Hollywood Reporter (2013) - Bates Motel
Details
- article: Bates Motel
- author(s): Tim Goodman
- journal: Hollywood Reporter (15/Mar/2013)
- issue: volume 419, page 50
- journal ISSN: 0018-3660
- publisher: BPI Communications
- keywords: Academy Awards, Alfred Hitchcock, Bates Motel (2013), Psycho (1960)
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Article
Bates Motel
A&E's series, a sort‑of prequel to Psycho, is refreshingly creepy By Tim Goodman
There's one thing Bates Motel creators Carlton Cuse (Lost) and Kerry Ehrin (Friday Night Lights) want to emphasize about their new A&E series: No, it's not an homage to Psycho.
Yes, it's about Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore of Finding Neverland) and his mother, Norma (Oscar nominee Vera Farmiga of Up in the Air), and there's a hotel, but this is what the creators are calling a "contemporary prequel" to the 1960 Alfred Hitchcock movie ‑ one that frees them up to tell new stories.
This is important to know ‑ not an homage, got that? ‑ because viewers shouldn't get hung up about knowing how it will all end. Part of that is because we might never see how it all ends, anyway. And part ofthat is because the premise itself holds extraordinary storytelling possibilities.
Bates Motel feels new and not derivative, coming across more Twin Peaks eeriness than full‑on PsycAo. Cuse and Ehrin ‑ whose résumés should give viewers hope for creative riches ‑ must have felt free to make up whatever they wanted.
Mother and son have arrived in Northern California's fictional town of White Pines Bay after leaving Arizona, and a mysterious accident that befell Norman's father, behind. Guess what? Mom's bought a motel and the house that goes along with it.
What benefits Bates Motel is that neither Norma nor Norman are obviously evil in any...
