Editorials
Norman and Me: Discovering Myself in the Bates Motel
When I learned that filmmaker Sam Wineman was accepting submissions for his upcoming queer horror documentary, I knew immediately that I wanted to talk about Anthony Perkins. The original Psycho (1960) has long been one of my favorite movies, horror or otherwise, and Perkins is a huge part of that. As tormented mama’s boy Norman Bates, Perkins is immensely sympathetic and relatable, which makes the revelation that he’s the killer all the more shocking. Certainly I related to this young man who was different in some mysterious but undeniable way; I myself always felt different, so when I realized I was gay it provided the answer to a long-standing question. Back when I was a child and first watched Psycho and Psycho II (1983) on video—with my mother, appropriately enough—Norman resonated with me in a way I didn’t quite comprehend at the time. A mama’s boy myself, I have a long-running joke with my own mom—wonderful, supportive, and hilarious, nothing like the domineering shrew suggested by Psycho—that I’m Norman. As I wrote up my notes on Perkins for the documentary taping, I realized that it was through Tony and Split Image: The Life of Anthony Perkins, Charles Winecoff’s 1996 biography, that I actually learned about gay history, culture, and identity—and thus about myself. I had a dream about the actor in my early twenties. In the dream, Tony and I met and discussed what it was like to be a gay man in his lifetime versus mine. I woke up wondering if I had somehow actually met Perkins in my subconscious.
Norman Bates’ odd vulnerability, as beautifully rendered by Perkins, made him something of a folk hero, and the greatest modern example of the persecuted monster as sympathetic victim. This archetype is one of the reasons queer people have been historically drawn to the horror genre, and with Norman being portrayed by a closeted gay actor, the character gains an added resonance for LGBTQ audiences.
Norman has other queer qualities as well. He’s a shy, sensitive mama’s boy—gay men have historically had close relationships with their mothers, and an outdated “theory” of homosexuality is that it was caused by a suffocating mother. Two years after the release of Psycho, controversial psychiatrist Irving Bieber published Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study of Male Homosexuals. As detailed in Split Image, Bieber wrote that “mothers of male homosexuals usually behave in … abnormal ways. They are overly intimate with their sons. They are also excessively possessive, over-protective and inclined to discourage the son’s masculine ways.” This sounds a lot like Mrs. Bates, who psychiatrist Dr. Richman describes as “a clinging, demanding woman.” Even after homosexuality was removed from DSM-III in 1973, Bieber protested “a homosexual is a person whose heterosexual function is crippled, like the legs of a polio victim.” This bizarre and demeaning view of gayness provides important context for the time in which Psycho was released and thus the reason we can “read” Norman as gay.
Norman’s sexuality is also mired in shame and secretiveness. He removes a painting depicting a rape to peep at Marion (Janet Leigh) in her underwear. The argument he has with his “mother” makes it clear that he’s been made to feel tremendous guilt over his sexual desires. “I won’t have you bringing strange young girls in here for supper—by candlelight, I suppose, in the cheap, erotic fashion of young men with cheap, erotic minds!” “she” declares.
In the film’s climax, Norman famously appears in drag and tries to stab Lila (Vera Miles) in the cellar, only to be restrained by Sam (John Gavin). Wanting to preserve his voice for his upcoming Broadway musical debut in Greenwillow, Perkins asked if he could pretend to scream and dub the sound in later. “Hitchcock liked the silent screams so much he never added the sound,” Perkins recalled. I later heard someone describe this moment as “the silent scream of gay men.” It’s utterly unintentional, of course, at least on a conscious level. But there’s something powerful and resonant in watching Perkins restrained by the manly Gavin, his face contorting in a shriek but yet unable to make a sound. I would never watch the scene the same way again. (Norman does have one line just prior to this scene, right as he appears in the doorway of the fruit cellar: “I am Norma Bates!” It was most likely recorded by actress Jeanette Nolan, one of several actors who recorded lines for “Mother.” Hitchcock blended them together for an uncanny quality.)
I read Winecoff’s Split Image as a freshman in high school, having not yet discovered my own sexuality. Certainly I was already a somewhat obsessive Psycho fan, so I was interested for that reason. But perhaps there was something more that drew me to the book, with its handsome cover photo of Perkins and its intimate details of his personal life. I learned that Perkins, like the author, was a gay man, and was forced to remain closeted for the sake of his film career. He later married photographer Berry Berenson and had two sons with her, musician Elvis Perkins and film director Oz Perkins (Gretel and Hansel). Winecoff provides at times explicit details of Perkins’ life with his male lovers, including fellow closeted matinee idol Tab Hunter, which I was surely intrigued and confused by at the time. The book also recounts Perkins’ battle with AIDS, which led to his death in 1992. I had been aware of AIDS as a child; in fact, Jonathan Demme’s Philadelphia was the first “grownup” movie I saw in theaters (the film was released the year after Perkins died, when I was ten). But reading Split Image’s account of the crisis and Perkins’ passing was my first real education in AIDS’ devastating impact.
