10 Horror Movie Villains With Surprisingly Boring Day Jobs

Never have you met a more mild-mannered motel manager than Norman Bates.

Played by Anthony Perkins in Hitchcock's black and white horror classic Psycho (1960), Norman runs a tight ship at the Bates Motel: the rooms are affordable, the bathrooms are spotless, and the lack of custom, due its the location far from the new highway, make it the perfect hideaway for a traveller on the lamb.

No wonder, then, that he spends most of his days practising taxidermy, arguing with his puritanical mother, Norma, and murdering their patrons.

The quintessential kook, Bates' work may be one of the causes for his villainy, trying to keep a struggling business afloat with only his dead mother for company. Granted, taxidermy and peepholes don't do much for the image of a well-adjusted young man, but Norman never shirks his duties.

In many ways, the duality of his day job and violent slayings matches his psyche, which split down the seams after he murdered his mother, manifesting as a cross-dressing dual personality.