How many people does Norman Bates kill in ‘Psycho’?
As cinema’s most terrifying characters go, they don’t come much scarier than Norman Bates. The killer in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film Psycho is so scary precisely because he appears, to all intents and purposes, to be a well-mannered young man dutifully taking care of his invalid mother.
It’s always the ones you least expect. Except in this case, we spend most of the movie fully believing that it’s Norman’s mother committing multiple murders before the ending’s big reveal shows who and what Norman really is. And that every ghastly murder we see was committed by this timid, sweet boy all along.
Without an astonishingly authentic and nuanced performance from Anthony Perkins, the sinister dichotomy within Norman Bates’ personality could never have been realised on screen. The suspense Psycho leaves the audience with for much of the movie would have been lost as a consequence. Rarely in the history of cinema has a role been as challenging as marrying the veneer of innocence Norman maintains for the most part with his depraved thoughts and actions.
But how much of a killer is Norman Bates? Can we really call him a serial offender? Well, let’s go through the events of the film and find out.
Who does Norman kill in Psycho?
Once we know that Norman’s mother, Norma Bates, has been dead since before the events of the film began, we realise that each on-screen killing was carried out by Norman himself. That makes it quite easy to count the number of murders he’s committed, on the face of it.
First, there’s Bates Motel guest Marion Crane, who Norman murders in Psycho’s famous shower scene while dressed as his mother. This happens in an act of jealousy when the version of his mother’s personality that Norman has internalised reveals he is attracted to Marion.
Then there’s Milton Arbogast, stabbed to death by Norman, again dressed as his mother, as he ventures up the stairs in the Bates family home next to the motel. Arbogast was a private investigator hired to follow up on Marion’s whereabouts.
These are the only two killings we see on screen, so they are, in a sense, the only two murders that Norman Bates commits “in” Psycho. But the film’s penultimate scene reveals more of his grisly deeds.
So, what’s the total kill count?
Once Norman has been caught and arrested, a psychiatrist describes to local police officers and Marion’s sister and boyfriend what happened when he interviewed him. Norman, in the persona of his mother, apparently confessed to two more murders of young girls previously reported to the police department as missing persons.
In explaining the basis for Norman’s psychopathy, the psychiatrist then reveals two further killings. “You have to go back ten years,” he says, “to the time Norman murdered his mother and her lover.”
And so, we have a final count of six people confirmed to have been killed by Norman Bates in Psycho. Two during the events of the film and four prior to these events.
But even that number might not be the end of the story. As the movie’s screenwriter Joseph Stefano once said in reference to the swamp near the motel where Norman gets rid of his victims and their cars, “You just knew there were a lot of other cars down there!” How many cars in total, exactly? That’s left to our imagination.
