The Bates Haunting

I don't know if is the bad acting that reminded me of those cheap 90's straight to video movies. Or the bad directing and stiff actors that also reminded me of the old video era of porn. Unfortunately was a bad combination for a good plot. I also thought of how nice would have been to buy the book in an airport to read during a long flight. Using my imagination to follow the narrative could have being a better idea than watching the movie to the end. It didn't seem low budget, so i guess it was a bad choice in acting and directing. One particular shot that is repeated over an over will get on your nerves very soon into the movie. Don't be fooled by the title either, it has nothing to do with Bates motel.

Anyone who gave this movie positive reviews clearly is somehow a part of the movie, or was paid to leave a positive review.

The first thing that jumps out to anyone who watches this is just how bad the acting is. The fake reviewers say we need to just get past the actors being no-names. But them being no- names is not the issue here. It's just that most of them can't act. It's blatantly obvious to everyone and you don't have to be "in the business" or a movie critic to realize it. I wonder just how little some of these actors were paid, because they clearly took anyone and everyone willing to work for cheap without actual talent factoring in.

In fact, I'm sure everybody can agree that there are some great movies with all no-names. But this is not one of them.

There's also the issue of special effects. I don't think the intent with this movie was the "so bad, it's good" effect. I really think they tried. Unfortunately, they failed. The scene with the tractor was atrocious. First, they didn't even hear the tractor as it got closer? They only heard it when it was far away?

The girl hit by the tractor first had a few drops of blood on her, as she's starring blankly into the distance, then, seconds later, she's covered with blood all over. But not drips of blood. Someone just took fake blood and lathered it onto her entire body. It looked like red body paint.

I wasn't able to make it much further past that part — I'm sure this was the case for most viewers.

Also, the addition of Bam Margera and his deceased cohort was shameless, unnecessary and outright annoying. Just because you're able to give a former reality star a cameo doesn't mean you should actually do it.

Overall, two thumbs down. No stars. Rotten to the core. Don't make the mistake of thinking this is one of those "so bad, it's good" movies. "So bad, it's bad" does, indeed, exist. Bates Haunting is undeniable proof.

Just like the apparently real-life attraction from which it gets its name, The Bates Haunting squats upon the name Norman Bates, the iconic horror figure from Robert Bloch's story and Alfred Hitchcock's film. This film is no better or worse than your average xerox copy "mock-buster" or Asylum knock off.

Normally I would say a film like this should not exist as it is only destined to eventually take up space in a landfill. But The existence of The Bates Haunting is justified because, sadly, it is probably now the closest we will ever get to an actual film adaptation of Bloch's own Psycho House.

Right, already at the opening of the movie, when Bam Margera appeared, I was ready to turn off the movie. I just knew right there and then that this was going to be bad. And then you see Ryan Dunn (who can't act even if his life depended on it) is listed to be in the movie, and it seems it would go from bad to worse.

Right, well "The Bates Haunting" is a slasher movie, but ultimately not in the higher end of the scale. The movie wasn't particularly interesting, and the story was just so-so. And the fact that the acting throughout most of the movie was amateurish and staggering, really didn't help elevate the movie out of the gutter of mediocrity.

The story is about Agnes Rickover (played by Jean Louise O'Sullivan) who sees her friend burnt to death at a local haunting attraction. And she ends up working at the very same attraction later on as all of her job possibilities are bled dry (no pun intended here). But things are escalating at the attraction and the make-believe deaths of various people to scare people turns out to be real killings. Someone or something is after Agnes, and wants her blood.

Alright, well fairly average slasher storyline here, but it was just badly acted, badly scripted and executed on the screen. The movie was anything but scary and there weren't any shocks throughout the movie.

The movie's poster/DVD cover makes the movie seem far better than it actually is, and also insinuates a much higher level of production value. Guess you can't judge a movie by its cover, eh?

If you are looking for some slasher entertainment, I would recommend that you get your kicks elsewhere. This movie was not really worth spending about an hour and a half on.

To call this low-budget would be generous as it has the production value of a high school film project. The writing is awful and the acting is worse, but sometimes it's just so silly that you can't help but laugh. It definitely doesn't take itself too seriously, so that's a plus. Apparently the name comes from an actual haunted house attraction, not anything to do with the Bates Motel franchise, and that's an interesting location for a horror movie, because no one suspects the murders are real when all the blood is supposed to be fake. It's for sure not the worst horror movie I've seen, and some of those were so bad I didn't make it past the first 15 minutes.