Psycho

Rating:
Summary: DOES NOT DESERVE THE 1 STAR!
Review: Winner of 2 Golden Raspberry Awards: WORST DIRECTOR and WORST REMAKE OR SEQUEL. Need I say more?

Rating:
Summary: Bad
Review: It remains to be explained why the producers of this one chose to remake Hitchcock's cinematically perfect 1960 original. The script of the original by Joseph Stefano is transferred with very little variation and the remake is virtually an exact scene-for-scene, word-for-word, replica of the original, the only difference being that it is in colour. Vince Vaughn, who is cast as Norman Bates, and who is clearly an actor of much potentials, plays under the shadow of his predecessor, Anthony Perkins. Some of the 50's dialogue, when exchanged by modern actors, sounds merely mechanical and cluncky, if not downright ridiculous. The plot becomes interminable and unsuspenseful, and the actors go through their parts with very little conviction. Perhaps this exercise reflects the postmodern malaise of believing that there is no longer any originality, that all sources of inspiration have been exhausted, that there is nothing new, so all that remains for a filmmaker to do is to desperately repeat the past. This is awful. Don't watch this film.

Rating:
Summary: Snore Snore what the... is this!!!
Review: "Oh Boy!" I thought when I saw the movie "Psycho" on the shelf in the video store. I rented it like a fool,anyway.When I first seen it it was like,HUH? so,after an hour watching this,I turned it off and took it back to the store.I thought "Hey.I'll just rent the Alfred Hitchcock original and see what it's all about. Boy,was I in for a surprise! The movie was EXACTLY like the one that was so lame. WHY??????? WHY DIDN'T THEY JUST COLORIZE THE ORIGINAL AND SAVE THOUSANDS UPON THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS MAKING A NEW ONE? Alfred Hitchcock is turning over in his grave right now.

Rating:
Summary: why?
Review: I thought this when I first heard that there was going to be a shot-for-shot remake of Psycho, and I repeated it when I finally saw it. Why? Psycho is a great movie- one of the best. It changed the way that thrillers we seen, and movies were made. But you can no more re-create the impact that it had in 1960 in 2000 than you can recreate the way the country felt when JFK was shot. Up until then, no movie would have killed off the heroine in the first 20 minutes; no movie would have even shown a toilet at that time for god's sakes. There's no way that a contemporary audience can be jolted by this movie in the same way that Psycho did in 1960.

Also, since the movie actually does not recreate shot-for-shot every scene, you have to wonder why they didn't do a little more updating. The dialogue between Sam and Marion at the hotel, which seems fine in the 1960 version, seems incredibly stilted in the 90's. "These long lunches give my boss excess gas" or whatever it was- people don't talk like that anymore. The whole buying the new car scene rings really false (and California license plates stopped having 6 characters in the 70's), and do we really need Vince Vaughn making it all to clear what he is doing at the peephole?

van Sandt said that he really wanted to introduce the original to a new geneeration, maybe he did just that. I certainly popped my copy of the Hitchcock classic into the VCR after the last reel of this turkey, and had a much better time.

Rating:
Summary: Clinton Schwartz's review for Psycho
Review: I think this movie is just like the original Psycho ,the script is the same and the music is the same there are only a few points were in it that is difrent but thats all

Rating:
Summary: I would give it ZERO stars if I could
Review: I won't waste too many words here describing this atrocity. This remake is pure trash and an insult to the 1960 classic. The reason I won't waste too much time describing this junk is because Van Sant wasted 2 hours of my time torturing me with this exercise.

DO NOT... I REPEAT...DO NOT...SEE THIS!!

Rating:
Summary: If it ain't broke...
Review: I'll cut to the chase-what's the point? Remaking a terrific film shot-by-shot with only a few minute changes isn't going to put the entertainment world on it's ear. No insult to the fine cast, and I especially like Vince Vaughn, but he isn't Anthony Perkins. Juliette Moore and William H. Macy do stand out, though. For a movie filmed and set in 1998, a lot of the clothes and furnishings seem awfully retro. I'll admit that the murder scenes are well shot and the climax is okay. But if you turn the sound down I'm sure you'll be able to hear Hitchcock and Perkins turning in their graves. View as a curiousity, but stick with the 1960 original.

Rating:
Summary: Pointless Copy
Review: Remake "Psycho"? Fine, but the major flaw here was not remaking the film, but copying every camera angle and using the same script. If you are going to remake something, then REMAKE it, do not offer up a pale clone of the original. What played in 1960 does not hold up as well today. The little touches Hitchcock put in then just seem quirky and self aware today. Not a terrible film, but not the "Halloween" slasher flick many of today's audiences expected, either. Rent the original.

