Be prepared to buckle in for this review as I am about to heap loads of praise on Leah Rowan, who is making her debut with the terrific MARION.

Marion Crane is based on the character originally created by Robert Bloch in his immortal novel, PSYCHO, which later was made beyond immortal by Alfred Hitchcock in the film adaptation starring Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh. The difference here is that Marion does not die at the hands of the demented, cross-dressing Norman Bates.

Marion is actually Emily Stockton, who was reported missing from her apartment in New York City. In reality, she escaped with $100,000 of stolen money that she was carrying as part of a desperate scheme to help her sister, Lauren, escape an abusive marriage.

"...an incredible feminist revisionist piece of fiction that not only allows this iconic character to take control of her own destiny, but also deftly pays homage to the original by reimagining what she could have been."

Rowan takes the opportunity to reset the action in the year 2023, and the update is ideal for this storyline. The narrator first gets stuck in your memory by describing herself as “the kind of girl you swear you’ve seen before.” As she heads up north, her bus breaks down outside of the New Paltz area, and the good hotels are snatched up quickly. She begins making her way down the road to the Billings Motel before a friendly young cop stops to give her a lift there.

Once inside, Marion meets the awkward but somewhat appealing owner of the run-down motel, who lives in the house just up the hill from it. After checking her in, Norm Billings invites her to join him for dinner. A dual narrative pops up, set a few months after these events, with a junior private investigator named Hannah Pierce, who is on the trail of a woman who disappeared after taking a bus upstate. Word on the street is that she may have escaped to Canada with some ill-gotten funds, but Hannah believes something else may have happened to her.

Meanwhile, Marion has an awkward meal with Norm, who spends most of the time talking about the gravely ill mother he cares for who is in a room she is not allowed to enter. Afterwards, while in the shower, she hears a sound only to find Norm there. He isn’t dressed like his mother, as in Psycho, but he wields a sharp butcher’s knife and tries to kill her. Marion turns the tables on him, first with a knee to the crotch and then by stabbing him to death with his own knife.

Without giving away too much, this will not be the last victim of Marion’s rage, and she is on a dangerous path that eventually will connect with Hannah, who is extremely interested in what went down at the Billings Motel. Norm may have had mommy issues, but it is Marion who constantly hears her own mother speak to her inside her head. 

This all drives MARION to realize its full potential as an incredible feminist revisionist piece of fiction that not only allows this iconic character to take control of her own destiny, but also deftly pays homage to the original by reimagining what she could have been.