Psycho: The Truth About Mother

[INT. STAIRWAY OF THE OLD HOUSE - (DAY). LILA is on the top step, looking down toward CAMERA. She is listening, hoping to hear some human sound, some sound she might follow, pursue. She hears nothing. She starts down the stairs. Just below the halfway step, she looks at the front door, sees out through the door window: LILA's VIEWPOINT - (DAY). NORMAN coming.]

[INT. STAIRWAY OF THE OLD HOUSE - (DAY). For a moment LILA panics, then she hurries down the steps, cannot go in the direction of the front door, remembers the stairway behind her, turns and runs in that direction. The SOUND of NORMAN bounding up the porch steps can be heard. LILA turns and dashes down the stairs which lead to the basement, going down far enough to conceal herself, crouching there. NORMAN enters the hallway, closes the door softly, listens. He glances once in the direction of the basement stairs. He seems about to smile, when suddenly all expression vanishes from his face, and he appears to enter a no-place, no-time state. He crosses to the stairway, goes up.]

[LILA remains crouched on the basement stairs, listening to the SOUNDS of NORMAN. His footsteps on the stairs followed by the fast noises of doors opening, of fast moving about an upstairs room. Convinced that he is searching the upstairs for her, she decides to chance an escape. She starts up the steps, is about to turn into the hallway when her eye is caught by a glimmer of light down in the basement. She pauses, looks down, sees the crack of light coming from behind the not entirely closed door to the fruit cellar. The swift moving SOUNDS of NORMAN continue to come from upstairs.]

[LILA is torn, knows she should get out of the house while she has the chance, is unable to resist the impulse to check that hidden-looking room down below, a room in which, she desperately believes, there must lie some answer to what happened to MARION. She turns and goes softly and quickly down the stairs.]

[INT. THE BASEMENT OF THE OLD HOUSE - (DAY). LILA reaches the bottom, stops, listens, hears the stairboards creaking as footsteps fall hard and measured upon them. She turns, pulls open the fruit cellar door, looks in. The woman is sitting in a comfortable chair, the back of the chair, and the woman, turned to the door. LILA calls a harsh, frightened whisper.]

LILA: Mrs. Bates...?

[LILA goes into the room. INT. THE FRUIT CELLAR. LILA goes to the chair, touches it. The touch disturbs the figure. It starts to turn, slowly, stiffly, a clock-wise movement. LILA looks at it in horror. It is the body of a woman long dead. The skin is dry and pulled away from the mouth and the teeth are revealed as in the skeleton's smile. The eyes are gone from their sockets, the bridge of the nose has collapsed, the hair is dry and wild, the cheeks are sunken, the leathery-brown skin is powdered and rouged and flaky. The body is dressed in a high-neck, clean, well-pressed dress, obviously recently laundered and hand-ironed. The movement of this stuffed, ill-preserved cadaver, turning as if in response to LILA's call and touch, is actually graceful, ballet-like, and the effect is terrible and obscene. LILA gazes for one flicker of a deathly moment, then begins to scream, a high, piercing, dreadful scream. And LILA's scream is joined by another scream, a more dreadful, horrifying scream which comes from the door behind her.]

NORMAN'S VOICE (screaming): Ayeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Am Norma Bates!

[LILA turns. NORMAN's face is contorted. He wears a wild wig, a mockery of a woman's hair. He is dressed in a high-neck dress which is similar to that worn by the corpse of his mother. His hand is raised high, poised to strike at Lila. There is a long breadknife in it. LILA - Close on her face. She is dumb-struck. Her eyes are screaming.]

[BACK TO NORMAN. As he is about to start forward, a man's hand reaches in from the doorway behind, grabs NORMAN's wrist. SAM comes through the door, still holding tight to the wrist, pulling back the arm and at the same time throwing himself at NORMAN, football tackle style. SERIES OF CUTS - THE FIGHT. NORMAN and SAM, struggling. The wild fury in NORMAN's face, the mad noise of his screams and vile curses. The terrified, fight-to-the-death look of Sam. The still, staring LILA as NORMAN's wig falls limply to the ground.]