Psycho on my Mind
San Francisco scene in February, 2021. Photo: J. Waits
This week’s episode of Twin Peaks (Season 1, Episode 5) is perhaps the spookiest yet for me and I think it’s fitting that it was directed by Tim Hunter. Hunter has done some amazing work with horror inspired by real life events, as evidenced in his direction of the 1986 dark teen film River’s Edge and his work on the 1979 cult classic Over the Edge (which he co-wrote). Both movies offer a depressing look at teen malaise. And, oddly, both are based in part on stories and events that took place in my own childhood backyard of the San Francisco Bay Area suburbs. His work on Twin Peaks this week felt particularly Hitchcockian, a far cry from Hunter’s direction of the Beverly Hills, 90210 pilot, which debuted later that year in 1990!
If you’ve watched Season 1, Episode 5 of Twin Peaks and the film Psycho, read on. If not, be forewarned. There will be spoilers for both!
While watching Twin Peaks this week (listen to our related episode of the podcast), I couldn’t get Psycho out of my mind, with shades of the film book-ending the episode visually. The opening shot focuses on the exterior of the gloomy Palmer House and a menacing dark tree, with branches looming like arms near the home. It has a gothic feel, different from some of the other shots of Douglas Firs that we’ve seen before. It’s a new version of spooky, like a haunted house. Which in a way, it is...since the ghost of Laura is everywhere - in framed photos and in the face of her cousin Maddie.
The camera also fixates on a lot of interesting taxidermy in this episode, from animal heads on the walls (deer, mountain goat) to a large, open-mouthed bear. I feel like I’ve been taken into the Norman Bates parlor, complete with sandwiches (which Josie offers to Pete). As with Psycho, there’s a motel (The Timber Falls Motel, where Josie conducts a surveillance mission) and MOTHER is in the background, as we learn that the One-Armed Man’s lost arm had a tattoo with “mother” written on it. While Psycho’s Norman Bates only stuffs birds, on Twin Peaks we are beginning to learn the importance of these creatures, from owls to Jacques Renault’s myna bird. As the episode ends with Josie being visually overpowered by a taxidermied bear while on the receiving end of a seemingly threatening phone call, we are also left with questions about her character. We have a more complicated version of her. Is she menacing like Psycho’s Norman Bates or in peril like Psycho’s Marian Crane? Or both? We are also left to ponder the similarities with Laura Palmer, who ended up dead and wrapped in plastic, just like Marian.