Rating:
Summary: I know why he made it
Review: First of all, people relax. It's not as if this film is somehow a threat to the original. There's nothing I enjoy more than seeing (or hearing when it comes to music or reading when it comes to books) a variety of takes on the exact same thing. This film is therefore in that regard a very rare treat, especially as the changes are slight ones, it really gives the viewer the opportunity to see how a marginal shift can alter the tone of a movie.

As for why the guy made this movie it should be obvious. He made it because he could. He was learning from a master filmmaker in the way that painters learn from master painters. Painters learn by making copies, literal copies, of old masters. This guy had the opportunity to make a full budgeted copy of Psycho and in the process to learn hands-on how a great film maker worked in a way that merely watching and reading about Psycho couldn't do.

I really don't think he gave a hoot what the point was or what an audience would think. He thought simply, Here is a great opportunity to learn, and so he said what the hell and he did it.

The thing, logically, that you might really want to watch is whatever movie he made AFTER this remake, as there you will likely find an original film that nonetheless employs the lessons fresh from this remake of Psycho.

Rating:
Summary: Noble Effort, But...No Thank You
Review: A remake of a successful movie can be a tricky business at best; to remake a true classic, especially one that is veritably the definitive film of a director like Alfred Hitchcock, is something else again. And after watching this version of "Psycho," directed by Gus Van Sant, two things come to mind immediately: What's the point, and what on earth were they thinking? Especially in light of the fact that Van Sant used the same screenplay (by Joseph Stefano, taken from the novel by Robert Bloch) that Hitchcock used. The final result here underscores some of the finer points of the art of filmmaking: First, that a "remake" should be just that; a retooling of the original, rather than a "copy" using new players; and second, that shooting in color, using more blood and being a bit more graphic does little more than detract from the impact of the film. Although this was a noble effort by Van Sant, ironically in the end it suffers from the same flaw with which Norma Bates was afflicted: The "mind" of the film was divided; half was Hitchcock, half Van Sant. And the twain, though met, shall never be bound. Van Sant, even working from the original script, would have been better off making his own film-- all the way through-- rather than attempting to duplicate exactly what Hitchcock did with certain scenes. The opening shot of the movie, for instance, and especially the "shower" scene, arguably one of the most famous scenes in the history of the cinema. Copying Hitchcock, from the shots looking directly into the shower head to the one of the drain, and using the same "skree! skree! skree!" sound effects-- even as homage to Hitchcock-- again, only distracted from the story. And, if you factor in the performance of William H. Macy (as Private Eye Arbogast), you have yet another split in the psyche of the film. Macy is a terrific actor-- one of the best character actors in the business-- and his performance here is excellent; but as good as it is, the attitude and delivery are pure David Mamet (with whom he has worked many times), and seemingly out of context with what Van Sant is doing. So the film winds up with a triple personality disorder: Hitchcock, Van Sant and Mamet. I felt like I was watching "House Of Good Will Psycho Games." As far as performances go, Macy's was as solid as they come, and Anne Heche (Marion Crane) did a good job of creating an original character, escaping the trap of attempting an imitation of Janet Leigh. The weak links were Viggo Mortensen (Sam), who made Marion's boyfriend so smarmy and unappealing it made you wonder why she had anything to do with him in the first place; and Vince Vaughn, who--to put it as delicately as possible-- was simply awful as Norman Bates. His whole performance was that of an actor playing a role (and not very convincingly at that); affecting effeminate mannerisms and punctuating his speech with "spontaneous" bursts of maniacal laughter made his Norman more of a caricature than a character, altogether unbelievable and pretentious. It gave the movie the feel of a reenactment of a "True Incident" you would see on a television show; it would have been entirely in keeping with the sensibility of the film to cut away from Norman sitting alone in his parlor to a shot of a sober-faced Peter Graves, intoning, "Such was the mind-set of Norman Bates on that fateful, rainy night when Marion Crane stepped out of her car and into his life--" The supporting cast includes Julianne Moore (Lila), Robert Forster (Dr. Simon), Philip Baker Hall (Sheriff Al Chambers), Anne Haney (Mrs. Chambers), Chad Everett (Tom Cassidy), Rance Howard (Mr. Lowery), Rita Wilson (Caroline), James Remar (Patrolman) and James LeGros (Charlie the Car Dealer). If nothing else, Van Sant's "Psycho" is a curiosity that goes to show that having a good director, a predominantly excellent cast and a script that is a proven commodity does not necessarily insure a success. Granted, todays era of psycho-babble, "American Psycho" and Hannibal Lecter have effectively taken the edge off of a character like Norman Bates somewhat; but there is still a singular intimacy in this particular story of the relationship between Norman, his mother and his victims that will forever remain inherently disturbing and terrifying; but Van Sant is unable to convey that sense of dread, that throat-clenching fear, with this film. If ever there was a movie made that should have been earmarked straight-to-video, this is it. Better still, had it never been born.