Let's not say anything about the point in remaking a proven classic and let's not even comment upon doing it cut for cut, scene for scene, frame for frame. We may think that it's pointless, it hardly leave much room for any updating, but let's keep that to ourselves. What's instead strikes you the most is how cheap the story and the characters were originally. A simple B-movie story with simple characters and a simple psychological explanation attached to the end. Which worked brilliantly in 1960, when the cinema still had some taboos to overcome, but which becomes too apparent very early on in this new version. There's no character to root for, since they are nothing more than persons, just enough to keep the story going. In the hands of one Alfred Hitchcock, a master of audience manipulation, such simple presumption is an advantage, but in the hands of Gus Van Sant it just looks what it is. But, that aside, a slavish remake like this also makes for some positive things in its transformation to 1998, most notably the look of the film. The production design is fantastic and not so little weird. Everything feels '50-ish. Clothes, cars and houses, even some of the supporting actors seem to have stepped out of some '50s movie, not to mention Bernard Herrman's reworked score. But then again it also feels very '90-ish, very modern. Someone has done brilliant work giving the film this very bizarre, timeless look. It may look a bit staged, but that adds to the atmosphere. I buy that totally. Enter Vince Vaughn. Whatever made director Van Sant fall for him when casting him as Norman Bates is wrapped in obscurity. Vaughn is a good actor (see Swingers or Return to Paradise), but he is a funny actor. Here he works very hard to be spooky, stuttering and rolling his eyes etc, but in the end he is too hunky to pass as a Norman Bates. Too clean-cut. That no one can play Norman Bates better than Anthony Perkins may be another story totally, but a true story. And Anne Heche, in Janet Leigh's part... what a fiasco. She still can't act and looks victim from the word go.

Not much else to say that hasn't been said before elsewhere. Psycho anno 1998 isn't as bad they say. It looks brilliant and the supporting cast (Julianne Moore, Viggo Mortensen) are good. But the film also represents today's Hollywood near its worst: production wise never better, but superficial and out of ideas. As for the few new bits for this update, there actually are some, they ultimately add up to extra butt-shot, extra breast-shot and a Norman Bates jerking off.

© The Inzomniac's Movie Madness Review.