Psycho vs Bates Motel

Pete Worrall • May 22, 2018

WARNING: Contains spoilers

I have to confess to not being a big fan of the film Psycho. I like elements of it but it never captured my imagination in the way it has many other horror/film fans. It probably didn't help that the iconic shower scene and the reveal have been cemented in pop culture (even in the early 80s) and I was aware of the twists prior to watching the film. It also didn't help that I recall watching it soon after The Omen and The Thing, both films having a huge influence on my life, and Psycho simply didn't have the same impact. Having re-watched Psycho several times since, I've come to appreciate it a lot more, especially from a writing and pacing perspective. The 1998 remake was vastly inferior which was the reason why I initially gave Bates Motel a wide berth. It wasn't until Jess from SesskaSays (YouTube react channel) said it was one of her favourite shows and that Norma was, in her opinion, one of the all time great characters, that my interest was piqued. I was curious to see how the show would portray Norman's mother, after all, we only 'hear' Norman's version of her in the film. Having a great respect for Jess's opinions and channel, I thought I would give it a try.

Beginning with Norman's latter teenage years (the series starts when he is 17), the show focuses on his relationship with his (living) mother, Norma. Norma bought the Bates Motel from a foreclosure sale as a fresh start for Norman and herself after the death of her husband six months before. Straight away you realise their relationship is complex and intricate, and, as a voyeur, also an uncomfortable one as it forces us to question how far someone should go to protect and shield the ones they love even though, deep down, you know there's something wrong with them. I initially wondered how they were going to get 5 seasons out of the premise because we all know how it ends, but it's a credit to the writers and producers who obviously had a vision of where they wanted the show to go. It's a slow burn and the first season helps set up the universe nicely. Even the initial teen drama angle, something I'm not a great fan of, didn't detract from the overall narrative, instead, it help set up Norman and his interactions with people his own age. The second season suffers from a bit of fluff and a lot of the drug thread seemed like padding but it finished well. However, from the third season on wards the show was incredible (the fourth season in particular). The acting, the dialogue, the cinematography were all superb and the level of detail, including the detail taken from the film Psycho, was not only exceptional but also a respectful homage.

The slow burn style was necessary because it gave the viewer the chance to see the gradual breakdown of Norman's mind. What really impressed me was the way Norman was portrayed as a really nice, polite man. Because he's a good lad you feel sorry him, you don't want anything bad to happen to him and, before you realise it, you're emotionally invested in his journey even though you know what he's going to turn into. Even then, watching him struggle with the mother in his mind was utterly heartbreaking, especially the scene where he is physically fighting her and we get a glimpse of him fighting himself atop a table. I have to admit to being an emotional wreck after that. But I think the moment that stands out for me across all the seasons is when Norma goes off the rails and leaves Norman and Dylan at home. Norman has difficulty coping and we see this manifest in him wearing his mother's dressing gown and cooking Dylan some breakfast. It was an understated scene but it meant so much in the overall narrative that it was disturbing, chilling and tragic all at the same time because, to me at least, it felt like the beginning of the end. A surprise element was Dylan, Norman's half brother. Initially a rogue, he soon becomes the heart of the show and, along with Emma, the much needed sanity in the extraordinary world around them. Both characters were well written and well realised by the actors, especially Olivia Cooke who caused me to well up more times than I'd care to admit to.

Another aspect I liked was the way they handled the events of the film choosing to interpret the source material differently without changing it too much. If they had chosen to copy the film then we'd have three film versions of the same scene, and the purists would complain that it wasn't as good as the original, and, let's face it, it probably wouldn't be. However, by the time they reach that point, I felt Bates Motel had earned its stripes to be able to alter it and still be credible. I don't think some people were happy but I think many were. But it did get me thinking about adaptations, remakes, reboots and re-imagining and what the definitions actually are, a topic for another day perhaps.

