Psycho (1998 movie)

Directed by: Gus Van Sant
Released: 1998
Country: United States

Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Horror

Main cast: Vince Vaughn, Julianne Moore, Viggo Mortensen, Anne Heche, William H. Macy, Phillip Baker Hall, Anne Haney

Rating: 1.5 out of 5

Review

The 1998 movie ''Psycho'', directed by Gus Van Sant is a remake of the wonderful classic 1960 film ''Psycho'', directed by Alfred Hitchcock. And, it is a shot-by-shot remake. And I mean that, it is very much faithful to the original ''Psycho''.  It seems almost all the scenes, all the dialogues are same as that of the 1960 classic ''Psycho'.

And how is the film? My answer is: Not only does it completely lacks in depth, but it also is totally unsatisfactory and almost horrible.

When a remake of a classic film is made, we expect it to be not as good as the original, but however, it can be good or bad. But when I saw this 1998 remake of ''Psycho'' I had only one thinking: this remake is bad, totally bad, I terribly disliked this movie.

I watched Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 classic a few days ago, and I was thoroughly impressed with it. I expected the remake to be somewhat okay as well. But far from being good, the film is distasteful, completely bad.

At the beginning of the film, Marion Crane steals a large amount of money, and while fleeing away on her car, she stops at the Bates Hotel, where Norman Bates, who seems rather strange, shows her a room.  Norman seems to be highly controlled by his mother. After dinner, Marion gets a shower, and on her shower, she gets murdered by the shadowy figure of Norman's mother. As Marion is missing, her sister Lila and boyfriend Sam, and a detective Arbogast are looking for Marion. And then...

The story of the film is exactly the same as that of the original 1960 film. Almost all the scenes are same, the looks and sets of the film seem exactly the same; the dialogues are almost all the same. But it completely lacks depth, completely! The film is completely unattractive.

And another thing contributing to make the film so bad, so disgusting are the acting. Comparing Anne Heche's performance with Janet Leigh's performance, Heche's performance is terrible. Julianne Moore gives a better performance, but still, if we compare it with Vera Miles, Moore's performance remains quite poor.

And the most unsatisfying performance by given by Vince Vaughn, playing Norman Bates. Anthony Perkins had played Norman in the 1960 film, and Perkins's amazing performance had made Norman look creepier and stranger. And Vaughn fails to gives a good performance; his performance as Norman is terrible.

The only actor who seems to give a relatively good performance is Viggo Mortensen. Though not as good as John Gavin's performance, Viggo Mortensen's performance is much better than the other people acting in this film.

The film is completely unsatisfactory and is nearly terrible. If you want to enjoy Psycho, then really you should watch the original 1960 version ''Psycho''. The 1960 version is so much excellent and a classic. As for the 1998 remake, I have several adjectives to describe it, and one of them is ''awful''.

1.5 out of 5

Here is my review of the original ''Psycho'', made by Alfred Hitchcock: 'Psycho' (1960 movie)- Review