Why did this movie need to be remade? I am not going to add anything to the comments already posted on IMDb, but this film infuriated me to such an extent that I can't keep myself from adding to the pile of negative reviews on here. I am a big fan of Hitchcock's original "Psycho", have seen it several times already and consider it as part of my top five favorite movies of all time. Anthony Perkins' acting was phenomenal in the original version. I even love "Bates Motel", the TV series adapted from Hitchcock's classic starring Freddie Highmore and Vera Farmiga, and Robert Bloch's source material. Not everything about the TV show may be perfect, but all of them, the film, the series, the book managed to captivate me to a certain extent, so much that the story of Norman Bates, whether he is portrayed by Anthony Perkins or Freddie Highmore, has not been able to let me go ever since I first watched Hitchcock's "Psycho".
This remake directed by Gus Van Sant, the director who also brought us some great movies such as "Good Will Hunting", "Milk", "To Die For" or "Finding Forrester", butchers the original story even though each shot, each movement, each line, each part of the soundtrack is almost exactly the same. Regarding it through the technical perspective, this movie remains faithful to the original version, yet it lacks so much more. The coloring feels out-of-place and distracting, especially if you consider how perfectly the black-and-white coloring worked in the original. And the acting should not even be talked about; it's that bad.
I watched the remake mainly because Viggo Mortensen, Julianne Moore and William H. Macy star in it, all of whom are actors I respect highly and enjoy to watch on my screen. They made me think, how bad could this movie be? Critics were not as harsh with this movie as I imagined, so I decided to give it a chance and build my own opinion. In fact, neither Mortensen and Moore nor Macy were terrible at all; they all did a decent job at portraying their characters (even though it felt at some times like Julianne Moore was overacting a bit), but those are more or less the only positive things which can be said about the film. The main reason for why this movie failed may well be the horrendous acting skills of Anne Heche and Vince Vaughn. Whereas Perkins (and Highmore in the 2013 TV series) both succeed in portraying Norman's nervousness to perfection and presenting Norman as a multi-layered character, Vince Vaughn just ... just fails utterly. Not a single line which comes out of his mouth feels credible throughout the course of the movie, and perhaps even more importantly, you never catch yourself thinking, "how can this man do such horrible things?", as I (and probably everyone else) did upon watching the original movie. Vaughn plays Norman Bates like someone would play him in a parody, painting a stereotypical serial killer without the characteristic elements which made Anthony Perkins' version of Norman Bates such an extraordinary performance.
In addition, to put it mildly, Anne Heche cannot act. In the 1960 film, the shower scene shocked me, it made me feel disgusted and overwhelmed and intrigued by Hitchcock's directing skills at the same time. In this film, the only thing I felt was relief that it was Anne Heche's final moment in the movie, as horrible as that sounds. It's a shame that the people responsible in Hollywood for all the remakes of beloved classics seem to think that young people nowadays don't watch those old movies anymore, and thus decide to remake them to make them more accessible. In most cases, those remakes simply do not work (there are exceptions, of course, but they are rare treasures among all the nonsense), and "Psycho" may be the prime example for this. You would be better off watching the original, reading Robert Bloch's novel or, if you want to see a more modern, a more timely adaptation of the story, then you should turn on "Bates Motel". The 1998 version of the story should simply be avoided like the plague.
This remake directed by Gus Van Sant, the director who also brought us some great movies such as "Good Will Hunting", "Milk", "To Die For" or "Finding Forrester", butchers the original story even though each shot, each movement, each line, each part of the soundtrack is almost exactly the same. Regarding it through the technical perspective, this movie remains faithful to the original version, yet it lacks so much more. The coloring feels out-of-place and distracting, especially if you consider how perfectly the black-and-white coloring worked in the original. And the acting should not even be talked about; it's that bad.
I watched the remake mainly because Viggo Mortensen, Julianne Moore and William H. Macy star in it, all of whom are actors I respect highly and enjoy to watch on my screen. They made me think, how bad could this movie be? Critics were not as harsh with this movie as I imagined, so I decided to give it a chance and build my own opinion. In fact, neither Mortensen and Moore nor Macy were terrible at all; they all did a decent job at portraying their characters (even though it felt at some times like Julianne Moore was overacting a bit), but those are more or less the only positive things which can be said about the film. The main reason for why this movie failed may well be the horrendous acting skills of Anne Heche and Vince Vaughn. Whereas Perkins (and Highmore in the 2013 TV series) both succeed in portraying Norman's nervousness to perfection and presenting Norman as a multi-layered character, Vince Vaughn just ... just fails utterly. Not a single line which comes out of his mouth feels credible throughout the course of the movie, and perhaps even more importantly, you never catch yourself thinking, "how can this man do such horrible things?", as I (and probably everyone else) did upon watching the original movie. Vaughn plays Norman Bates like someone would play him in a parody, painting a stereotypical serial killer without the characteristic elements which made Anthony Perkins' version of Norman Bates such an extraordinary performance.
In addition, to put it mildly, Anne Heche cannot act. In the 1960 film, the shower scene shocked me, it made me feel disgusted and overwhelmed and intrigued by Hitchcock's directing skills at the same time. In this film, the only thing I felt was relief that it was Anne Heche's final moment in the movie, as horrible as that sounds. It's a shame that the people responsible in Hollywood for all the remakes of beloved classics seem to think that young people nowadays don't watch those old movies anymore, and thus decide to remake them to make them more accessible. In most cases, those remakes simply do not work (there are exceptions, of course, but they are rare treasures among all the nonsense), and "Psycho" may be the prime example for this. You would be better off watching the original, reading Robert Bloch's novel or, if you want to see a more modern, a more timely adaptation of the story, then you should turn on "Bates Motel". The 1998 version of the story should simply be avoided like the plague.