Perkins learned of his status from a 1990 National Enquirer headline, “PSYCHO STAR BATTLING AIDS VIRUS”; a lab technician had apparently tested his blood after he visited his doctor, and then sold the results. It was a cruel and fitting coda to a life spent running from the homophobic machinery of the Hollywood press. Winecoff explains that gay actors lived in fear of another trashy tabloid, Confidential, which loved nothing more than to “out” closeted stars during its heyday in the Fifties and Sixties. A source recalled to Winecoff how he’d once witnessed Perkins and Hunters’ clandestine car ride—in separate vehicles—to Hunter’s West Hollywood apartment. “I left a note on the seat of Tab’s convertible, with a drawing of two pansies intertwined,” the man remembers. After learning how fearful Hunter was of an expose in Confidential, he knocked on the actor’s door to apologize; “Tab was very cold.” I recalled this story one afternoon when my grandparents drove me home from school. We had pulled into a driveway to turn around, and I joked that I was home. My grandmother said that I wouldn’t want to claim this house, pointing out a floral flag out front. “You see those flowers?” she asked. “Those are pansies.” I understood the implication immediately, and it hurt. (I was closeted to her at the time.)
Because of Winecoff’s book, Perkins became my window into gay history and culture, and the way homosexuality has been mocked, repressed, and expressed over the years. It was the beginning of a lifelong interest in LGBTQ history. Perkins’ career was marked by a long history of queer coding, in which a character is never explicitly “written” as queer but can be read as such through subtle clues. Apart from Norman, Perkins played an early Broadway role in Elia Kazan’s Tea and Sympathy (1953), about a young college student suspected of homosexuality but “saved” by the love of a good woman. Then there was “Never Will I Marry,” his showstopper in Greenwillow (1960). Ostensibly about his character Gideon’s curse– to never settle down—“it became an instant camp classic within the invisible gay community because fey Anthony Perkins was singing it,” Winecoff writes. “Indeed, over the years it has proved an ironic theme song for the actor’s own surprising personal life.” The song was later covered by gay icons Barbara Streisand and Judy Garland.
About fifteen years ago, when I was living in Boston, I interviewed an older gay man as a possible roommate. He noticed that I had one of Perkins’ album covers on my wall and told me that he slept with the actor on Fire Island back in the day, not initially knowing who he was. His story encapsulated everything I had learned from Tony’s biography: “The next day he told me, ‘Yes, it’s me. Please don’t tell anyone.’”
In 2007, I saw Tony’s son Elvis perform on Coney Island and met him briefly at a CD signing afterwards. I appreciated his melancholy music, but I felt compelled to go because I knew it was the closest I’d ever come to meeting his late father.
Whether or not Perkins really visited my subconscious, he is truly immortal thanks to Norman Bates. The character’s legacy continued through three sequels, a 1998 remake, and the prequel series Bates Motel, which further explored the character’s ambiguous sexuality. (Actor Freddie Highmore was an outstanding choice to inherit Perkins’ torch.) The tormented and sympathetic Norman, and his portrayer, stand as a testament to the struggles and pain gay men endured to get to this point. I’ll never get to meet Tony, but I’ll forever be grateful to him.
After fifty years of continuous writing, Stephen King has become a genre unto himself.
The unrivaled Master of Horror made a splash in 1974 with his debut novel Carrie and has been terrifying readers ever since. Two years later, Brian De Palma brought this shocking story to the screen with an equally electrifying horror film that remains a genre classic and a prototypical example of “Good For Her” horror. This dual debut seemed to open the floodgates, unleashing endless waves of Stephen King films.
From the highs of Misery, Cujo, and The Shawshank Redemption to the schlocky fun of Cat’s Eye, Creepshow, and Children of the Corn, the last five decades have seen just about every notable horror creator take a stab at the author’s massive collection.
