why she didn't) and searches the house for her. Connie is shown to have been hiding in a nearby hallway and she attempts to slip out the door that Norman left open, only for the wind to blow it shut, alerting him. She runs down into the fruit cellar and tries to slip out the storm doors leading outside, when Norman opens them up and corners Connie. Again, it looks like he's about to kill her but she manages to make him realize that he's not the killer he used to be and that their baby won't be one either because of how he's changed and who she is. He drops the knife and has a heartwarming embrace with his wife.
You wouldn't expect a Psycho movie to have a finale where someone's trying to escape a burning building, which feels more fitting for a big action movie, but that's exactly how Norman's story ends. Norman sends Connie down to the car and proceeds to get rid of the past by pouring gasoline in every corner of the house and setting it on fire. Fittingly, he ignites his mother's bedroom first and then does the same to his own bedroom, but Norman's old memories come back to haunt him as he goes through the house. To make matters worse, some burning beams fall from the ceiling downstairs and block the front door. Norman sees this as he heads down the stairs and is distracted by visions of Gloria and his mother walking up the stairs towards, the latter causing him to fall through the railing, hurting his leg. While Connie screams for Norman outside and frantically runs about the property, screaming for help, he tumbles down into the fruit cellar, where he's greeted by a vision of his mother's mummified corpse in a rocking chair, which falls on top of him. He tosses it aside and it bursts into flames before vanishing, giving him the chance to escape through the storm doors, where Connie runs to him and helps him get away from the house, which is now completely engulfed in flames. The movie ends with Norman and Connie standing on the steps leading up to the house's charred remains, with Norman proclaiming himself to be free after the two of them look back at it and they go off to live theirs lives.
Here's the most concrete connection between Psycho IV and the original: at least 50% of the music is Bernard Herrmann's original score, making this the only sequel to feature any of it, aside from Psycho II's opening recap of the shower scene. Herrmann's themes are used well and are placed in appropriate spots throughout the film, such as the main title theme for the opening and closing credits, the shower scene's screeching violins for two of the murders, the unsettling theme from the scene where Norman watches Marion Crane through the peephole for when he sees his mother bring Chet home and they go into Cabin 1, and so on. However, while it's nice to hear this classic music again, it sounds like it's been re-orchestrated, possibly by the composer of the film's new score, Graeme Revell. That's not uncommon, as Jerry Goldsmith had to do the same for Herrmann's music in the aforementioned recap of the shower scene in the first sequel, but I also think that this version of the music has ended up on the official soundtrack releases of the original movie's score. I bought that on CD when I was 15 and was surprised to hear that the main theme was much slower than the lightning-fast version that plays over the opening credits, as well as that the screeching violins during the shower scene were slowed down and the strings for the aftermath went by much quicker, which is the way they sound here. In any case, Revell's new music for the film attempts to stay in the same mold as Herrmann's, sounding bigger and grander than typical modern music, and it does work for the most part. None of the individual themes stuck out to me that much (which is sometimes the case with Revell's work) but they fit their scenes well, like the very quick, urgent piece that plays when Norma and Chet attack Norman upon realizing he poisoned them, the suspenseful music when Norman chases Connie through the house, heartwarming music for the good moments between little Norman and his mother, when he decides to put his faith in Connie and their child, and the moment between them after the house has burned, and an exciting theme when he's trying to escape the burning house.
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