In hindsight, I think there was 4 seasons of material and story that were pure gold. Had they completed the story over 4 and not 5 seasons, or perhaps 5 seasons of 7 episodes instead of 10, I think Bates Motel would've been a tighter affair. There were a couple of times where it felt like there were too many random things happening to Norma just to get her annoyed (how she managed to run a motel and the household with everything else happening around her was a puzzle sometimes). Granted, it was always great to watch how she dealt with them, but this is formula for story telling. Once you have your character/s, one of the first things you should do is put them in uncomfortable situations and then keep thinking of the next worst case scenario when they overcome a previous problem or a hurdle. For me, I think they did this too many times.

I have to admit to preferring Bates Motel to Psycho because of both the characterisation of Norma and the measured way the failure of Norman's mind was portrayed. But the two are difficult to compare because Psycho only had 1 hour 50 minutes to tell its story whereas Bates Motel had five seasons. A viewer can only go off sheer enjoyment and I enjoyed Bates Motel more, it's as simple as that. It was often uncomfortable, creepy, unsettling, upsetting and chilling, just how great TV should be. Catch it now on Netflix. I must also buy SesskaSays a token of my thanks for getting me into this amazing show.
You can watch Sesskasay's Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/sesska53

Quatermass and the Pit 1967

By Pete Worrall • February 7, 2022
I recall watching Quatermass when I was young, however, I don’t think it was the Hammer productions, instead the BBC adaptations. Because it was a long time ago I can no longer remember what the Quatermass films were about and what happened in them. The only recollection I have is the middle-aged, bearded scientist image of the leading role, Bernard Quatermass. Amazon Prime have, or at least had, I’ve not checked in a while, both 1955’s The Quatermass Experiment and Quatermass II and I watched The Quatermass Experiment not so long ago. I thoroughly enjoyed it from a story point of view and thought the ideas and the way the plot unfolds was really good. My least favourite aspect was Quatermass himself played by Brian Donlevy. Spikey and uncharismatic, I felt the film would be better off without him and wasn’t 100% sure what he brought to the proceedings. However, the 1967 version of Quatermass and the Pit was in my Hammer Boxset and I was eager to find out what was in store and what Andrew Keir could bring to the role of the scientist From IMDB A mysterious artifact is unearthed in London, and famous scientist Bernard Quatermass is called into to divine its origins and explain its strange effects on people.

The Devil Rides Out 1968

By Pete Worrall • February 7, 2022

For some reason I thought I had already seen this Hammer Horror classic and maybe I had when I was younger but I could not recall the opening scenes suggesting I had not. I recognised imagery from the film thanks to trailers, clips and segments in Iron Maiden videos; perhaps this was the cause of my mistake. My expectations were high when hitting play as some, especially in the British Horror Group I am a member of, herald it as peak Hammer with the great Christopher Lee often siting The Devil Rides Out as his favourite Hammer film. It had a lot to live up to, however, invariably such films fail to deliver due to unmeetable expectations, but Christopher Lee, Devil worship, Charles Gray, directed by the great Terence Fisher…what could go wrong?

First of all, it was lovely to see Christopher Lee starring as the protagonist, not the action type, that was the job of Leon Greene, but as the wise council and voice of reason, no wonder it was Lee’s favourite Hammer film, he got the chance to play a good guy for once.

The film doesn’t hang about, as soon as Leone Green lands his plane and is met by Christopher Lee. He asks about someone called Simon and within a few lines of dialogue we’re at Simon’s new house because they’re worried about him and hadn’t seen him for at least three months. My first thought was he’d met a girl or taken a new job but it turns out he’s having a dinner party and hob nobbing with a group of new friends from an astronomical society. Of course, Christopher Lee suspects they’re all devil worshippers ready to sacrifice chickens. For me, it was a stretch for him to conclude this within the first nine minutes of the film and I wish more time was given for his suspicions to embed. A general decline in Simon’s behaviour perhaps or more clues gathered to Simon’s new ‘hobby’, it all happened a little too quickly, especially as Simon’s behaviour is quite pleasant and not sinister at all. Simon’s bought a new house, I’ve not seen him in three months that means he’s dealing in black magic. Simon insists Greene and Lee leave (this would make more than thirteen at the party and thus unable to perform the ritual) but Lee punches Simon’s lights out instead before kidnapping him and slugging the butler at the same time, it was all a little clunky for me.

