Film scholar John Kenneth Muir praised the film's depiction of Bates in "human, realistic terms", deeming it "admirably frank and sincere" and "a great film on its own merits". In "Empire", film critic Kim Newman gave the film three out of five stars, calling "Psycho II" "a smart, darkly-comic thriller with some imaginative twists", writing, "The wittiest dark joke is that the entire world "wants" Norman to be mad, and 'normality' can only be restored if he's got a mummified mother in the window and is ready to kill again".