Psycho

Rating:
Summary: MOTHER! OH GOD, MOTHER! BOMB!! BOMB!!!
Review: This remake of the cherished 1960 Hitchcock classic is pointless and unnecessary. It's like remaking Sunset Boulevard (rest in peace, Billy Wilder) in color with Raquel Welch and Freddy Prinze, Jr. in the Gloria Swanson and William Holden roles and throwing in a Basic Instinct sex scene for good measure. Psycho is like Casablanca, Laura, It's a Wonderful Life, Some Like It Hot and To Kill a Mockingbird -- great films where the audience, after seeing them, can never picture other actors playing those roles. For me, Marion Crane will always be Janet Leigh and Norman Bates will always be Anthony Perkins -- period. Hitchcock's Psycho is a masterpiece that deserves to stand on its own without a shot-for-shot pale imitation to stain its memory. There are many things wrong with this version, but I'll concentrate on four areas:

First, Vince Vaughn has a completely and utterly impossible task of trying to match up to Anthony Perkins' performance in the original. Perkins' Norman Bates came out of his own personality. He, like Norman Bates, lost his father at an early age and had a internal conflict over his own sexual identity. He, like Norman Bates, had a clinging, possessive mother. Vaughn, in contrast, is behind the eight ball as soon as he appears on the screen in the remake. Vaughn plays Norman Bates. Perkins IS Norman Bates. Vaughn tries his best, but it isn't nearly enough.

The updated touches director Gus Van Sandt has added -- namely the masturbation, vomiting, nudity and the added gore. Instead of making a positive additional contribution to the story, these updates merely seem like a gratuitous tack-on that Van Sandt has added to appeal to modern audiences. Martin Scorcese's remake of Cape Fear earned the right to deal more graphically with its subject matter than the original. In that case, the added story elements gave that version a depth that the original did not possess. The updates in the remake of Psycho, however, seem like pandering to an audience that Van Sandt fears won't accept his version without the modern expected minimum of sex, violence and gore.

Van Sandt also makes a concession to modern audiences by filming in color. If there has ever been a film that was destined to be made in black and white, it is Psycho. Whether Hitchcock meant to film the original in black and white for artistic reasons, to save on the budget or merely to spare audiences the gore of the shower scene, the final effect worked beautifully without color. Bernard Herrmann even wrote his brilliant score exclusively for strings, striving for a "black and white sound." A perfect example is the scene where Detective Milton Arbogast (Martin Balsam in the original, William H. Macy in the remake) sneaks up to the Bates house. In the original, even though it is still daylight, there is a sense of foreboding due to the black and white photography. The shadows are darker and the house looks even more menacing. Macy's climb up to the house, in contrast, seems too colorful and too bright. There's no menace or foreboding to the scene at all. Anyone who finds black and white films unwatchable might change their tune if they see both versions of Psycho.

However, for me, the biggest weakness of the remake of Psycho is Anne Heche's performance. Heche is a good actress, but here she makes all of the wrong choices. Marion Crane, as played by Janet Leigh, is a person who has followed the rules all of her life -- a "good girl" who has worked hard and has a good head on her shoulders. We identified with Janet Leigh's Marion because we saw a lot of ourselves in her. When Marion steals the $40,000 in the original, we root for her because Leigh has done such an effective job of establishing Marion as a good person who sees her life slipping away and is driven to her larceny by her desperation. And when she is gone, we all feel the loss of someone we cared about.

Heche, in contrast, has stated that she saw Marion as a flightly, scatterbrained person who has no perception of the consequence of her actions. This approach misses the whole point of the character. In the Hitchcock original, there is a moment of indecision by the audience after Marion's exit over shifting allegiance to Norman Bates. We have spent the first half of the film becoming involved in the fate of a person we identify with and care about. Now, Hitchcock forces us to identify with the person who is covering up her demise. Because of Heche's approach to the role, Marion becomes a superficial dingbat who elicits no sympathy while she is alive and who the audience does not miss when she is dead. The whole point of the story is that Marion IS a good person who "just goes a little mad" when she steals the $40,000. She isn't, as Heche suggests in her interpretation, an irresponsible person who doesn't realize the consequences of her actions. Heche's approach blunts all of the dramatic impact of the story and irrepably hurts the film's effectiveness.

Aside from a performance by Julianne Moore that improves upon the shrill performance of Vera Miles in the original and a performance by William H. Macy that equals that of Martin Balsam, this film has nothing new or positive to offer. Gus Van Sandt is a talented filmmaker who hopefully will avoid projects like this in the future. He should concentrate on establishing his own legacy rather than trying to copy the legacy of Alfred Hitchcock. If he goes up against The Master of Suspense, he's going to lose badly.

Rating:
Summary: How could any one like this movie?
Review: I saw like the first half hour of this and it was just so stupid that I stoped watching it. I did see the origional and, it is my new favorite movie. The acting in this verson is horrible... it's not even scary! Hitchock is a great director and he would be ashamed of this if he saw it.

