MovieChat Forums > Psycho (1960) Discussion > Lila *Spoilers*

Lila Spoilers

posted 5 months ago by Megan254 (380)
10 replies | jump to latest

When watching this film, it's hard for me to like Lila after seeing what she turns into in Psycho II. Before seeing the sequel, I felt bad for Lila. She was scared, and wanting to find her sister and best friend. Then in the sequel, they turned her worse than Norman, in my opinion. Because she actually WANTED someone to get killed so Norman would be locked up again. Whereas Norman didn't want to hurt anybody, and didn't know he was hurting anyone. So it's hard for me to feel sympathy for Lila anymore in the original. Am I alone here?

[–] DoctorThirteen (15297) 5 months ago

I ignore the sequels when I watch this. As far as I'm concerned it exists in its own little bubble. So Lila is fine.

[–] Megan254 (380) 5 months ago

Really? Hmm, I love the sequels, so that's hard for me to do. I guess you can ignore them since the Halloween series has multiple universes, LOL.

[–] roger1 (4046) 5 months ago

Really? Hmm, I love the sequels, so that's hard for me to do. I guess you can ignore them since the Halloween series has multiple universes, LOL.

---

Yes, it is a battle that can never be won in a movie business that has given us multiple sequels to Psycho, Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street and then REMADE those movies and THEN given us sequels to those movies.
(However, there has been no remake of Psycho II yet -- I think Psycho is at once too sancrosanct and too "old fashioned" to generate sequels anymore.)

Nonetheless, I have little respect for Psycho II and I do NOT accept its take on "what happened to Lila Crane" in the years after. Its basically fan fiction and it indeed creates a "less likeable" Lila (who, lets face it, didn't get much depth in the original) who is engineering exactly the kind of flimsy mystery scheme that Hitchcock would have rejected in his own films.

In short, there is only one "Lila Crane" in the annals of film history, and it is the one in the original. However, I do give credit to Vera Miles in Psycho II in this regard: Anthony Perkins was still thin and LOOKED good in Psycho II, but his performance came nowhere near the one in the original -- he was rather not the same actor anymore in voice or manner. (Take a look at Perkins work in the parlor scene with Janet Leigh for a great comparispon.)

BUT: Vera Miles DID manage to "keep Lila going" -- she seemed EXACTLY like the woman back in 1960, just given a greater sense of madness borne of her sister's death. And unfortunately, given a really dumb plot line this time around.

Sidebar: Psycho II pretty much as the plot of William Castle's Strait-Jacket of 1964: psycho killer released into society, murders begin again. (Joan Crawford this time, and Strait-Jacket is not a sequel.) Castle was the "low rent Hitchocck" of his era; but Strait-Jacket had a script by Robert Bloch -- who wrote the NOVEL of Psycho. Alas, Bloch wasn't a very good screenwriter

CONT

[–] roger1 (4046) 5 months ago

Here is a link to a "wider" discussion of Psycho II in particular and sequels in general, from this board:

https://moviechat.org/tt0054215/Psycho/6702dd0f300d3614e99871cf/October-2024-Psycho-on-Netflix-AlsoPsycho-II

[–] roger1 (4046) 4 months ago

bump

[–] millsey72 (10939) 4 months ago

Yes, you're alone here

[–] roger1 (4046) 4 months ago

Oh, sort of.

But I get read and sometimes someone comes along. (The mighty Swanstep for instance.) And Psycho proves a good touchstone to other things, and sometimes something NEW happens relating to Psycho (like the movie "Hitchcock" and the TV series "Bates Motel") And sometimes its good for an OT post just because this is where an older crowd hangs out. No insults. No politics. No flaming.

Its the right place for me. I'm from another era.

[–] GreenGoblinsOck8 (7983) 3 months ago

She was worse in Psycho 2. I refuse to see Psycho 3 because of Psycho 2's horrible forced ending.

[–] roger1 (4046) 3 months ago

For what is is worth, this Psycho buff thinks that Psycho III was much better than Psycho II -- though neither of them come close to the acheivement of the original.

Psycho III was directed by Anthony Perkins, whom director Mike Nichols once said "was the only intelligent actor I ever worked with." (WOW. ) And Perkins direction was intelligent and often artful. The screenplay was by Charles Edward Pogue, who, the same year(1986) wrote the remake of "The Fly" with director David Cronenberg. The Fly is more famous, but BOTH films were intelligent.

Though Psycho III shares the stupidity of Psycho II in allowing that Norman Bates would be released and allowed to run his motel(after a stint at a diner handling KNIVES)...III re-establishes Norman as running the Bates Motel with his dead mother in the house and references pretty much EVERY famous thing in the original: the taxidermy, the shower scene, the staircase scene.

And it has two great moments in which we see how "the murderous Mrs. Bates" can be STOPPED from emerging in Norman. He is about to commit another shower murder...but the victim is already attempting suicide by slashed wrists. Mother "disconnects" and Norman saves his victim! On a later occasion, trying to stop Mrs. Bates from taking over and killing the woman Norman loves, he grabs his knife blade and slams his hand against a wall -- again "disconnecting" Mrs. Bates. Norman FIGHTS the killer inside him (as we can figure that he did NOT fight that killer in the original.)

Psycho III was thoughtfully done, a true "study" of what makes Norman tick.

But it isn't THAT good.

[–] Megan254 (380) 3 months ago

Actually, Psycho III was pretty good in my honest opinion. Part 2 is my favorite of the sequels, but this and part 4 were actually good. It's a series where I enjoy ALL of the sequels to the original, except for the 1998 version, but that's a remake so I don't count that.