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Okay, so Gus Van Sant wanted to remake Psycho in color so that he could bring it into modern audiences, who would probably go into cardiac arrest if they were ever forced to see a movie in black & white, while they conveniently forget that both "Clerks" and "Schindler's List" were filmed in black & white and are great movies.
Unfortunately, the same narrow-minded people who wouldn't want to see a great movie just because it's in black & white are the same people who wouldn't like "Psycho" anyway, because it doesn't have a murder or sex scene every two minutes. And the murders are not the grisly blood/guts/gore/bone-snapping that people are used to from having seen "Halloween," "Friday the 13th" and "Nightmare on Elm Street." This is why remaking "Psycho" almost exactly as it was originally was destined to not work, because it's really only of interest to people who are fans of the original. Everyone else is just watching it to tide them over until the next "Scream" sequel comes out, and for that reason, they will be disappointed. "Psycho" relies on suspense and mystery, not blood and guts. (And just so nobody thinks that I must be a senior citizen if I like older movies, let me set the record straight by saying that I am 21.)
So if doing the movie in color was all that Van Sant wanted to change, why not just colorize the movie and rerelease it? I mean, what's the point of remaking a movie if you're not going to change *anything*? The least he could have done was to put his own director's spin on it, rather than just copying Hitchcock's - or even better, hired a new writer to adapt a new script from the original "Psycho" book. But it seems that Van Sant couldn't decide whether he wanted to remake "Psycho" *exactly* or not. This should have been an all or nothing project - either remake the movie exactly or do it differently - but as it stands, this movie is about 95% the same, but with a few touches thrown in that don't seem to have any purpose. Such as having Norman masturbate while he spies on Marion undressing. It doesn't serve the plot at all, and the only reason he put it in was because he *could*. He wanted to say, "Hitch couldn't show people masturbating in 1960 so I'm going to do it." Whoopee, big deal, like I'm so shocked at seeing someone masturbate. And what on earth was the point of showing single frame shots of clouds and farm animals spliced into the murder scenes? And then he leaves *out* an important scene, where Lila and Sam meet the Sheriff outside the church.
Plus, by using the almost exact same script, the entire movie seems a bit of an anachronism. The opening credits say that the year is 1998. Then what's with Marion's 60-ish looking dress or the parasol she carries with her? Why do Marion and Sam have to have their trysts in a hotel room, when these days nobody would be shocked by what they are doing? Why are there no air conditioners in Marion's office? Why does the Bates Motel have no tv's in the rooms, and apparently no automatic locks on the doors? Why does the Sheriff have to ask the operator to connect him to the Bates motel? This was why using the exact same script was a mistake - just changing a few words here and there was not enough to modernize it. It needed a whole reworking.
While Vince Vaughn turned in a good performance as Norman, he just didn't seem right for the part. Part of what made the original "Psycho" so creepy was that Norman had that innocent, boy-next-door quality, so nobody could believe that he was capable of such horrible crimes. With Vince Vaughn playing the part, is anyone really surprised that Norman was a psychopathic killer?
That said, I can understand that Gus Van Sant was obviously a fan of the original "Psycho" movie, and wanted this to be a tribute. This isn't a bad movie, but the problem is that this may be some people's only exposure to "Psycho." I really think you should see this movie only if you've seen the original. Since I am a fan of anything to do with "Psycho," I bought a used copy of the remake, which I may watch occasionally. The original movie was a filet mignon, whereas the remake is a hamburger. But even filet mignon would get boring if you had it everyday, so it's nice to have a hamburger once in a while, for a change.


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