Rating:
Summary: Put This One Down In The Fruit Cellar
Review: Where was Alfred Hitchcock's name in the credits? Was the film dedicated to him and I blinked and missed it? Was he acknowledged in any way, other than his silly cameo? How much money was Patricia Hitchcock paid to say, in the featurette, that her father would have approved of this movie? These and many other questions can be condensed into one word: why? Remaking this, shot-for-shot and in color, was a huge error in judgement made by whomever it was that green-lighted this cinematic travesty. Whereas, in the original, Anthony Perkins, under the guidence of the master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock, played Norman as the somewhat disturbed but likeable boy next door and therefore the ending was a shock, Vince Vaughn played crazy right from the get-go, completely spoiling the rest of the film. Viggo Mortensen's acting couldn't have been worse, and what's the deal with them changing the house? The old house was sinister and creepy, especially in black and white; the new house looks like a reject from a William Castle movie. The opening credits, in color, look very nice, but the film slides quickly downhill from there. This film might have worked if only Anne Heche had played Norman instead of Marion. If you've never seen either version, please see the original!

Rating:
Summary: Gus Van Sant's little psychotic episode
Review: First, let me say I am not one of those purists who invariably attacks any movie that's a remake. I was very positive about Meet Joe Black, an update of Death Takes a Holiday. I thought that A Perfect Murder was better than the original, Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M For Murder.

Gus Van Sant decided to pay homage to Hitchcock with a new version of Psycho, and the results are very mixed. Mr. Van Sant's approach was unusual. He opted to remake the movie literally frame by frame. The only major change is that the new version is in color. While his decision was bold, it also made it impossible for viewers who had seen Hitchcock's original not to compare the two. The already mentioned A Perfect Murder was so updated and so stylish that it hardly resembled Dial M For Murder.

Van Sant is a fine director in his own right. Some of his movies are great and others aren't, but the same applies to Hitchcock. Van Sant helmed Good Will Hunting, the under appreciated To Die For, and the complex My Own Private Idaho. He has proved capable of doing fine work in a variety of movie genres. Hitchcock made only suspense movies, and it was his obsession with this subject that made him The Master. In a way, he kept doing the same thing over and over until he could do it better than anyone else.
No one will finance a black a white picture these days, so Psycho's being in color is understandable. But Van Sant should know that the techniques used in one format don't work in the other. You can recreate the sets and duplicate the original's shots, but the use of color obliterates the effects of the shots done in black and white.

One of the most memorable characters in movies is Norman Bates, the psychotic young man who runs the equally famous Bates Motel. Anthony Perkins is so indelibly linked in people's minds as Norman that it would be difficult for anyone to play the role. Vince Vaughn, who can be a good actor, is entirely wrong for the role. In the Hitchcock version, there is only one reason why Jennifer Leigh, who played Marion Crane, remained at the motel and took that shower. While the words Bates spoke to her were creepy, Perkins played him as so soft-spoken and childlike that Marion was lulled into thinking he was merely eccentric. Vince Vaughn's interpretation is so menacing that the new Marion, Anne Heche, seems like a fool not to go fleeing into the rainy night.

Viggo Mortessen, who also starred in A Perfect Murder, is serviceable as Sam Loomis, Marion's lover. It's not a particularly good role. Julianne Moore, who is one of the screen's best actresses, is not at her best here as Lila Crane, Marion's sister. It is as if she realized what she had gotten herself into.

The ultimate irony is that, if Hitchcock were still alive, he would certainly be amused by this remake. I can see that impish smirk of his now. What you have to know is that he was one of the most innovative directors of his time. In North by Northwest, the chase scene with the crop duster and the scene on Mount Rushmore were great technical achievements. He made a riveting thriller out of Rear Window, which was basically confined to one set. In Vertigo, he dared to tell essentially the same story twice. Audiences were mesmerized. He did brilliant work with the composer Bernard Hermann, which resulted in music's being totally integrated into his movies. Likewise, he was the first to use opening credits as a way to set the tone and the pace for the picture.

Hitchcock would find this new version of Psycho to be dated and stagy. He would be using today's latest technology, which means that if he could have made the movie in 1998, it would have looked completely different from the one he made in 1960. But then, he wouldn't have bothered to make it today, because it would hold little shock value for today's audiences.

Rating:
Summary: Why?
Review: Why make a scene for scene color remake of Hitchcock's suspense classic, "Psycho"? Did director Clint Van Sant want to introduce Hitchcock's masterpiece to a new generation of filmgoers by updating it? Did he want to pay homage to the master himself? Or did he simply selfishly indulge himself by creating this modernized facsimile? Probably all of the above, but it was a vain and pointless effort.

Regardless of how you feel about remaking a film that should never have been remade, "Psycho", while it does not hold a candle to the original, is still a stylish, well cast, well acted and well crafted, if curious, new spin on Hitchcock's classic. It is probably the best scene for scene remake possible. However, that does not justify the making of this redundant remake. It felt very odd, watching these new faces physically emulate and speak the same phrases of the characters I have become so accustomed with in the original "Psycho". Even the music and most of the camera angles are identical to the original.

