Bates Motel (film)

Bates Motel
TV Guide advertisement, 1987
Based on	Characters created by Robert Bloch
Written by	Richard Rothstein
Directed by	Richard Rothstein
Starring	Bud Cort Lori Petty Moses Gunn Gregg Henry Jason Bateman Kerrie Keane
Music by	J. Peter Robinson
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
Production
Producer(s)	Ken Topolsky
Cinematography	Bill Butler
Editor(s)	Dann Cahn Richard A. Freeman
Running time	90 minutes
Production company(s)	Universal Television
Distributor	NBC
Release
Original network	NBC
Original release	July 5, 1987

Bates Motel is a 1987 American made-for-television comedy-drama horror film and a spin-off of the Psycho film series produced by Ken Topolsky, written and directed by Richard Rothstein, and starring Bud Cort, Lori Petty, Moses Gunn, Gregg Henry, Jason Bateman, and Kerrie Keane. The film premiered as part of NBC Monday Night at the Movies on July 5, 1987.

The film is about Alex West, a mentally disturbed youth who was admitted to an asylum after killing his abusive stepfather. There he befriends Norman Bates and ends up inheriting the Bates Motel. It was originally produced as a pilot for a proposed TV series set in the Bates Motel, but it was not picked up by the network. The film ignores the timeline from Psycho II and Psycho III.

Alex West (Bud Cort) roomed with Norman Bates (Kurt Paul) at the state lunatic asylum nearly twenty years for killing his abusive stepfather, and they became close friends. After Norman's death, Alex learns that he has inherited the Bates Motel, which has been vacant since Norman's arrest. Alex travels to Norman's California hometown (renamed Fairville for this film; in the original film it was Fairvale) and with a little help from teenage runaway Willy (Lori Petty) and local handyman Henry Watson (Moses Gunn), Alex struggles to re-open the motel for business, until rumors about the place being haunted by the ghost of Norman's mother, Mrs. Bates, are apparently true. Only to find that the haunting was a prank and the ghost was the bank manager, Tom Fuller (Gregg Henry), who refused to give Alex a loan by trying to scare him away. Tom is then forced to help Alex and the others with renovating the motel or face prison for fraud. The motel was soon finished with the renovation.