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You'd have to be kinda psycho to even think about penning a sequel to Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 horror classic, Psycho. And Tom Holland certainly recognized the long odds he was up against when he accepted the impossible mission to write a movie that dared to call itself Psycho II.
"Everybody told me that we were going to get killed for doing it," the writer-director β who is no relation to the current Spider-Man β tells Yahoo Entertainment with a wry laugh. "They said it was going to be a career-ender! That there was going to be such hostility to us having the temerity to make a sequel to what's considered the greatest horror movie of all time.
Even original Psycho star Anthony Perkins recognized the insanity of the idea. "He said, 'No way I'm touching that,'" Holland recalls now. "Psycho had upended his whole career and he had a very ambivalent relationship with Norman Bates. He'd been a young lead and that movie put him in this position of having to play all these crazy people. He didn't want to do it again."
But a funny thing happened on the way to certain career suicide: Holland penned one of the rare decades-later sequels that didn't tarnish the reputation of the first film. Released 40 years ago, on June 3, 1983, Psycho II brought Norman Bates back into the pop culture consciousness in a major way, inspiring two additional sequels (both of which starred Perkins, who died in 1992), a controversial shot-for-shot remake from Gus van Sant and a popular TV prequel, Bates Motel. It also paved the way for Holland's successful move behind the camera as the director of such β80s horror hits as Fright Night and the very first Child's Play.
It was successful beyond my wildest dreams," the now 80-year-old Holland marvels. "And in some ways, that experience was never repeated."
Raised in Ossining, N.Y. β also home to Sing Sing prison, as well as the late, great Peter Falk β Holland spent his formative years at the town's public library, where he devoured the canon of literary classics in an effort to learn everything he could about storytelling. Those years of independent study gave him the confidence to move to Los Angeles to pursue a motion picture career as an actor and a screenwriter... as well as the foolhardiness to believe he could come up with the right story for a Psycho sequel when the offer came his way.
Everything I did in Psycho II was based off the original Psycho," he says of his approach. "That was out of respect for Mr. Hitchcock, and because it my best defense against the critics! I didn't add anything to the given facts that I worked off of." (Hitchcock died in 1980, three years before Psycho II premiered in theaters.)
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"Everybody told me that we were going to get killed for doing it," the writer-director β who is no relation to the current Spider-Man β tells Yahoo Entertainment with a wry laugh. "They said it was going to be a career-ender! That there was going to be such hostility to us having the temerity to make a sequel to what's considered the greatest horror movie of all time.
Even original Psycho star Anthony Perkins recognized the insanity of the idea. "He said, 'No way I'm touching that,'" Holland recalls now. "Psycho had upended his whole career and he had a very ambivalent relationship with Norman Bates. He'd been a young lead and that movie put him in this position of having to play all these crazy people. He didn't want to do it again."
But a funny thing happened on the way to certain career suicide: Holland penned one of the rare decades-later sequels that didn't tarnish the reputation of the first film. Released 40 years ago, on June 3, 1983, Psycho II brought Norman Bates back into the pop culture consciousness in a major way, inspiring two additional sequels (both of which starred Perkins, who died in 1992), a controversial shot-for-shot remake from Gus van Sant and a popular TV prequel, Bates Motel. It also paved the way for Holland's successful move behind the camera as the director of such β80s horror hits as Fright Night and the very first Child's Play.
It was successful beyond my wildest dreams," the now 80-year-old Holland marvels. "And in some ways, that experience was never repeated."
Raised in Ossining, N.Y. β also home to Sing Sing prison, as well as the late, great Peter Falk β Holland spent his formative years at the town's public library, where he devoured the canon of literary classics in an effort to learn everything he could about storytelling. Those years of independent study gave him the confidence to move to Los Angeles to pursue a motion picture career as an actor and a screenwriter... as well as the foolhardiness to believe he could come up with the right story for a Psycho sequel when the offer came his way.
Everything I did in Psycho II was based off the original Psycho," he says of his approach. "That was out of respect for Mr. Hitchcock, and because it my best defense against the critics! I didn't add anything to the given facts that I worked off of." (Hitchcock died in 1980, three years before Psycho II premiered in theaters.)
More at the link
'Psycho II' screenwriter says making the sequel to Alfred Hitchock's horror classic was nearly a 'career-ender'
Filmmaker Tom Holland looks back on "Psycho II" on the sequel's 40th anniversary.
