Having recently covered the original PSYCHO, it was not only odd for me to watch this shot-by-shot remake so soon afterwards, but it was also kind of bizarre to write this review in that…well…I pretty much addressed the same film already! Gus man...who’s Universal studio rod did you turtle-wax to get the green light on this self-indulgent opus? Whoever’s it was, you must have thought that stick one hell of a lesson! Although I did somewhat enjoy watching this “bad idea” as a curiosity item, this remake was beyond totally unnecessary. What a waste of 20 million clams!

SOME SPOILERS AHEAD

Firstly, I’ll admit that I did get off on comparing this carbon copy (which had original writer Joseph Stefano come in to retool his original script) to the original. I particularly dug seeing different actors take on the now “classic” roles and derived lots of enjoyment out of Vince Vaughn, in particular. I was freaking ecstatic that he didn’t attempt to mimic Anthony Perkins’ flawless act as Norman Bates. That would’ve been suicide! Instead, The Vaughn-Man gave us a more obvious and imposing showcase that granted, didn’t hold a candle to Perkins’ layered shtick, but still managed to be fascinating in its own right (that laugh rocked!). It was cool to witness a different type of Norman doing the kitchen-knife dance and Vaughn was my main anchor to the hi-jinx throughout. Furthermore, this remake actually managed to better one character, in my opinion, in the guise of Viggo Mortensen as Sam Loomis. The charismatic and mumbling Cowboy Twang Viggo put out was definitely more appealing than the “standard”, surface show that John Gavin had displayed in the 60’s version.

As a stand alone movie though, PSYCHO '98 worked mostly when Hitchcock was doing the talking as opposed to Van Sant. Let’s face it, all Van Sant did here was duplicate Hitchcock’s vision. So the fine film in here belongs to Hitch, not him! I’ll give Van Sant this though, I appreciated the fact that he did that “long continuous shot” that Hitchcock wanted to do at the time for his opening, but couldn’t due to technology not being up to snuff. Nice little homage to the Master’s wishes there, Padwan! Additionally, he got that “person’s” pupil dilating after his/her death, which was a sweet clean up on a Hitchcock oversight. Lastly, I boogied to a few variations: the additional violence/nudity (I needed something extra to keep me watching this copycat), the new creepy ambient sounds during key scenes and the atmospheric bird cage bit with “mother” (chilling stuff).

But apart from that, most of what Van Sant brought to the table in terms of his ideas were fairly weak. For example:

• He had Bates jerk off while looking through the peep hole. That totally lessened and cheapened the scene. Urgh…

• He slapped lame subliminal shots into the mix...one of a nude woman wearing an S&M mask and another of an animal standing in the road. WHY AGAIN? Somebody didn’t perform their daily whack and was dropping ACID on set.

• He totally altered the PSYCHO house which didn’t look half as creepy as the one in the original.

• He tried to improve on the final confrontation. Big mistake! It was totally botched due to the area being too vast, therefore lessening the tension of the original’s claustrophobic setting.

• And he shot the film in color which failed to echo the dread-filled B&W aura of the original. It was too damn bright in here and that took away from the impact of the tale!

This remake cut out one scene from the original; an exchange between The Sheriff, Lila and Sam in front of a church.

This remake showed Lila finding obvious skin-mags. The original only hinted at it via Lila’s facial expressions when finding the books (no naked chick on the covers in the 60’s version).

The end credits of PSYCHO '98 read: “Thanks to John Woo for use of his kitchen knife.”