Sunday 15 February 2015

Psycho (1998)

Psycho

IMDB rate: 4,6
Genre: Serial-Killer
Starring: Vince Vaughn, Julianne Moore, Viggo Mortensen, William H. Macy

Not too long ago I first watched Psycho, the original one. While I'm often not the biggest fan of 'old' movies, I fell in love with this masterpiece. I decided to watch the original movie after watching a few episodes of Bates Motel (a prequel series of Psycho), and I was honestly so surprised by it. It's funny because  have owned the 1998 version of Psycho on DVD for 2 years or so already but I never felt like watching it. Now I finally made the step and watched the remake of Psycho.

When a movie is being remade, you'll assume it's because it has something new to add, something important that changes the view on a movie. The Psycho remake seems to have missed this point because it's identical to the original in every single way. Even the 'bad' looking stabbing scenes in the bathtub are exactly the same. This movie is purely made to attract a younger generation, because the only difference between the original and the remake is that the original is in black and white and the remake is of course a color movie. Oh, and Vince Vaughn's Norman Bates is masturbating to Anne Heche's character, probably only added because people might not notice that he's 'attracted to her' elsewise.


I think director Gus Van Sant completely missed the point about remakes, much like the director of the Carrie remake, because these two remakes don't add anything new to the movie, they're both just an updated version of the movie that's completely identical beside the slight changes. A good remake is something like The Hills Have Eyes or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, both completely different than the original, and both made a great improvement to that movie.

The first thing you notice when looking information about this movie is that Vince Vaughn plays Norman Bates. One of the best things about the 1960 version of Psycho is of course the brilliant performance of Anthony Perkins. Thinking of Vince Vaughn playing that mysterious, but charming character? I did not feel it. My thoughts about Vince Vaughn being cast was quite right since Vince Vaughn is in no way a charming man, he misses the charms of Anthony Perkins which is what makes Psycho so incredibly good. Great miscasting of Norman Bates.

Other cast members include Viggo Mortensen, Julianne Moore and William H. Macy. I must say that Viggo Mortensen did a good job as Sam Loomis. Julianne Moore and William H. Macy did a nice job as well. Anne Heche plays Marion Crane, one of the main characters of the movie, but she's not the one for the job. She was unbelievable as Marion Crane and her acting was not very good either.


It's somewhat strange to discuss a remake of a movie that's an exact copy of the original. Strangely enough you would think that there shouldn't be much of a difference between the original and the remake. But there really is. Of course, the original is black and white, and there are subtle things to notice with that. For example, at the beginning when Marion didn't do nothing wrong yet her underwear was entirely white. But after she did something bad she wore black underwear. In the color version Marion is just wearing every type of color underwear that's in no way related to the situation.

Fact is, Psycho's remake is entirely unnecessary and I'd advice you to just not watch it. Even when you're not in old black and white movies I would not suggest to go watch this movie because it's just a pathetic attempt at recreating Psycho. It's not a good movie in any way. The bad looking murder scenes were perfectly fitting for the time the movie was made in, when seeing it in a movie made in 1998 you'll just laugh at it, because it really does look ridiculous in a modern movie.

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