10 Most Paused Moments In Horror TV Shows

2. Bates Motel - Norma's Corpse (S5 Ep1 Dark Paradise)

Twin Peaks BOB
A&E

We all knew what was going to happen to poor Norma Bates, but it was still a moment of morbid fascination to see how she had been portrayed in the series Bates Motel, when the film Psycho basically just showed her as a skeleton in a wig and dress.

Season 4 had ended with her death from carbon monoxide poisoning, which Norman had intended to use to let both he and his mother slip away together. However, Sherriff Romero unwittingly saved Norman but failed to revive his beloved Norma.

Season 5 began two years after this, and showed Norman apparently carrying on as normal, believing his mother was still in the house with him. After a particularly heated argument with her where she storms off, he ends up heading down to the basement where we see him crouch down, struggling to decide what to do.

As he lays his head on Norma's lap, the camera pans back and we see the shot that everything had been leading up to. Norma's perfectly preserved and dressed corpse sitting upright in a rocking chair, staring at us with glassy, white eyes. Definitely worth pausing to take in this horrifically beautiful sight!

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Acclaimed horror novelist and screenwriter... just kidding, eats pizza and watches horror movies with her cat