A&EThis isn't your mother's Psycho.
A&E has just released a new trailer for its upcoming drama Bates Motel, a prequel to the classic Alfred Hitchcock film, and it looks downright killer. Seriously. Check out that dead body being dumped in a lake.
Executive produced by Emmy-winner Carlton Cuse and Friday Night Lights' Kerry Ehrin, the series finds troubled teen Norman Bates (British actor Freddie Highmore) and his very-much-alive mother Norma Louise (Oscar nominee Vera Farmiga) taking over the infamous inn after moving to a Northern California coastal town where nothing is as it seems. "This town looks really beautiful on the outside," Cuse says in the clip, "but underneath it is something very dark and malevolent." Would you expect anything less from the guy who helped shepherd Lost?
Nester Carbonell, who played ageless-wonder Richard Alpert on the ABC hit drama, knew he was in for a bloody-good ride when he agreed to reunite with Cuse for Bates Motel. "When I knew Carlton was doing it, I knew it was gonna be sensational," the actor, who plays a suspicious town sheriff in the cable drama, recently told us. "He sent me the first six scripts, and I was blown away."
Expect the series to shed light on the twisted upbringing that eventually led Norman to become a cross-dressing, butcher-knife-wielding serial killer. The Oedipal dynamic between Mother and son is evident in the trailer, which shows Norma stripping down to black lingerie in front of her kid and Norman catching a glimpse of his mother's sexy silhouette in the window of the iconic Psycho house. (As we previously reported, the Bates patriarch dies under mysterious circumstances at the beginning of the pilot.)
"It's certainly not a replica of the film in any way," Carbonell told us of the series. "It's really a re-imagining because it's in present-day times. The motel, and some of the issues, are the same but the world they live in is radically different."
And…LOL-worthy? "There's a lot of humor," insists the actor. "A lot of guilting of the son, which is very funny. Obviously, it's dark humor, but I find it very funny."
Check out the trailer, which includes commentary from both producers and cast, including hot up-and-comer Max Thieriot, who plays Norman's rebellious older brother, Dylan.
Bates Motel premieres its 10-episode first season in March.
—Additional reporting by John Boone