di Roberta Migliucci
Speaker: Chuck Rolando (Standard American accent)
Bates Motel is a "prequel" to Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock's famous 1960 movie, which was based on a novel by Robert Bloch published the previous year. The book itself was loosely inspired by Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein, whose horrific behaviour was also copied in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Silence of the Lambs. In the series we learn about the adolescence of motel owner Norman Bates and his morbid relationship with his mother, the improbable father figures in his life and the events which transformed him into a mass murderer. The story is, however, set in the present, and so the atmosphere is a curious mixture of contemporary and vintage. Bates is played by the British actor Freddie Highmore, while the excellent Vera Farmiga has the role of his mother.
Available from Universal from March 26th