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Lila Loomis (née Crane) is a fictional character created by American author Robert Bloch in his 1959 thriller novel Psycho; she is the sister of Norman Bates's victim Marion Crane. She is revealed as the real protagonist of the novel in the final chapters, after several false protagonists, including her sister, who gets murdered. Lila is portrayed by Vera Miles in the 1960 film version (directed by Alfred Hitchcock) and by Julianne Moore in the 1998 version. Additionally, Lila appears in Bloch's 1982 sequel novel Psycho II, and the unrelated 1983 sequel film of the same name, in which she serves as an antagonist.
Arbogast searches local hotels, eventually coming to the Bates Motel. After calling to update Lila and Sam about tracing Marion to the motel, he disappears as well. This prompts Sam and Lila to pose as a married couple in order to get a room at the motel to investigate without arousing the suspicion of the owner, Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins). Lila makes her way to Norman's house while Sam distracts him. When Norman realizes what Lila is up to, he knocks Sam unconscious and runs after her. When she enters the fruit cellar, she makes a ghastly discovery: the corpse of Norman's mother, whom Norman claimed was alive. A moment later, Norman enters dressed in his mother's clothes and a wig, wielding a kitchen knife. He attacks her, but Sam tackles him to the ground and disarms him. A psychiatrist later tells her that Norman — who murders people while under the control of an alternate personality taking the form of his mother, whom he murdered years earlier — killed her sister and Arbogast.
In Psycho II, Norman is released from the mental institution he was placed in at the end of the first film after 22 years. Lila (now Lila Loomis, having married Sam) petitions to keep Norman locked up; however, the petition is unsuccessful and Norman is released.
Norman gets a job at a local diner, where he meets a coworker, a young woman named Mary (Meg Tilly). Later, it is revealed that Mary is Lila's daughter, and that they are trying, by dressing up as Norman's mother and leaving notes and calls claiming to be her, to drive him insane and get him recommitted. While this is unfolding, Norman's motel manager and a teenage boy making out with a girl in Norman's fruit cellar are murdered by someone who looks like Norman in his "Mother" guise.
Later, Mary, who has grown to care about Norman, tells Lila that she is backing out of their plan. Lila angrily rebukes her daughter, and sneaks to Norman's fruit cellar to put on her "Mother" costume. In the process of doing so, she is murdered by the figure who appears to be "Mother". Mary is later killed in a standoff with police, who exonerate Norman. It is revealed later that Emma Spool (Claudia Bryar), Norman's maternal aunt, killed Lila and the others. Spool says that she is Norman's real mother, and that she killed people who had "wronged him". Psycho III reveals that she is in fact Norman's aunt, who has deluded herself into believing he is her child.
Julianne Moore portrayed the character in the 1998 remake.
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