The Nanny 1965

By Pete Worrall • February 6, 2022
One of the best Christmas presents I have ever received, yes, even greater than the roller-skates when I was seven, and I wrote that correctly, they were roller-skates not roller-boots which basically meant they were flipflops with wheels, was The Hammer Collection box set. 20 Hammer films including all their classic movies (although that’s a matter of opinion), some I have seen a long time ago and some I have yet to watch. I’m planning to cover some of them in this blog…well, I’ll see how I go. The first one I fancied out of the box was 1965’s The Nanny with Bette Davies and Wendy Craig, a film I had not seen and the IMDB premise piqued my interest. There's just something not quite right when Bette Davis stars as an English nanny. And is her 10-year-old charge an emotionally disturbed murderer or just an insolent brat? The film opens with Bette Davies carrying a parcel through a playground and a park and all is good with the world, it has to be, the music by Richard Rodney Bennett tells us so. She eventually ends up at her employers who are having a to do where the mother is in tears and the husband is telling her to pull herself together, why? Because their son is coming home. Bette swans about as if this is a regular occurrence and already the husband and wife relationship is an uncomfortable watch with the prickly James Villiers, who also played a prickly role in For Your Eyes Only, instructing Wendy Craig to put some make up on while she bawls into a pillow.

Get Out

By Pete Worrall • December 19, 2018
I sadly missed Get Out when it was on at the local cinema and I’m quite glad I did because I’m not sure I would want to squirm in my seat in public for 110 minutes. I don’t think I’ve felt so uncomfortable watching a film, not even watching The Wicker Man. In fact, if you’ve not seen it, stop reading this and try and grab yourself a copy. From IMDB: Chris and his girlfriend Rose go upstate to visit her parents for the weekend. At first, Chris reads the family's overly accommodating behaviour as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter's interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he never could have imagined.

The Descent

By Pete Worrall • December 13, 2018
The Descent, a well renowned, critically acclaimed British horror flick from the director of Dog Soldiers, had somehow passed me by over the years. With Google Play offering me only 99p to rent it for 48 hours, I thought I’d give it a go. From IMDB: A woman goes on vacation with her friends after her husband and daughter encounter a tragic accident. One year later she goes hiking with her friends and they get trapped in the cave. With a lack of supply, they struggle to survive and they meet strange blood thirsty creatures. I thought the opening was very interesting. It set up the extreme sports loving Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) and her friends, Juno (Natalie Mendoza) and Beth (Alex Reid) as we seen them white river rafting. Sarah’s other half and her daughter were at the bottom waiting for them and even in this short scene it was insinuated that there was something between her husband and Juno. On the way home, Sarah was distracting her husband whilst he was driving leading to a fatal car crash resulting in the deaths of both her husband and her daughter.

Mama

By Pete Worrall • December 13, 2018
2013 scares from Andy Muschietti and a film that had been in my ‘to watch’ library for a while but, for some reason, never put aside enough time to watch. But, after the clunkers, Annabelle and IT, I was keen for at least a solid scare fest and, thankfully, Mama delivered. From IMDB: The senior partner of an investment brokerage, Jeffrey Desange, has a breakdown due to a financial collapse and kills several co-workers and his estranged wife. He then kidnaps his two young daughters, Victoria 3 and Lilly just 1. He drives his car recklessly through a winding snow covered road. He loses control of his car and drives off an embankment. He finds an abandoned and isolated cabin where he plans to kill his daughters, but the children are saved by a dark ghostly image. Jeffrey Desange’s twin brother, Lucas has been on the hunt for his missing brother and his family for five years, almost pushing himself into financial strife himself because of it. His girlfriend, Annabel (Jessica Chastain) is a punk rocker, more interested in her band than having a child, and so we begin her story arc as we witness her relative disinterest in the two children when they are found five years later in the same abandoned cabin.

