There’s a new TV show that’s being advertised constantly. Call me a wuss if you will, but I can’t bring myself to watch it.
It’s Bates Motel — the back story, apparently, of Norman Bates and his mother, Norma. Of course, Norman figured prominently in the Hitchcock thriller Psycho, where he donned his mother’s dress and ruthlessly stabbed to death a young woman taking a shower in the motel that Norman managed. I think Psycho is one of the creepiest, most unsettling movies ever made, and Norman Bates is one of the creepiest, most unsettling movie characters ever conceived. In view of that, why in the world would I want to see even more of young Norm and his unbalanced mother? Is there really a big audience for a TV that tells their disturbing story?
Of course, if Bates Motel is successful it might start a trend. Why stop at telling the bloody tale of only one horror movie icon? No doubt other TV producers will begin searching for frightening film characters whose earlier days remain unexplored. Some possibilities: Little White, the moving, coming-of-age tale of an awkward young shark striving to become an unstoppable killing machine off the beaches of Amity in New England; Hockey Boy, the whimsical tale of Jason Voorhees, an uncoordinated youngster whose dreams of career in the NHL are foiled but who discovers he experiences strange new urges when he dons a hockey mask; and Vlad Ain’t Bad, a comedy about a white-skinned, cape-wearing exchange student from eastern Europe who fits right in with the Goth crowd then discovers an insatiable craving for corpuscles.
Webner House 