Psycho IV: The Beginning - Series Continuity

Series Continuity

As noted in Production, screenwriter Joseph Stefano chose to ignore the events in Psycho II and III in ways that a few critics such as Robert Price and James Futch (see Reception) found detrimental.

Several characters common to film II and III are absent from IV including the new town sheriff, while several characters seen previously only in I reappear in the "prequel" material of IV such as Dr. Richmond. However, Price devoted an entire essay to the shifting identity of Norman's mother, whom over the series we alternately believe to be either Norma Bates or Emma Spool, although both are mad.

Psycho II introduced the character of Norman's aunt Emma Spool, and in that film both the audience of Psycho II and Norman Bates were led to believe she was Norman's real mother. (Indeed a few recent sources still refer to her as Norman's real mother.) In Psycho III, it was revealed she only delusionally believed she was Norman's mother, and furthermore Spool had been in a love triangle with Norman's father and mother and that she had killed Norman's father. By Stefano's conscious decision, Spool is wholly absent and never even mentioned in Psycho IV, according to which Norman's father died of multiple bee stings, while it is heavily implied in IV that Norman himself killed his mother, as is also stated in the Hitchcock original.

The events of the earlier and little-seen TV pilot Bates Motel in which Norman dies are also ignored in Psycho IV.

Reflecting on all these discontinuities, Robert Price writes "It seems that all the different Psychos drift into and out of one another. There is no real sequence. All are variant versions of the same myth. The deep conflict being rehearsed and resolved in these movies is that of the Oedipal complex".