Bates Motel (1987)

Such a frustrating disappointment

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

As other reviewers have mentioned: This made for TV film is a pilot for a TV series that never materialized nor is this film in any way a part of the "Psycho" franchise. This has become a stand alone "fanboy" type of film - so I've heard.I DO NOT recommend this film to fans of the "Psycho" film series nor would I recommend this film to fans of comedy films. Watch this film ONLY out of curiosity and do not expect anything near the "Psycho" film series because this is far, far away from them. There are only very loose connections to the "Psycho" franchise.Several things wrong with this film: It's not funny (I only got a couple of laughs out of it in the beginning), irritating characters, and the story does not make any since at all - the whole "1950s" thing with the ghost saving the woman's life should have been left out of this film - would have been much better with out it.I got this film via Amazon in the "4-Movie Midnight Marathon Pack: Psychos" - a worthwhile collection even though I am not fond of "Bates Motel"... it's still worth having in a Psycho collection for the sheer novelty of it.3/10

Bates Motel is a terrible film. If you are a fan of Psycho and the Psycho series trust me, you are not missing anything.Where to start? The plot centres around a man named Alex who met Norman Bates in a sanitarium, and on Norman's death, is left the Bates Motel in his will. Alex then goes about finding the place, and fixing it up so Bates Motel can live on.Now here's how you know a movie is bad: 1) You go into it with low expectations and it's still awful.2) You take the film on it's own terms, not worrying how it relates to the Psycho franchise and it's still awful.3) You take it in the context that it's a pilot for a sitcom and it's still awful.Bates Motel is more of a comedy than anything else, and while I'm willing to accept (just) that the Psycho franchise can go in this direction, I cannot accept the woeful attempts at humour that are featured in the movie.The acting is terrible and the script woeful, complete with an ending that anyone who has seen an episode of Scooby Doo will guess very early on. This film is so far away from the original Psycho as to be offensive to anyone who treasures the original for the stone cold classic it is.Just please be aware, Bates Motel is rare and hard to get for a reason. It is awful, and stands as the worst film I have ever seen.

I remember i looked for this "hidden gem" for almost two years. I was very excited when i sat down to watch it. It was a bit different then i thought, but nor bad at all. Rather good actually, but it's so Unneccesary. The film has some good acting though and especially from Bud Cort. He has a brilliant way of acting in this pilot. Very strange and mystical and also kind of nervous. (Perhaps it is a little Norman in him to).Overall a recomended film for the "Psycho - fanatics", but not a movie you HAVE TO SEE.8/10

I've been getting bugged for years for copies of this film -- since it hardly ever got played after it bombed on TV back in '87. As a piece of Psycho history, I taped it in '87 and foolishly let people know that I had a copy.... I'm so glad Sci-fi is airing it so I don't have to sit through it anymore. Made as a potential pilot for an anthology series, the movie flopped badly and a show never materialized. Anthony Perkins (Norman Bates himself) boycotted the production. Not that he really needed to, since the public hated it as much as he did....I'd like to say this film is awful. But I can't really say that, since I've seen so much worse. But as an attachment to the Psycho films, it IS awful. It ignores the two sequels that had been made and even makes mistakes based on information from the original. Bud Cort gives a mind-numbingly dumb performance as the friend of Norman's who inherits the motel after his death. You never really have sympathy for him 'cause he just plays it so dumb. Lori Petti, who I usually love, is rather annoying as the squatter that befriends him. She does an okay job with her part, but the problem is that all the main parts were poorly written. We get more than half of the way through the movie, focusing on Cort and Petti trying to get the motel running again, and then we enter the first of the Twilight-Zone-ish stories: a woman who wants to kill herself is befriended by some strange teens. The writing and acting in this segment isn't bad, but after sitting through the Cort/Petti story, it hardly seems worth it. There's really only one creepy segment in the film -- the presence of the woman in black at Mrs. Bates funeral (but the discovery of her corpse is nonsense, since they found her body in the basement in the original film). The whole Jake Bates story seemed like it was jammed in so they could add a few more scares, though the scares fell flat. And the black-and-white segment at the film's climax could have been great -- if they hadn't went the Scooby-Doo unmask-the-villain route -- but as another reviewer wrote, it seemed to be the inspiration for "Scream 3" (which I love, by the way). Though the film is a piece of Psycho history, I wouldn't really recommend it to anyone, except maybe fans of the actors -- even then it wouldn't get a strong recommendation....