In Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 horror film Psycho, Marion Crane stops at the Bates Motel.
The motel is operated by Norman Bates, a seemingly polite but deeply disturbed young man played by Anthony Perkins. Marion, portrayed by Janet Leigh, arrives there after stealing money from her employer and driving away from Phoenix, Arizona.
The motel’s isolated location and its old Victorian house create the film’s central atmosphere of unease. Marion rents Room 1, while Norman lives in the house overlooking the property. Their conversation in the motel office introduces Norman’s difficult relationship with his domineering mother.
The name is sometimes confused with the Overlook Hotel from The Shining, but that is a different fictional lodging establishment. Psycho’s motel became one of the most recognizable locations in horror cinema, and the film later inspired the television series Bates Motel, which serves as a prequel to Hitchcock’s story.