Norman Bates

2 In Blochs novels

For the bassist, see Norman Bates (musician). For the

Medal of Honor recipient, see Norman F. Bates.

In Blochs novel, Mary Crane (called Marion in the lm),

a young woman on the run after stealing from her employer, checks into the motel one night. Bates is smitten
with her, and shyly asks her to have dinner with him in the
house, provoking Mothers jealousy; she ies into a rage
and threatens to kill her if he lets her in the house. Bates
dees her and eats dinner with Mary anyway, but lashes
out at her when she suggests that he institutionalize his
mother. When Mary goes to her room to shower, Bates
spies on her through a peephole he drilled in the wall,
and drinks until he passes out. While he is unconscious,
Mother takes control and beheads Mary (she stabs her
to death in the lm). When Bates awakes to discover what
he believes his mother has done, he sinks Marys car
with her corpse in the trunk into a nearby swamp. As
Mother, he also murders Milton Arbogast, a private detective hired by Marys employer, days later.

Norman Bates is a ctional character created by writer

Robert Bloch as the main character in his novel Psycho,
and portrayed by Anthony Perkins as the primary
antagonist of the 1960 lm of the same name directed
by Alfred Hitchcock and its sequels. The character was
inspired by murderer Ed Gein.[1][2][3]

Character overview

Bates is nally caught when Marys sister Lila and

boyfriend, Sam Loomis, arrive at the hotel looking for
her. When Bates gures out what they want, he knocks
Sam out and goes running after Lila, who has reached
the house and found Mrs. Bates corpse. He attacks her
as Mother, but Sam overpowers him, and he is nally
arrested. Bates is declared insane and sent to an institution, where Mother takes complete, and permanent,
control of Bates mind: he becomes his mother.

Both the novel and Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 lm adaptation explain that Bates suered severe emotional abuse as
a child at the hands of his mother, Norma, who preached
to him that sexual intercourse is sinful and that all women
(except herself) are whores. After Bates father died,
Bates and his mother lived alone together until Bates
reached adolescence, when his mother took a lover, Joe
Considine (named Chet Rudolph in Psycho IV: The Beginning). Driven over the edge with jealousy, Bates
murdered both of them with strychnine. After committing the murders, Bates forged a suicide note to make
it look as if Norma had killed her lover and then herself. After a brief hospitalization for shock, he developed
dissociative identity disorder, assuming her personality to
repress his awareness of her death and to escape the feelings of guilt for murdering her. He inherited his mothers
house where he kept her corpse and the family motel in Fairview, California.

In Blochs 1982 sequel to his novel, Bates escapes from

the psychiatric hospital by killing a nun and donning
her habit. Picked up as a hitchhiker, Bates tries to attack the driver with a tire iron, but the driver overpowers him. This in turn causes a ery accident where the
driver escapes, but Bates dies. Batess psychiatrist, Dr.
Adam Claiborne, discovers Bates body and assumes his
personality.[4] In the next book, Psycho House, Norman
appears only as a novelty animatronic on display in the
Bates
Hotel, which has been converted into a tourist atBloch sums up Bates multiple personalities in his stylistraction.
tic form of puns: Norman, a child dependent on his
mother; Norma, a possessive mother who kills anyone
who threatens the illusion of her existence; and Normal,
a functional adult who goes through the motions of dayto-day life. Norma dominates Norman much as she 3 Film and television sequels
had when she was alive, forbidding him to have friends
and ying into violent rages whenever he feels attracted In Psycho II, the rst sequel to the original lm, Bates
to a woman. Norma and Norman carry on conver- is released from the institution 22 years after his arrest,
sations through Bates talking to himself in his mothers seemingly cured, and he meets Mary Loomis Marvoice, and Bates dresses in his mothers clothes whenever ion Cranes niece with whom he falls in love. However, a series of mysterious murders occurs, as well as
Norma takes hold completely.
1

2
strange appearances and messages from Mother, and
Bates slowly loses his grip on sanity. The mysterious appearances and messages turn out to be a plot by Lila Crane
to drive him insane again in order to get him recommitted.
The actual murders turn out to be the work of his aunt
Normas sister, Emma Spool who shares the familys history of mental illness and claims to be Normans
real mother. Before Bates discovers this, however, Mary
Loomis is shot dead by the police during a confrontation
with Bates, and Spool murders Lila. When Spool tells
Bates that she is his mother, he kills her and embalms
her body while assuming the Mother personality once
again.[5]
In Psycho III, Bates continues to struggle, unsuccessfully,
against Mother"'s dominion. He also nds another love
interest named Maureen Coyle, who eventually dies at
Mother"'s hand. In the lm Mrs. Spools body is rst
discovered by sleazy musician Duane Duke, whom Bates
kills when Duke tries to use the discovery to blackmail
Bates. Tracy Venable, a reporter interested in Bates case,
nds out the truth about Spool. Mother orders Bates to
kill Venable, but in the end he attacks Mother"'s corpse
violently, attempting to break free of her control, as well
as getting revenge at Mother for killing Maureen. He is
again institutionalized. During the last few minutes of the
movie, Venable tells Bates that Emma Spool was his aunt,
not his mother, and had killed his father. Apparently, she
had fallen for Bates father and, when Norma Bates had
given birth to Norman, kidnapped the child, believing he
was her son.[6]

PORTRAYALS

The spino TV series Bates Motel premiered on March

18, 2013, on A&E. Set in the present day, it depicts
the young Norman Bates life with his mother before the
events of the rst lm. This series also introduces Normans maternal half-brother, Dylan Massett.

