Picking up some 22 years after the events of Hitchcock's "Psycho" and Norman Bates
(Anthony Perkins reprising his original role) has just been released from psychiatric care, apparently cured from his mental illness.
However, the sister of one of Bates victims, Lila Crane-Loomis (Vera Miles also reprising her original role), is outraged and swears revenge. Norman is returned home to his old motel, only to make another enemy when he fires the present manager Mr Toomey (Dennis Franz) who'd been hired by the hospital to run the place in his absense, and had turned it into "adult" motel.
Adjusting back to normal life, he takes on a permanent lodger, a young girl named Mary (Meg Tilley) who works at the local diner. But things start to go peculiar when he starts receiving notes and telephone calls, supposedly from his dead mother.
His therapist (Robert Loggia) does some investigating and finds that Lila is apparently behind the malicious calls, but when she and Mr Toomey both vanish, apparently the victims of a mysterious old lady wielding a knife (sound familiar?), we see that something else is amiss.
Is there another killer at work, or has Norman flipped his lid again? Is Mary involved in Lila's plot? And who is actually behind the malicious calls? One thing is for sure, nothing is as it seems and it also looks like Norman is about to have a relapse and go back to his old ways, if he has not done so already.
Seemingly made to cash in on the slasher movie boom of the early 80s, this is actually a surpsingly good sequel to Hitchcock's original, fans of which should definitely check it out. Even if only for the scene with Meg Tilley in the shower!
