Richard Franklin’s “Psycho II” only steps wrong once, and it’s in the very first scene.
After the Universal Studios logo slowly goes a full rotation, we see the shower sequence from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” (1960) in its entirety, followed by the opening credits. The problem with this opening is that it doesn’t properly set up the story for newcomers.
If the need was to address the prior film from the start, it should have begun with the very last scene of “Psycho” (“why, I wouldn’t hurt a fly…”), establishing the broken mind of serial killer Norman Bates, played by the extraordinary Anthony Perkins.
Instead, having the legendary shower scene as our introduction speaks more to audience familiarity with the original film than building a proper beginning....