There had been several occasions when Tom Holland, director of the memorable and fun 80’s horror flick Fright Night as well as Child’s Play, The Langoliers, and Thinner, and writer of the 1980’s staple Cloak & Dagger, had been scheduled for conventions and had cancelled or not shown up or I had missed him or whatever, and he had been on my radar for a long time as director of that memorable flick. But it wasn’t until I checked out his filmography again while looking forward to (or at least hoping for) his appearance at the Cincinnati HorrorHound on March 24, 2018, that I noticed that he had actually made a cameo appearance in Psycho II as Deputy Norris. In fact, I also discovered that he had actually wrote the thing!
Psycho II has always been one of those intensely guilty pleasures, as in my opinion it stands among the best of the 1980’s horror films. Obviously there is not way it will ever get out from under the shadow of its predecessor Psycho, which had been filmed 22 years earlier, and yet it actually does stand quite well on its own.
However as someone who had only discovered Psycho two years prior to Psycho II‘s release, I couldn’t be more thrilled to re-visit this creepy Norman Bates character, and especially to re-visit that creepy motel and house. And I will still stand by my opinion, that despite some of the ‘trendy 80’s gore’, as Leonard Maltin so perceptively put it, that they did a miraculous job of resurrecting the characters and story of Psycho.
As someone who has enjoyed the sequel for nearly as long as the original, the dialogue from both films had become ingrained in my head, so I’m kind of thankful that I hadn’t realized that Tom Holland had penned said dialogue lest I would have been even more disappointed at all of the near-misses.
But when the time came, I was double-pleased to finally meet him. Originally I had only plan to plunk down $15 for a photo op with him, but after the Psycho II revelation, and especially seeing that he actually had a photo of himself on the set of the movie, there was no way I was going to skip out on the $40 combo.
When I purchased the photo, it was almost as if he could sense my affinity for the film (either that, or everyone else in line was buying Fright Night or Child’s Play stuff), as he said to me, “If only I knew then what I know now, I myself would have gotten some autographs from him (Anthony Perkins).” I found that interesting, and then proceeded to tell him about my autograph from Perkins, as well as meeting Janet Leigh, and the fact that Vera Miles had kindly signed for me several times back in the 90’s. He was intrigued by that and said that she was now a virtual recluse and didn’t answer any mail.
His line was pretty long and the handler was eye-balling me, so I moved on, although I’d have loved to have chatted with him for days about the ideas that had come out of his head as he wrote Psycho II, which still is a living, breathing movie in my mind, and one that fit into the Psycho legacy as much as it was humanly possible to do when following in the footsteps of Alfred Hitchcock.
“It’s starting again…”
Celebrities of the 2018 Cincinnati HorrorHound will continue…
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