Psycho III

Business as usual at the Bates motel as a runaway nun with the same initials as Marion Crane triggers Norman first into a mental replay of the showerbath murder, then to a tender case of mooncalf love. Nice idea to revive Norman's taxidermy hobby, so that his real mum of Psycho II (an impostor, it transpires) is now stuffed and directing operations from upstairs just as Mother used to, ensuring that the course of true love is anything but smooth. Sadly, the slashings have become distinctly déjà vu, and the plot is as full of holes as Janet Leigh's corpse. As Norman, Perkins gives another superb exhibition of controlled hysteria, with the fetching hint of a macabre wink lurking in the background; but in his role as director (his debut), he sets too much store by Hitchcock's Catholic apologists. Kicking off with a suicidal nun in a recreation of the belltower scene from Vertigo, he lumbers the film with some religious ironies which simply get in the way. It's not unenjoyable, but it isn't half the pastiche that Psycho II was.