In recent years, this singular subgenre has begun to burst at the seams, expanding to include Stephen King-esque fare. In 2016, brothers Matt and Ross Duffer debuted Stranger Things, a sci-fi series heavily inspired by two of King’s most famous books. The Netflix series remixes Firestarter and It by following a little girl with psychic powers and an intrepid group of kids on bikes who must battle an otherworldly foe and a sinister government agency. With its clever blend of modern effects and comforting nostalgia, this gateway horror series paved the way for Andy Muschietti’s It adaptation which remains the highest grossing horror film of all time.
Four years later, Mike Flanagan would create Midnight Mass, a spiritual adaptation of King’s second novel Salem’s Lot. Published in 1975, the book sees a tiny New England town torn apart by a centuries-old vampire. Though Flanagan’s story is perhaps more tender, both iterations of the classic horror tale follow close-knit communities shaken to their core by the presence of an ancient evil.
In addition to these recent hits, 2025 was a banner year for the Master of Horror. Audiences delighted in six mainstream adaptations, including the massively popular It: Welcome to Derry which chronicles earlier cycles of the titular clown’s reign. With this boost to King’s cultural cache, it’s no surprise that we’ve begun to see more unofficial adaptations of the author’s work and horror creators who build their own unique castles in King’s creative sandbox.
So what defines a Stephen King-esque story?
For the past fifty years, the prolific author has dipped his toes in nearly every subgenre from supernatural stories and grisly gore to western fantasy and science fiction. Including his vast catalogue of short fiction, King has tackled ghosts, demons, werewolves, zombies, aliens, mutants, and self-driving cars, not to mention bizarre monsters of his own creation. But what truly unites this vast array of horror is King’s focus on relatable characters. In his 2000 memoir/instructional text On Writing, the prolific author describes the amusement he finds in writing disparate characters, placing them in horrific scenarios, then exploring the ways they try to survive.
An unofficial Stephen King adaptation may take place in the author’s native New England — bonus points if it’s set in Maine — and reference his well-known heroes and villains. But what makes the King connection unbreakable is a character-driven story about average people who band together in the face of abject terror.
Weapons Captures Small Town Stephen King
Following his 2022 shocker Barbarian, Zach Cregger returned with Weapons, a sprawling story that begins in a doomed elementary school. On an otherwise ordinary day, Justine (Julia Garner) arrives at her desk to find that all but one of her students have disappeared. As the mystery grows increasingly violent, Justine and Archer (Josh Brolin), the father of a missing boy, find their way to the home of Alex (Cary Christopher), the class’ only surviving student. In some ways reminiscent of Salem’s Lot, Weapons swings wildly through the unfortunate town, introducing us to its flawed inhabitants as we watch their lives fall apart.
Cregger’s setup nods to a pair of King short stories. Both “Suffer the Little Children” and “Here There Be Tygers” tackle monstrous presences in elementary schools, but as Weapons reaches its final act, Constant Readers may remember another Stephen King tale. Featured in his 1985 collection Skeleton Crew, “Gramma” introduces us to George, a little boy tormented by an aging witch. On an afternoon alone with his sickly grandmother, the frightened child gradually realizes that the imposing old woman has been waiting for an opportunity to cast a spell that will extend her own life by possessing his body.
Alex finds himself similarly tortured by his aunt Gladys (Amy Madigan), a garish witch who orchestrates a desperate plot to sustain her own strength. Transforming humans into mindless weapons, Gladys has taken over Alex’s family home and lured his classmates to the basement. Holding them in a comatose state, she syphons off their energy to extend her own supernatural life.
Vastly different in many ways, both “Gramma” and Weapons hinge on a sinister witch who uses horrific magical spells to sacrifice the bodies of her vulnerable prey.
Hokum Echoes The Shining and 1408
It’s nearly impossible to watch a film about a haunted hotel without thinking of King’s third novel, The Shining. This icy story follows Jack Torrance, an angry writer struggling with his sobriety and a shameful incident haunting his past. Accompanied by his wife and young son, Jack has taken a job as the winter caretaker for the Overlook, a haunted hotel situated high in the Rocky Mountains. Snowed in, Jack finds himself tormented by dangerous ghosts who amplify his greatest fears.
Damian McCarthy’s Hokum follows a similarly troubled figure. Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) is a surly writer who travels to the Bilberry Woods Hotel in rural Ireland to spread his parents’ ashes. Haunted by his own tragic past, Ohm finds himself trapped in the honeymoon suite, a decaying room that’s been permanently closed to protect visitors from a dangerous witch trapped within its walls. Visual nods to King’s text abound with woodcut figurines and an animated clock, mirroring ominous descriptions found in King’s text.
