Bates Motel

Very few television shows are challenging, unnerving or horrifying. American Horror Story comes close. I watched a few episodes that focused on the side show and I found it interesting but not scary. Most clowns are annoying and I include the scary ones. If you want to do a clown character, it had better be perfect. Krusty the Clown from The Simpsons is perfect. That's about it.  The scary clown in that show wasn't scary. 

Bates Motel isn't just scary, it's disturbing. Hitchcock understood that you don't need excessive blood to terrify an audience. The scariest scenes in Psycho are when Norman Bates is talking to Marion Crane. Perkins is terrifying for many reasons, but one of the main reasons is how normal he is. He looks harmless. He is frail, looks weak, and dresses like a totally normal person. We expect villains and psychopaths in movies to look like Jason Voorhies or raging lunatics. 

The actor who plays Norman Bates here is outstanding. He's plays Bates the same way Perkins does-so normal that you know people who look and act like him-but in reality he's a raging psychopath who should not be in free society. The actress playing his mother is also quite good. We never got to see Norma Bates alive in the movie, it's only Normans thoughts masquerading as Norma. I thought that Norma Bates would be more manipulative and emotionally abusive than how Vera Farming is playing her, but Farming is still believable in the role.

Bates Motel is one of the few seriously creepy television show I've seen.