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With shows like The Walking Dead and American Horror Story scooping up high ratings and accolades like they’re going out of style, there’s no doubt that horror is dominating TV right now. It’s even becoming a big time trend to turn popular horror movies into their own series’, with spin-offs of Psycho and Silence of the Lambs already moving into their second seasons and others based on The Shining, Scream, The Exorcist and From Dusk Till Dawn currently in the works.

That said, the road to success hasn’t always been an easy one, when it comes to TV adaptations of beloved horror flicks. Over the years we’ve seen many of them come and go, either failing to catch on with audiences the way shows like Bates Motel and Hannibal have or even failing to ever find their way in front of the cameras.

Today, we...

Before "Bates Motel" opened up its doors on A&E, there was another television pilot of the same name that continued the Psycho legacy in an altogether different direction. That's right, kids, the failed 1987 pilot "Bates Motel" is now available on DVD!

Through the magic of Universal's Vault Series, you can order yourself a copy on DVD-r! Note that not all players will play these manufactured-on-demand discs so make sure that yours does before purchasing!

Now then... what the hell is this, you ask? I'll let our resident Psycho junkie, Jinx, take it from here with an excerpt from his 5-part series, Psycho Path: Tracing Norman Bates' Twisted Trail Through Page and Screen.

Bud Cort, Lori Petty, and Moses Gunn star in Richard Rothstein's 90-minute pilot. Let your curiosity get the better of you and order one below. It'll look great right next to your Psycho IV: The Beginning DVD!

Well this was a pleasant surprise! And it shouldn't be considering the huge success of A&E's modern interpretation of the 'Psycho' mythology with their hit series 'Bates Motel.' Long before Freddie Highmore and Vera Farmiga slipped into the roles of Norman and Norma Bates, there was another TV pilot titled 'The Bates Motel' from 1987 and after years of floating in obscurity and only being available on the bootleg market, it's finally been given a quiet DVD release via Universal's "Vault Series".

A brief history - after the low box office returns on 'Psycho III' back in 1986, Universal was looking for a new way to further exploit their property and they thought that TV might be the answer. The biggest mistake? Not staying with the continuity set up by the films. Instead, in this version, Norman Bates had died in the mental institution and left his house...

Welcome to the fourth installment of Psycho Path, a look at fictional madman Norman Bates from the Psycho franchise.

Intended to run in five parts, Psycho Path will focus on each of Norman’s adventures – in novels, films, and television series – while examining each incarnation of the character and the differences amongst them.

Check out past installments of Psycho Path: Tracing Norman Bates' Twisted Trail Through Page and Screen here

Part IV: Endings

"There are times I wonder if all of what passes for sanity isn’t just a form of remission from our own natural state. What was it Norman Bates used to say? Something like 'everybody goes a little crazy at times.'"

In 1990, nine years after his last Psycho novel, novelist Robert Bloch returned to the world of Norman Bates for the third and final time with Psycho House - a tense thriller that finds good old-fashioned murder more popular than ever,...

Welcome to the third installment of Psycho Path, a look at fictional madman Norman Bates from the Psycho franchise.

Intended to run in five parts, Psycho Path will focus on each of Norman’s adventures – in novels, films, and television series – while examining each incarnation of the character and the differences amongst them.

Check out past installments of Psycho Path: Tracing Norman Bates' Twisted Trail Through Page and Screen here

Part III: Third Time’s the Charm

When we last left Norman Bates, he was either dead or insane, depending on which Psycho II you’d like to refer to (book or film, respectively). With the novel series keeping idle for nearly a decade between books (the third and final chapter of Bloch’s Psycho run wouldn’t appear until 1990), the only offerings fans could find in the wake of each Psycho II were another film sequel and a failed...

The first teaser art for A&E’s Psycho prequel for television, Bates Motel, has just surfaced online!

The series is officially described as follows:

“Bates Motel” gives viewers an intimate understanding of how Norman Bates’ psyche developed from his childhood through his teen years. Fans will have access to the dark, twisted backstory and learn first hand how his mother, Norma, and her love damaged Norman, helped forge the most well-known serial killing motel owner in history.

This actually isn’t the first time the Psycho series has been piloted for television. In 1987, a pilot of the same name was produced which later aired as a television movie before the release of Psycho IV. The Norman Bates character has a cameo appearance in the movie, played by Kurt Paul, who was Anthony Perkins’s stunt double on Psycho II and III.

A&E and Universal are at work to bring Norman Bates back to the screen, albeit on the small screen.  The former has ordered up a 10-episode run of Bates Motel, a new series that explores Norman Bates' life before Psycho.

This isn't the first time TV has taken a crack at Bates' legacy.  There was a television pilot from '87, starring Bud Cort, Lori Petty and Kurt Paul as Norman Bates, which was nixed rather fast.  And in 2007, Vertigo Entertainment Roy Lee and Doug Davison paired up with Lionsgate and Universal to bring Bates Motel to life.

Years later, showrunners Carlton Cuse (Lost) and Kerry Ehrin (Friday Night Lights) picked up the project and are now finally making it happen.  Recently, it was revealed Vera Farmiga was cast as Norma Bates, Norman's mother.  While we await word as to who is playing Norman himself, let us share with you...

Welcome to another edition of our upstart series, Mindhole Blowers, in which we troll the Internet and listen to DVD Commentaries to bring you what we hope is fascinating minutia. Typically, we look at movies (see our Mindhole Blowers columns on Cameron Crowe's Singles and Shane Black's Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), but today -- with the release of Horrible Bosses on the horizon -- I thought we'd take a look at a person, the fascinating and ridiculously durable Jason Bateman.

Jason Bateman has been acting now in Hollywood for 29 years. In that career, there are only two roles that I can identify in which he didn't play a variation on his "Jason Bateman" character, which is to say: Sly, dry wit and a personality halfway between ridiculously charming and spectacularly douchy. Those two roles were his first, as a kid in "Little House on the Prarie" and a...

The makers of what looks to be be a fascinating independent retrospective documentary about the Psycho films and their spin-offs, The Psycho Legacy, have released a new trailer. It comes ahead of a possible release of the film later this year. It can be viewed by clicking on the Trailer tab above.

The original Psycho will be 50 years old next year. It was directed by Alfred Hitchcock from a script by Joseph Stefano based on the novel by Robert Bloch. The film helped to make a star of Anthony Perkins, who played the murderous Norman Bates. Psycho became notorious for a scene in which the character of Marion Crane (played by Janet Leigh) is knifed in the shower. It is also remembered for the iconic image of the Bates Motel.

Psycho spawned two theatrical sequels, Psycho II in 1983 and Psycho III in 1986, as well as a fourth made-for-television prequel, Psycho IV: The Beginning...

I'm a pretty big fan of documentaries as not only do they bring back some incredible memories, but they provide new information for the die hard fan or people looking to learn more about the topic at hand. For the past year, Robert Galluzzo - who runs horror website Icons Of Fright - has been producing an extensive documentary on the Psycho franchise titled The Psycho Legacy. Today the site hosts 12 minutes of footage, which covers all four Psycho films and features Psycho alumni Hilton Green, Tom Holland, Andrew London, Jeff Fahey, Lee Garlington, Katt Shea, Donovan Scott, Kurt Paul, as well as filmmakers Adam Green, Dave Parker, Joe Lynch and many, many more. Read on to watch it or click the link below. Watch for more as it comes in.