Do we like them?

Do we like Norman Bates?

A character from Psycho (1960)

Our score: 1 out of 10. Charming and easy to pity, but no. He's the host you'd want to check out of early, and a motel owner you can't back.

Psycho (1960) is Alfred Hitchcock's thriller. A woman on the run in a rainstorm pulls into the quiet Bates Motel, a few miles from the town of Fairvale. She meets its young proprietor, Norman, a polite but highly strung man who is into taxidermy and has a difficult relationship with his mother.

Norman comes across as a lonely, awkward, boy-next-door type. He's nervous, eager to please and a bit sad. That's why audiences warm to him at first, and why the film works so well. He's sympathetic enough that you want to like him, but the unease keeps building. He fusses over his mother, shares his hobbies and talks about feeling trapped. His answers get less convincing the more he's questioned.

We score him 1 out of 10. The sympathy is real, because he is clearly unwell and not simply cruel. But the harm he causes is serious, and nothing he does for others balances it out. We like him as a character and wouldn't back him as a person.

The big reveal is that Norman's "mother" is an alter ego he takes on. He murders the guests the motel draws in, and he covers up the crimes while believing his mother is responsible. In the end he's caught, and he's left lost inside the persona.