‘Bates Motel’ Revealed: A&E Delivers First Six Minutes Of ‘Psycho’ Drama

Bates Motel has been revealed. A&E delivered the first six minutes of the one-hour drama set to premiere on Monday, March 18, and the new series doesn’t waste any time getting to the iconic murder palace immortalized in the Psycho film saga.

The footage starts with teenage Norman Bates (Freddie Highmore) discovering his father’s dead body.

Details are fuzzy on what put the senior Bates in that condition, and, from there, we jump to six months later with an excited Norma/Mother (Vera Farmiga) taking her boy out for a surprise that will be instantly familiar to anyone, who has seen one or all of these movies.

You do get to see the house, inside and out, but there really isn’t anything here to hint at where it all goes wrong for Norman.

Highmore appears pretty normal, but there is a trace of that unhinged psyche that Anthony Perkins played so well in the film versions.

(Let’s pretend the Vince Vaughn interpretation doesn’t exist, shall we?)

Farmiga runs a risk here of being too “all-American mom.”

We know from the Psycho films that it took an overbearing monster to create one in Norman Bates, and there isn’t a trace of that in her performance. Still, there is some speculation that Norman’s dad died an unnatural death and that she may have been part or wholly responsible.

It’s still too early to tell where Bates Motel creator Anthony Cipriano is going with this and how much he will ultimately veer from the previously established canon.

Bloody Disgusting noted that the Bates family won’t be the only ones carrying dark secrets when the series drops in about a week, and, in January 2013, The Inquisitr reported on some pretty graphic images that will be part of the fun.

Check out the footage below, and tell us: Will you be watching Bates Motel?