10 Scariest Mothers In Horror Movie History
8. Mrs. Bates - Psycho
The OG of horror mommies, Mrs. Bates sits somewhere between fiction and reality for this list - once a defining force in psychotic murderer Norman Bates's life, and then a figment of his own imagination that drives him to kill. Good old Mother Bates ended her life in a murder-suicide in which she poisoned her lover, and her horrors didn't stop there.
Absorbed into Norman Bates through sheer force of will, the boy is ruled by the recreation of his mother in his own head - a personality that has manifested itself into something twisted and deadly. We see quite how this has all happened at the end of the movie with Norman dressed up as his mom, with one grisly appearance from the corpse herself to really seal the deal on her lack of physical involvement from beyond the grave.
Mrs. Bates might not be a tangible, flesh and blood presence in the movie as much as any of the other entries are, but what she lacks in life she brings tenfold in death. An icon if there ever was one.