If he had to do a remake of "Psycho", Clint Van Sant probably would have been better served to have improvised--use the same plot context but throw in new dialogue, new plot twists and a more in-depth study of the characters. Instead, Clint Van Sant just pushes buttons.

If you have ever seen the original, it is worth your while to watch this remake for its value as a curio. If you have never seen either, watch the far superior original first. If nothing else, this remake of "Psycho" is one of the most enigmatic curiosities in the history of cinema.

Rating:
Summary: Reminiscent of Mrs. Bates...
Review: In other words, a lifeless corpse of a movie.

This movie is exactly like the original, the only differences being that it is not scary, interesting, engaging, or convincing.

The movie equivalent of a Paint by Numbers knockoff of the Mona Lisa.

Van Sant's next projects include remakes of the following:
"Gone With the Wind" with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks
"Citizen Kane" starring Tom Cruise with a soundtrack by N'SYNC
"The Grapes of Wrath" starring Bob Saget, Rosie O'Donnell (as "Ma"), and George "Goober" Lindsey.

Hooray for Hollywood.

Rating:
Summary: Pointless
Review: Why remake Psycho? Does Gus van Sant really think he can upstage Hitchcock? I don't suppose he really did have such high aspirations, but if not, why did he make this film?

The script remains virtually unaltered from Joseph Stefano's original. Joseph Walker's shots are duplicated with a few variations that add little. The score by Bernard Herrmann is rearranged minimally, for the most part, by Danny Elfman, and the original titles by Saul Bass are revamped in glorious technicolour. The attempts to copy Hitchcock's masterly mise-en-scene in almost every detail merely look pretentious. It worked the first time because it was Hitchcock, and he gave something new: repeating it all for a second time completely misses the point. By now everyone knows what happens to Marion Crane; by now everyone is familiar with all the little Hitchcockian touches. This is a joke. It has the feel of a load of juvenile Hitchcock admirers getting together to have some fun mimicking their hero with a camcorder. What invention or creativity went into this? What were the makers hoping to achieve? If Psycho had to be remade, it demanded something fresh, a new slant, not merely a retreading of what went before.

In the final analysis, nothing can redeem the film from the fact that it is simply a waste of time and money. Technically, the film is fine. It is even interesting and amusing to watch for the all the minor details that are painstakingly recreated almost exactly from the original. Unfortunately, that is about ALL there is to it.

Rating:
Summary: avoid this movie
Review: I'm a pretty big fan of the original psycho so I decided to see what the new version was like. I was extremely disapointed. They copy the oringinal scene by scene but something really is lost. The acting and directing aren't as good. The movie is in color so it loses the same type of quality of the original. Being in black and white added a lot to the movie.

Rating:
Summary: Not totally sure about this one.
Review: Gus Van Sant, on the heels of his acclaim for "Good Will Hunting," released this interesting yet strange remake of the 1960 Hitchcock film. Virtually every scene and frame is replicated; plus the film is shot in color. The film does have a few modern touches, though. The opening scene of Phoenix is now a long, stedicam shot into Marion's hotel room; the amount of cash stolen is now $400,000, and the shower scene is re-done in color, with more blood than Hitchcock used in his version. Anne Heche is a mixed bag as Marion Crane; at times she looks intimidated by her own role and overdoes some scenes a bit...Vince Vaughn is wildly miscast as Norman Bates; he is too cool and suave to really convince us as a psychotic. Only Julianne Moore as Lila, William H. Macy as Aborgast, and Viggo Mortensen as Sam Loomis stand out, but these are roles too minor to really matter. While "Psycho" isn't the total disaster as people think, it is a rather pointless remake that only reinforces the old saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Rating:
Summary: P S Y C H O
Review: By now everyone knows the plot to the classic horrror film "Psycho" right? A nice young woman steals a loud of money from her boss and and drives away from basically her life to start a new one. She ends up getting off the main road and ends up at "The Bates Motel", a very quiet and rather empty motel. Then a nice young man by the name of Norman Bates comes and signs her in, helps her with her luggage, then gives her some dinner and tells her about his disturbed mother who lives just feet away from the motel. Then the nice woman, Marion Crane, decides she is going to go back and return the money. So before going to bed she takes a shower, well as most all of you know about or know of the famous "shower scene", you know what happens next. Then after the disaperence of Marion Crane, her sister, her boyfriend, and a detective begin searching for her, and well, lets just say by the end of the film we know the terrifying truth behind it all and the disturbing truth behind Norman Bates.

This 1998 remake by favored director Gus Van Sant is a wonderfully, skillfully, almost shot by shot remake of the classic Hitchcock film! The cast does a beautiful job with their roles, especially Vince Vaughn who gives just a nail biting performance as Norman Bates. The visuals in the film are stunning, and the way they took different things from the original and made it a modern version, setting it in 1998, is just remarkable. Ignore the other reviews if you haven't seen this yet, go rent it and see what I am talking about!

Overall: A stunning, almost shot by shot remake of the classic Hitchcock film! Just absolutely great!

Grade: A