Another terrifying sequence sees Ohm staring with horror at a closed door, the only thing separating him from the approaching witch. As the door knob slowly turns, Constant Readers remember Jack’s narrow escape from the ghostly woman in room 217. And Ohm’s popular Conquistador books directly reference King’s long-running fantasy series The Dark Tower which follows a gunslinger named Roland Deschain tasked with protecting the nexus of the universe.
In addition to these thematic comparisons, Hokum bears striking resemblance to King’s terrifying short story “1408.” Collected in 2002’s Everything’s Eventual, the terrifying story follows Mike Enslin, a dejected writer who’s risen to fame penning essays about his adventures in haunted locations. Mike arrives at the Hotel Dolphin and bullies his way into the titular room, despite the manager’s dire warnings. McCarthy nods to this story with an ominously misplaced hotel room door, reminiscent of King’s entry to 1408, an unsuspecting portal that appears to move each time Mike looks away.
However, McCarthy’s most direct reference lies in a minicorder Ohm uses to capture notes. Trapped inside the dreaded honeymoon suite, this device offers well-timed messages while sitting next to a decomposing corpse. Mike records his time in 1408 with his own trusty minicorder. Described for the reader, his tape has captured the man’s slow descent into madness as the room prepares to swallow him whole. With conclusions that differ wildly in tone, both Ohm and Mike find their lives irrevocably changed by encounters with the supernatural realm.
Widow’s Bay Builds Its Own Version of Castle Rock
Katie Dippold’s Widow’s Bay has taken the idea of an unofficial King adaptation and turned it into an art form. The Apple TV series sees the residents of the titular island plagued by a curse that dates back centuries. Not only does the picturesque hamlet not accommodate wifi connections, those born on the island face certain death should they ever try to leave. Desperate to modernize the tiny town, Mayor Tom Loftis (Matthew Rhys) draws in waves of tourists just as a new cycle of terror begins.
Blending horror with deft comedy, Dippold makes cheeky references to King’s body of work. Tom warns that, “there’s something in the fog,” reminding readers of King’s 1980 novella The Mist. And Loftis’ own stay in the town’s haunted hotel sees him tormented by the ghost of a murderous clown. We even spy a vintage King hardback peeking out of a local book trade box.
In many ways Widow’s Bay feels like a new iteration of the author’s Little Tall Island, a tiny village off the coast of Maine. In addition to the 1992 novel Dolores Claiborne and a handful of harrowing short stories, this quaint fishing village is also the setting for King’s 1999 teleplay Storm of the Century. Premiering on ABC primetime, this tragic tale follows a terrified group of islanders who batten down the hatches for a dangerous Nor’easter only to find a more sinister threat lurking within.
Constant Readers may also be reminded of Castle Rock, the author’s favorite fictional town.
First introduced in the 1981 novel Cujo, the charming village becomes the star of Needful Things, King’s satire about consumerism. After several Castle Rock stories, we’re reintroduced to its residents as they gossip about the arrival of Leland Gaunt and the grand opening of his curio shop. Anything their hearts desire can be found in his varied inventory, so long as they’re willing to pay the price. Pitting cantankerous neighbors against each other, Gaunt ignites a wave of grisly violence by exploiting long-held resentments and feuds.
The town’s only defense against this supernatural threat is beleaguered sheriff Alan Pangborn. Still grieving the deaths of his wife and younger son, Alan struggles to connect with his older child and pick up the pieces of his shattered life. Also a widower, Loftis struggles to raise his own restless son and explain the strange details of his wife’s tragic death. Attempting to unravel the island’s dark secrets, Tom is aided by quirky residents including a surly fisherman named Wyck (Stephen Root) and Patricia (Kate O’Flynn), an earnest Town Hall employee. King’s own novels feature many of these proactive alliances with disparate characters combining their strengths to overcome insurmountable odds.
With Widow’s Bay renewed for a second season and Mike Flanagan’s Carrie series on the horizon, the future seems bright for new King adaptations, both spiritual and directly pulled from his catalogue. The prolific author also shows no signs of slowing down with two publications nearing release. His upcoming novel, Other Worlds Than These, is the long-awaited third Talisman book which teases direct ties to his Dark Tower world. Holly Forever will be a new installment of his crime series, offering a different kind of genre fare.
This embarrassment of riches spawning multiple worlds seems ripe for spiritual adaptation and will likely inspire horror creators for decades to come.
Kate O’Flynn, Stephen Root and Matthew Rhys in “Widow’s Bay,” now streaming on Apple TV.
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