The final scene in the cell with Norman leaves you cold, there is no final sting in his smile. The film ends with a sustained long shot of the swamp after the car has been pulled from it with traffic visible in the distance hurtling along the new highway, the only substantially new image in the film. It's not very interesting either. Okay, it never should have happened. Hitchcock's Psycho was a combination of quality and circumstance which cannot be repeated.
Quality can be mimicked, circumstances change.
Anyway, Psycho has been reworked and virtually remade several times, with Brian De Palma's Dressed to Kill succeeding to an extent in generating the same level of excitement and outrage in its day. Let's get past that. We must give fair opportunity to Van Sant to try, and we have. Unfortunately the film is devoid of basic dramatic components which are necessary to sustain it. Heche is solid enough as Marion, but she over-reacts and overdoes the facial twitches, removing a great deal of the subtlety of the character.