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Movies & Series 28 September 2019, 16:29

Dark Thillers and Horror – TV Series to Make You Feel Uncanny

Many of us like to be scared every now and then. Dark stories allow us to fulfill this desire relatively safely – and many streaming platforms' offerings will cater to those needs. Meet the most unsettling series.

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Bates Motel

  1. Tags: thriller, drama, motel, Hitchcock Psychosis,
  2. Streaming platform: Netflix

Pop culture nostalgia usually comes in one of two available forms. The first is cannibalism, a plague of faithful, but mediocre remakes. The second is inspiration and development of ideas, originally used by great predecessors. This was the case with Bates Motel, which tried to tell the story of Alfred Hitchcock's Psychosis from a broader perspective and provide a context for events that occurred in the original. Something that began as a loose, often clumsy adaptation of the classic thriller ended with a bang.

Here and there you can hear the echoes of original scenes, which distorted the mass imagination, but Bates Motel focuses primarily on the proper way. A way which presents a tragic journey that will twist Norman Bates into a psychopathic monster. At the fifth season finale we see him as a murderer who doesn't pay any respect to personal boundaries, but even then the series gives us an opportunity to feel sorry for lead character.

Indeed, the Bates Motel transforms into a tragedy in which Norman is inevitably confronted with a miserable fate. At the same time, it can keep in suspense – maybe not like the original, but Hitchcock is a different beast. However, as a study of mental illness, toxic relations and violence, it seems to work perfectly, gaining its own identity and coming out of the shadow cast by the original.

The script had some minor flaws at the beginning and it looked like a hard endeavor to meet these standards, but even in the darkest (in terms of quality) moments, the actors' performances saved the overall impression. Vera Famiga was excellent as the embodiment of the evil side of motherly care. Norma Bates was a true spark, especially in recent seasons, when she could abandon any appearances of normal behavior. On the other hand, Freddie Highmore was able to move many with his acting skills at the very beginning of the show, only to spread his wings in later episodes. As the whole show. Uneven in quality, yet with a stroke of genius.

Hubert Sosnowski

Hubert Sosnowski

He joined GRYOnline.pl in 2017, as an author of texts about games and movies. He's currently the head of the film department and the Filmomaniak.pl website. Learned how to write articles while working for the Dzika Banda portal. His texts were published on kawerna.pl, film.onet.pl, zwierciadlo.pl, and in the Polish Playboy. Has published stories in the monthly Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror magazine, as well as in the first volume of the Antologii Wolsung. Lives for "middle cinema" and meaty entertainment, but he won't despise any experiment or Fast and Furious. In games, looks for a good story. Loves Baldur's Gate 2, but when he sees Unreal Tournament, Doom, or a good race game, the inner child wakes up. In love with sheds and thrash metal. Since 2012, has been playing and creating live action role-playing, both within the framework of the Bialystok Larp Club Zywia, and commercial ventures in the style of Witcher School.

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