Psycho IV: The Beginning

Norman Bates is living quietly in a house with his wife Connie, a psychoanalyst he met while he was a patient in a psychiatric hospital. Their life together appears stable until she becomes pregnant, which Norman sees as a threat: he believes his psychological problems are inherited and does not want to pass them on to a child. On the same day, he listens to a radio phone-in show in which a host and a psychiatrist discuss men who have killed their mothers. Norman calls the station using a false name and, without revealing who he is, begins to recount his own past. The film moves between this present-day broadcast and Norman's memories of his childhood and adolescence with his mother Norma, showing how their relationship developed toward the events familiar from the earlier films. What emerges is his fear that he is about to kill again.

The fourth entry in the Psycho series was directed by Mick Garris, the third film he made, following Fuzzbucket and Critters 2, and it came before Sleepwalkers and The Stand. Joseph Stefano, who wrote the screenplay for the original Psycho, returned as writer here. Anthony Perkins plays Norman once more, with Henry Thomas as the young Norman, Olivia Hussey as Norma, CCH Pounder as radio host Fran Ambrose, Warren Frost as Dr. Leo Richmond and Donna Mitchell as Connie. Made for television by Universal Television and Smart Money Productions, it runs 96 minutes. Its ratings stand at 5.5 on IMDb from around 11,000 votes and 5.7 on TMDB from a much smaller base of 317, a modest level consistent across both audiences.