The Mummy (1959)

By Pete Worrall • December 8, 2018
The Horror Channel’s season continues with Hammer’s The Mummy. The myth of the Mummy is perhaps as old as horror itself and, for me, I’ve always found the start of such films more interesting than the final act. If you have a weakness for tombs, ancient tales of evil and grave robbing in your movies, then The Mummy always works because the creature is always hidden underneath a shroud of mystery. Only when the Mummy actually appears does a film usually fall into a chase movie. There’s nothing wrong with this but I’ve always felt the set up was always far stronger than the pay off because, and this is purely personal, I don’t find someone wrapped in bandages all that terrifying. The film starts with a team of English archaeologists breaking into Princess Ananka’s tomb, and, before they are about to enter, Egyptian, Mehemet Bey, warns the archaeologists not to go into the tomb, but his wise words are ignored and rightly so because otherwise the film would have only been ten minutes long, including credits.

IT

By Pete Worrall • December 5, 2018
I don’t particularly want to waste too much time writing about IT The Movie because the less time spent thinking about this tedious affair the better in my opinion. The film has a good reputation, a decent IMDB score and I was genuinely disappointed when I missed it at the local movie theatre. After the first five minutes I thought I was going to be in for a thrilling ride because the start was brilliant. When Georgie runs down the rain soaked street chasing his boat only for it to fall down a drain and we meet Pennywise for the very first time, I felt the dread because Bill’s Skarsgard’s portrayal of the clown, the script and cinematography in those few moments were sublime.

Annabelle

By Pete Worrall • December 5, 2018
The third film in Warner Brother’s Conjuring universe focuses on the Annabelle doll first seen in the original Conjuring film. One cannot deny the Annabelle doll had a creepy presence in that film, especially the scene where was sat in a chair and her head slowly moved. Pediophobia is a relatively common so if you’ve going to include a weird looking doll with an uncomfortable stare in your movie then you’re already onto confirmed success, right? Not quite. The film focuses on John (Ward Horton) and his heavily pregnant wife Mia (Annabelle Wallis) who live in a neighbourhood where people do not lock their doors and everybody goes to church. Mia collects dolls and, after upsetting his wife with a comment he clearly hadn’t thought through, he gifts her the Annabelle doll because Mia had been searching for it to add to her collection. One night, two members of a satanic cult break in their house and attack Mia. Thankfully, Mia and baby suffer only a modicum of stress, however her attackers were not so lucky. Once is shot by the police and the other slits her own throat whilst hold the Annabelle doll. From then on, strange things begin to happen around the home.

The Blackwell Ghost

By Pete Worrall • December 1, 2018
I noticed this film on Amazon Prime while I was looking for some alternative horror. I was drawn towards the thumbnail which is the portrait of a mature, lady with a thunderous expression and dressed in an early 1900’s garb. I thought I was going to get an old fashioned ghost story similar to the BBC Christmas ghost stories from yesteryear, but The Blackwell Ghost couldn’t be further from a Victorian spine chiller. Although, it does have something in common with the BBC, in style only, and that is 1992’s Ghostwatch. At only an hour long, this mockumentory follows the exploits of Turner Clay as he puts his zombie movies on hold to look into whether ghosts are real. After putting out a call for paranormal experiences, only one piques his interest, a house in Pennsylvania where the owner experiences ghostly activity almost every day. It turns out a previous owner, Ruth Blackwell, had killed several local children and hidden the bodies in the drain beneath the house. What a lovely lady.