The Bates Motel is under new management. Does this mean the screams will finally stop?
When Norman Bates passes away in the sanitarium, he bequeaths his house and the Bates Motel to Alex West (Bud Cort), his best friend at the sanatorium who he took under his wing when Alex was just a young boy. Released from the sanitarium, Alex makes his way to the infamous hotel with plans for renovations. New friends assist while old ghosts stand in his way.
Lori Petty co-stars as Willie, a down-on-her luck woman who was squatting in the old Bates house. Petty is pretty bad. She’s grating and unlikable. Moses Gunn plays Henry Watson, the only other friend to Alex and another character struggling with personal problems. Moses is likely the best actor here.
Gregg Henry appears as Tim Fuller, a bank manager with his own plans for the motel. Henry is fine, doing exactly what is required of him. This is not one of his more memorable roles, though. Jason Bateman cameos as Tony (a clear reference to Anthony Perkins), a lovelorn teen who rents a room for the night. There’s not much to say about him as he has little screen time.
Bud Cort as Alex is certainly trying his best, but is stuck in one mode: awkward. He’s clearly trying to do something similar to Anthony Perkins’ Norman but completely fails to sell the role. He plays the whole thing with a wide-eyed shock and overall timidness/meekness that gets old fast. He even manages to read some of his lines wrong, in so much as some are meant to be questions but he doesn’t read them as such.
Bates Motel was released in 1987, after Psycho 2 and 3. It makes the unwise decision to erase those films and pick up where the original classic left off before fast-forwarding to present day 1987. It’s an odd and baffling choice that, in better hands, could possibly work but definitely doesn’t here. As far as I could tell, this film doesn’t utilize the original classic sets, instead choosing to re-create them. The attempt isn’t terrible, but the look of the renovated Bates Motel is just bad.
Richard Rothstein directs and penns the screenplay. He created and wrote the tv show The Hitchhiker, penned the screenplay for Universal Soldier, and directed two episodes of The Hitchiker. The direction is poor and the screenplay is atrocious. The writing and story might be the worst parts of this movie.
Bates Motel opts for a lighter tone that veers into comedy at times, but more often aims for supernatural mystery. A large part of this film deals with the possibility that the ghost of Mrs. Bates still haunts the grounds. Insulting and stupid. It doesn’t help matters that Bates Motel even contradicts the original classic at times (Mrs. Bates is accidentally dug up in a coffin during construction and it’s implied she might have murdered her lover, Jake).
As if all of this wasn’t bad enough, there’s even a 13th hour sub-plot involving the ghosts of 50’s teens who died by suicide. You heard that right, actual real ghosts are included in the proceedings. It’s also very disappointing that this film doesn’t include a single death/murder. Not a one!
Bates Motel was a made-for-tv movie that aimed to spawn a future tv series picking up after the events of the film. Luckily, this would not come to pass. The Bates Motel series that aired in 2013 is not affiliated with this failed feature-length pilot and was much better than whatever this was. If Alex West offers you a room at his renovated Bates Motel, I’d suggest you drive on by.
1 STAR
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