Director: Alfred Hitchcock
Writer: Joseph Stefano based on a book by Robert Bloch
Release year: 1960
A boy’s best friend is his mother.
Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), a young woman on the run, stops for the night at the isolated Bates Motel. The motel manager, oddball Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins), is happy for the company, but Marion is distracted by her recent past. The motel has a past of its own in which Marion soon becomes immersed….
Director: Richard Franklin
Writer: Tom Holland
Release Year: 1983
Coming home is hard to do.
More than twenty years after the events of the first film, Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) is released from the asylum and returns to the Bates Motel. Lila Loomis (Vera Miles)—who apparently married her sister’s boyfriend Sam—objects to his release in the strongest possible terms, but Dr. Bill Raymond (Robert Loggia) assures her that Bates is restored to sanity. Others, including Norman himself, are not so sure….
Director: Anthony Perkins
Writer: Charles Edward Pogue
Release Year: 1986
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
The film opens with novice nun Maureen Coyle (Diana Scarwid) accidentally causing the death of another nun in a scene swiped from Vertigo. She decides to leave the order and catches a ride with general-purpose sleazebag Duane Duke (Jeff Fahey). After being left alone on the road, she finds her way to an out-of-the-way motel run by an interesting man named Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins)….
Director: Mick Garris
Writer: Joseph Stefano based on a character by Robert Bloch
Release Year: 1990
The bad seed sprouts.
Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) calls in to a radio talk show hosted by Fran Ambrose (CCH Pounder) and Dr. Leo Richmond (Warren Frost) to talk about the reason that he killed his mother (here played by Olivia Hussey) and lets slip that he is going to kill again, soon….
Director: Jalmari Helander
Writers: Jalmari Helander, Juuso Helander, Petri Jokiranta and Sami Parkkinen
Release year: 2010
‘The Thing’ meets ‘A Christmas Story’, far far North…
I think it’s safe to assume we have a new and very strong contender for the title of greatest Christmas themed horror movie ever made. Although it has to be said that the Finnish treat ‘Rare Exports’ is not exactly your average conventional holiday slasher like, say, ‘Black Christmas’ (1977) or ‘Silent Night, Deadly Night’ (1984). Nope, instead this is a hugely original and imaginative mixture between dark fantasy and pitch-black comedy, spiced with some horror elements. (more…)
