"A boy's best friend is his mother..."      

PSYCHO (R) 

Reviewed December 4, 1998 - Check out the Psycho Website.

Taking Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 classic and reproducing it almost shot by shot, Director Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting) has managed to throw Psycho almost forty years forward and into the nineties.  Let's see...there's Norman Bates (Vince Vaughn), Marion Crane (Anne Heche), her boyfriend Sam (Viggo Mortenson), private detective Arbogast (William H. Macy), and Marion's sister Lila (Julianne Moore).  For those of you who've seen the original, you should know that very little has changed in this remake.  The shot selection, the musical scoring, all the fundamental elements of Hitchcock's original are also in this new Psycho.  Unfortunately, this then begs the question: why did they (Van Sant and Universal Pictures) even bother doing this?

Well, I'm not sure I can answer that one, but as Van Sant tells it, the whole thing was done out of respect for the master (Hitchcock) himself.  If you're going to remake a film, why not remake a great one, right?  Yeah, okay, whatever.  As you'd expect, however, the end result of this reconstruction is a mixed bag of surprises and disappointments.  First the surprises.

I was surprised by the creativity of Hitchcock's original vision and the effectiveness of Bernard Herrmann's wonderful score.  Nearly forty years later, with different actors, and now in color, the staging of Psycho still manages to be chilling and entertaining.  This is obviously a tribute to Hitchcock himself, but also one to Van Sant for somehow proving that Hitchcock's style is timeless.  I was also surprised by the odd but interesting set design choices made in this film.  Late model cars and Sony walkmans are mixed in with furniture, clothes, and color schemes that have a 1950-1970's feel, effectively keeping the audience off-balance in terms of when and where exactly they are.  Nice touches, as far as I'm concerned.

Now for the disappointments.  I was disappointed in the lack of any true creativity in this film.  If there's a downside to Van Sant's decision to do a scene-by-scene recreation, this is it.  Call me crazy, but if you're going to go through the trouble of re-casting and re-shooting an entire film (not to mention trying to convince people to pay $8 to go see it), I think people will expect something different and better.  This Psycho is subtly different, but definitely not better.  I was also disappointed in the updated shower scene in this film.  Heche does excellent work as Marion Crane, but this most infamous of death scenes just does not have the same impact as in the original. 

Of course, I say all of this as a person who's already seen the original Psycho...but what if you haven't seen the original?  Does this new Psycho fare better when not filtered through the lens of the original Hitchcock classic?  That's hard to say.  However, if you do happen to be one of those people who are complete Psycho-novices, then this film offers a good chance for you to get acquainted with Norman Bates and his mother. 

Just remember: the original Psycho, the "real" Psycho, has been out since 1960 and is available at your local video store...

Responses from cyberspace--thanks for writing!

candygrl187@cs.com gives this movie  stars: "It was a good movie. But although the same script was used...the black and white effects plus the muffled audio just made it seem more realistic and scary." (1/14/00)

RazzleDzl8@aol.com gives this movie  stars: "I thought it was pretty good! I saw the remake before I saw the original. Awesome cast! I don't think they could of chosen anyone to play the part of Norman better than Vince Vaughn! He was perfect!" (8/28/99)

andfeld@hotmail.com gives this movie  stars: "I liked it. I didn't like the original that much because I thought it was too boring. This version is new, hip, and scary. It also comes along with a stellar, hot cast. Vaughn is right on target as Norman Best, and Heche is so-so (her spot will truely always belong to Janet Leigh and that's hard to fit in to) but it's the always-vibrant Julianne Moore (fresh from her "Boogie Nights" Oscar nomination) who steals the show. She posses great sass and screen presence as Marion's sister Lyla. It's her performance that made the movie a great ACTING movie as well as a superb psychological classic." (7/3/99)

ShadowRaider_98@yahoo.com gives this movie  star: "Note to Hollywood: LEAVE THE FRIGGIN' CLASSICS ALONE FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!!! There's a reason why the original Psycho is a classic. Don't screw with it." (6/24/99)

gillianlover@hotmail.com gives this movie  stars: "I believe the idea of a shot for shot remake is an original concept in itself. It's so unoriginal that it's original to be unoriginal. The performances were great, but not better than those in the original, the film is allowed to be more explicit, the colour worked well, and captured the atmosphere of the lighting and sound, and the dialogue still works today very well. Thumbs up to the shower scene recreation -- truly chilling." (1/21/99)

Chemical Junky gives this movie  star: "Effete cr*p!!!" (1/20/99)

bliss@hotmail.com gives this movie  star: "Absolutely pointless! It's like transcribing Shakespeare on your IBM then taking credit for the labour and time it took printing it out again. Why color carbon-copy a masterpiece? This film represents the nadir of post-modern cinema...very sad indeed." (12/22/98)

i106@hotmail.com gives this movie  star: "All this was a repte of the old one but in color!! this movie sucked!!!!!!!!"