Bates Motel (1987)

Bates Motel was announced in February 1987 as a two-hour pilot for a proposed new comedy-thriller series on NBC. It was the brainchild of screenwriter Richard Rothstein, creator of the HBO series, “The Hitchhiker”. Universal already had the Psycho house on the Universal Studios lot, which made it an easy pitch to start up a TV show set there.  However, once the pilot had been in the can, they became skeptical regarding the viability of the series due to the sinking ratings of their other anthology series (“Amazing Stories”, “Alfred Hitchcock Presents”), and NBC decided just to release the project as a TV movie.

Though it was not advertised as a pilot, after it set up its main premise, it proceeds with a side story that plays like a twisted spin on “Fantasy Island”. NBC hoped that, if successful, a Bates Motel series could fill a 10 pm slot in their line-up.

At the time of Bates Motel‘s appearance on television, there had already been two theatrical sequels to Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 masterpiece, Psycho.  This offshoot ignores Psycho II and Psycho III completely, save for copping the opening shot of the Bates mansion from Psycho II.  In many ways, it barely should even be called a sequel to Psycho, as it changes a lot of that film’s facts for reasons that aren’t altogether clear.  It’s a pilot premise for a proposed anthology series whereby guests check in to the infamous hotel and enter a bizarre realm where supernatural events can happen. The guests confront their innermost fears through the course of the episode.

Rothstein created the series specifically to star Bud Cort, who was trying to shake his typecasting after his breakthrough in 1971’s Harold and Maude, That breakthrough resulted in several years of not working because he was looking for another project that would live up to the artistic caliber of that film. He even turned down what became Brad Dourif’s Oscar-nominated supporting role in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

After the death of his father, Cort stayed at the house of Groucho Marx at the Chateaux Marmont until he got back on his feet. He spent nine months in Paris singing when he talked to Leslie Caron, who told him to stop waiting for another role of a lifetime to come along and take what decent work he could get. After a nearly fata; car crash in 1979, he decided that life was too short to wait for good things to come to him. He would get to work on things that had commercial success to help him financially in between his artistic pursuits.

The events of the film take place 27 years after schizophrenic serial killer Norman Bates is arrested and found guilty by reason of insanity for his crimes.  While in the institution, Norman is introduced to a troubled young boy named Alex West (Cort), who murdered his abusive stepfather in a giant tumble dryer in self-defense and ends up staying in the same institution.  Norman takes the lad under his wing until his death, coincidentally the same year that Alex is finally allowed out of the institution.  According to Norman’s will (how he is deemed of ‘sound mind’ to do so is subject to debate), Alex inherits the Bates Motel and his family home that overlooks it.

Anthony Perkins was asked to play Norman but he wasn’t interested. He suggested they use his good friend and portrayer of Norman Bates as a stand-in and stunt double in Psycho II and III, Kurt Paul. In exchange, Perkins would not be dismissive of their effort while they were trying to make a run for a full series.

Alex, who carries Norman’s ashes around in an urn, is naive about the outside world, and all too trusting of most who offer to help, though some might take advantage of his naivety to get their hands on prime real estate. The motel itself, however, has been run down from decades of no use and most think it should be demolished. In honor of Norman, Alex aims to reopen the Bates Motel.

Alex aims to renovate it back to its former glory.  However, he finds the Bates house already illegally inhabited by a spunky runaway girl named Willie (Petty), who, despite wearing a chicken costume (no joke), worms her way into staying and helping Alex realize his dream of making a go of the motel business.  However, not everyone wants the business to succeed, as Alex begins to see the ghost of Mrs. Bates around the place. Unusual calamities begin to occur that threaten the establishment’s livelihood before it can even begin.

In what is obviously the first taste of what the “Bates Motel” series would be like, the final third of the film takes a detour as we’re introduced to Alex’s first guest to stay in the motel, an aerobics instructor named Barbara Peters (Keane). Barbara claims to be wanting peace and quiet to get some writing done, but in actuality, she aims to slash her wrists in the tub (something that had already been seen in Psycho III the year before).  At this point, she is visited by a young woman named Sally (Haje) who stops her and takes her to a 1950s-themed party happening at the motel (I think).While there, Barbara is pursued by a young cruiser named Tony (Bateman). The two have unusually strong feelings for one another, despite her protestations about their age difference.  But there is much more to the events that transpire that night than meets the eye.

Each week’s episode of this proposed anthology series was to similarly feature a new guest in the motel tainted by tragedy, but which becomes a place of better outcomes. Rather than each guest being a victim, Rothstein envisioned the motel, after a bad-karma-destroying psychic exorcism, more as a place of rest, contemplation, and redemption.  Each guest finds a second chance at life through the mystical karma the motel possesses.

Cort hoped his character would grow as the series progressed rather than just welcome guests to the hotel for their story. He called the premise straight out of American Gothic – like a painting by Grant Wood or Andrew Wyeth.