4 Characterization
The character Norman Bates in Psycho was loosely based
on two people. First was the real-life murderer Ed Gein,
about whom Bloch later wrote a ctionalized account,
The Shambles of Ed Gein, in 1962. (The story can be
found in Crimes and Punishments: The Lost Bloch, Volume 3). Second, it has been indicated by several people, including Noel Carter (wife of Lin Carter) and Chris
Steinbrunner, as well as allegedly by Bloch himself, that
Norman Bates was partly based on Calvin Beck, publisher
of Castle of Frankenstein.[9]

The characterization of Bates in the novel and the movie

dier in some key areas. In the novel, Bates is in his midto-late 40s, short, overweight and homely. In the movie,
he is in his early-to-mid-20s, tall, slender, and handsome.
Reportedly, when working on the lm, Hitchcock decided that he wanted audiences to be able to sympathize
with Bates and genuinely like the character, so he made
him more of a boy next door.[10] In the novel, Bates becomes Mother after getting drunk and passing out; in
the movie, he remains sober before switching personaliPsycho IV: The Beginning, the nal lm in the series, ties.
retcons the revelations of the third lm, however, sup- In the novel, Bates is well-read in occult and esoteric auplying that Bates father was stung to death by bees and thors such as P.D. Ouspensky and Aleister Crowley. He
removing all references to Emma Spool. In this lm, is aware that Mother disapproves of these authors as
Bates has been released from an institution, and is mar- being against religion.
ried to one of the hospitals psychologists. When his
wife becomes pregnant, however, he lures her to his
mothers house and tries to kill her, wanting to prevent
another of his cursed line from being born into the 5 Portrayals
world. (The lm implies that Norma Bates suered from
schizophrenia and passed the illness on to her son.) He Bates was portrayed by Anthony Perkins in Hitchcocks
relents at the last minute, however, when his wife pro- seminal 1960 lm adaptation of Blochs novel and its
fesses her love for him. He then burns the house down three sequels. Perkins hosted an episode of Saturday
in an attempt to free himself of his past. During the at- Night Live in 1976 in which he performed numerous
tempt, he is tormented by hallucinations of Mother and sketches portraying Norman Bates, including the inseveral of his victims. He almost dies in the ames before structional video The Norman Bates School of Motel
willing himself to get out, apparently defeating his illness Management.[11] He also portrayed Norman, albeit more
at long last, while the ghost of his mother demands to be lightheartedly, in a 1990 commercial for Oatmeal Crisp
let out.[7]
cereal.[12] Vince Vaughn portrayed Bates in Gus Van
In the television movie and series pilot Bates Motel Bates
is never released from the institution after his rst incarceration. He befriends Alex West, a fellow inmate who
had murdered his stepfather, and wills ownership of the
titular motel to him before dying of old age.[8] This lm
was made before the lm Psycho IV: The Beginning. Anthony Perkins refused involvement with it.

Sant's 1998 remake, while Kurt Paul took on the role in

Bates Motel. Henry Thomas played a younger version of
the character in Psycho IV: The Beginning. Freddie Highmore portrays a younger version of Bates in the TV series
Bates Motel.
Bates was also portrayed by Ezio Greggio in the 1994
movie Silence of the Hams as a would-be serial killer
named Anthony Motel who runs the Cemetery Motel.[13]

Comic books

[16] AFIs 100 YEARS...100 MOVIE QUOTES

[17] http://www.empireonline.com/

Norman appears in the 1992 three-issue comic book

100-greatest-movie-characters/default.asp?c=80
adaptation of the rst Psycho lm released by Innovation
Publishing. Despite being a colorized adaptation of the [18] http://www.filmsite.org/100characters4.html
Hitchcock lm, the version of Norman present in the
comics resembles the one from Blochs original novel:
an older, overweight, balding man. Comic artist Felipe 9 External links
Echevarria has explained that this was due to Perkins refusal to allow his likeness to be replicated for the books,
Norman Bates at the Internet Movie Database
wanting to disassociate himself with Norman Bates.[14]

Reception

Norman Bates is ranked as the second greatest villain

on the American Film Institutes list of the top 100 lm
heroes and villains,[15] behind Hannibal Lecter and before Darth Vader. His line A boys best friend is his
mother also ranks as number 56 on the institutes list
of the 100 greatest movie quotes.[16] In 2008, Norman
Bates was selected by Empire Magazine as one of The 100
Greatest Movie Characters.[17] Bates also ranked number
4 on Premiere magazine's list of The 100 Greatest Movie
Characters of All Time.[18]

References

[1] Entertainment Weekly. The 100 Greatest Movies of All

Time. New York: Entertainment Weekly Books, 1999.
[2] CourtTVs Crime Library
[3] Behind the Bates Motel by Paula Guran
[4] Bloch, Robert (1982). Psycho II. Whisper Press. ISBN
0-918372-08-9. OCLC 8926424.
[5] Richard Franklin (Director) (1983-06-03).
(DVD). United States: Universal Pictures.

Psycho II

[6] Anthony Perkins (Director) (1986-07-02).

(DVD). United States: Universal Pictures.

Psycho III

[7] Mick Garris (Director) (1990-11-10). Psycho IV: The Beginning (DVD). United States: Universal Television.
[8] Bates Motel
[9] http://www.bmonster.com/horror29.html
[10] Leigh, Janet. Psycho : Behind the Scenes of the Classic
Thriller. Harmony Press, 1995. ISBN 0-517-70112-X.
[11] http://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75pbatesmotel.phtml
[12] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=705jPpxq1JQ
[13] The Silence of the Hams
[14] Movie Maniac Comic Books
[15] AFIs 100 YEARS...100 HEROES & VILLAINS

10

10
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