Psycho II (film) - Release

Release

When the film opened on June 3, 1983, it earned $8,310,244 in its opening weekend and went on to gross about $34,725,000.

Psycho II was received generally well by the public and critics and was a surprise box office success. However, film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert both gave the film a marginal thumbs down on At the Movies, specifically for its failure to live up to the original. "I think the ghost of the original," said Siskel, "obviously hangs over this movie, and it's too bad because it's a nicely made picture." Ebert wrote of the film: "If you've seen Psycho a dozen times and can recite the shots in the shower scene by heart, Psycho II is just not going to do it for you. But if you can accept this 1983 movie on its own terms, as a fresh start, and put your memories of Hitchcock on hold, then Psycho II begins to work. It's too heavy on plot and too willing to cheat about its plot to be really successful, but it does have its moments, and it's better than your average, run-of-the-mill slasher movie."

In the British magazine Empire, film critic Kim Newman gave the film three out of five stars, calling Psycho II "a smart, darkly-comic thriller with some imaginitive twists", writing " The wittiest dark joke is that the entire world wants Norman to be mad, and ‘normality’ can only be restored if he’s got a mummified mother in the window and is ready to kill again."

Psycho II has been released three times on DVD. The initial release came in 1999 when Universal Studios leased the film out to GoodTimes Home Video. This release is currently out of print. The second release came in 2005 from Universal Studios itself. The third release came in 2007 as part of a triple feature package with Psycho III and Psycho IV: The Beginning.