I’ve already mentioned that this TV movie ignores the theatrically released sequels, which is fine, as many more potential viewers who might watch this TV movie in its initial airing had probably only seen the original Psycho, and may have been confused by any developments that happened afterward.  However, from the get-go, everything just feels out of place, starting with the idiotic idea that a young child would not only inhabit the same mental institution as a serial killer like Norman Bates but that the staff there would see no problem in letting the young tyke be Norman’s surrogate son.  The script by Rothstein ham-handedly pits the two as would-be friends when they witness young Alex stuff a dead bird to keep it looking lifelike, and knowing Norman’s hobby of taxidermy, they suggest he’d do well to learn from the ‘sweet’ man who filled his own mother with sawdust and sewed her up tight, while he proceeded to viciously butcher anyone he felt turned on or threatened by.  Ah, what a nice story this is already turning out to be, right?

Then Rothstein proceeds to ignore fundamental things that should not ever be ignored by anyone who has actually seen Psycho. For starters, the town that the Bates Motel is closest to is called ‘Fairvale’, not ‘Fairville’ as it is in this movie. What was a small town in Central California now looks suspiciously like Burbank. It’s bad enough that Rothstein can’t get the basic name right, but then proceeds to further exacerbate the geographical errors by making the Bates Motel actually reside in, or a half-mile out of ‘Fairville’, when it is clear, according to Norman himself in Psycho, about 15 miles away.  Now, this is presumably done in order to introduce a sub-story involving Alex’s foolhardy desire to keep the motel running on this prime piece of real estate that developers in town have been drooling over for years, as evidenced by the loan officer that Alex sees who is astonished at seeing such a great opportunity to make serious cash go to waste.

So, meanwhile, as Alex and his crew of construction men set about renovating the motel area, including, for some reason, adding a fountain, they unearth the grave of Mrs. Bates.  Of course, anyone who has seen Psycho knows that Mrs. Bates was no longer buried, as the main premise of the film hinges on her body still residing above ground in the house.  I suppose it could be argued that they may have finally laid Mrs. Bates into the ground after Norman had been arrested, but the body they find could not possibly be Mrs. Bates, as we also know that her body had been meticulously preserved by Norman, and would not have decomposed to skeletal status as it is in this movie.  And further adding insult to injury to Psycho buffs, they all proceed to claim Mrs. Bates’ first name is ‘Gloria’, and not ‘Norma’, as it has always been since the story’s inception.  At this point, you begin to realize that Rothstein must have whipped out the teleplay, either not having seen the Hitchcock flick, or had such time constraints so as not to find the time to rent the movie before he proceeded to type it all out.

Bates Motel aired on July 5, 1987, at 9 pm. It fared reasonably well in the ratings, but not enough to give NBC confidence to green-light the series.As a potential horror/fantasy TV show anthology, the premise has legs.  Unfortunately, as a movie, Bates Motel flat-out stinks, and it is especially frustrating for fans of the Hitchcock film. Anthony Perkins himself had been eager to see what they did with the movie but watched it and deemed it terrible.

So, really, the only tie-in to the Hitchcock film at all is the fact that the setting is at the Bates Motel, which they renovate to the point where it doesn’t even look like the place anymore.  What’s worse, they add a supernatural element to the stories that had never been a part of the original storyline;, Psycho broke its ground as a new kind of horror flick, which features the monsters within, rather than external forces at play.  By making it a standard horror anthology, they negate the very thing that made Psycho a unique entity among horror franchises altogether.

Even if you do accept the mystical premise, the tone of Bates Motel is all over the map.  It would seem like a comedy much of the time, and certainly, the annoying little harpy that Loti Petty plays should never be a character on anything but a really dumb sitcom.  However, Bud Cort infuses Alex with a sense of seriousness about his intentions and earnestness in respecting the wishes of good old Norman Bates’ memory, to the point where he carries Norman’s ashes around wherever he goes. (Ironic that Norman would choose to be cremated given his history of taxidermy).  As silly as it is half of the time, as soon as the Bates Motel gets its first client, the entire tone of the movie changes from goofball quirkiness to melancholy whimsy, as we see an attempted suicide followed up by a morose story of lives gone completely to waste.  And just when you think the jarring tone shifts are over, Mrs. Bates makes her appearance yet again, only to have, not one, but two ‘Scooby Doo’-caliber de-maskings.

Bates Motel is the kind of movie that, like the remains of Norman Bates within it, should absolutely be burnt to ashes so that there is no chance of it ever being revived to haunt television again.  Thankfully, this offshoot storyline would end with this solitary pilot and can be completely ignored by fans of the ongoing film series.  Just desserts for a film that completely ignored the film series and its fans.

Qwipster’s rating: D

MPAA Rated: Not rated, but probably PG for some scary images
Length: 90 min.

Cast: Bud Cort, Lori Petty, Moses Gunn, Gregg Henry, Kerrie Keane, Khrystyne Haje, Jason Bateman, Robert Picardo
Director: Richard Rothstein
Screenplay: Richard Rothstein