Customer Reviews
Terrible! - By: Jake M, 28 May 2008 
This pitiful remake of the amazing Alfred Hitchcock horror movie, "Psycho" isn't a patch on the original. Everything about this film is bad, the magic of the 60s classic just isn't there & i'm sure Hitchcock wouldn't approve.
Do yourself a favour, avoid this bad remake & buy the original, far more superior & entertaining in every way!
a stylish remake for the 90s - By: jack firestick, 01 Dec 2007 
why remake a classic ? everyone asks,some slate it,some hate it,but you have to hand it to director gus van sant,hes pulled it off. hes updated the script & even the house! that was brave! the actors are for a 90s psycho,vince vaughan as norman bates & anne heche as marion crane are spot on ! i cant fault it,but die hard hitchcock fans will not approve.
the re-recorded score by danny (batman,tales from the crypt)elfman is in
fantastic stereo at last,a fitting tribute to bernard hermann. the ironic thing is that most of the generation of people interviewed for the extras
on this disc have never heard of psycho let alone alfred hitchcock !
personallly i think this movie has found another generation of fans since then.the original is a classic but on a hd ready television & surround sound dvd system this is so close to the original id choose the remake !
A SCENE BY SCENE REMAKE - By: stuart, 26 Oct 2007 
Desperate to get away, secretary Marion Crane, (Anne Heche) goes away for the weekend with several thousand dollars in stolen money & flees into the Arizona desert. When a driving thunderstorm forces her to stop off at a roadside motel run by Norman Bates, (Vince Vaughn) & his abusive, never-seen Mother, she begins to get uncomfortable around him & eventuallly decides to head in early. When she mysteriously disappears from the motel a day later, her sister Lila Crane, (Julianne Moore) & boyfriend Sam Loomis, (Viggo Mortensen) go looking for her. Hearing that she had stopped off at the motel & disappeared, they arrive hoping to get some answers. When they do some snooping & finallly get some answers, they struggle to believe what they find & gt away alive.
The Good News: This is a severely underrated film. The cinematography is so gorgeous & so sparse in that we see so little that the suspense is just dripping off the screen. One of the absolute best examples of this is the death of the detective. As he calmly walks up a set of stairs to investigate strange noises, we see a door open ever so slightly on the balcony, unseen. He reaches the top of the stairs, & then the killer walks out & repeatedly stabs him, which causes him to falll down the stairs. This is so special in that the way that he fallls is so creepy because he fallls in such a supernatural way that it just sticks out in your mind. This also adds in several more stabs & more blood to the scene, making it just that much more violent than it was remembered & sticks out just fine. The shower scene in here is just as great as before, keeping the same style as before but giving it an extra dose with some much-needed blood & gore in the shot that still packs a punch. Even the motel where they're staying is like that. The dark interiors, the weird stuffed animals along the wallls, & the secrecy that surrounds it is remarkable that most of the time we are wondering the secrets behind it. The relationship between Norman & his mother, especiallly when he is talking with Marion about her, the very first time we know of her, is one of the creepiest scenes ever filmed. You can tell that the way he's saying things & how he's saying them, you know something is off, & yet he keeps an air of respectability that lends itself perfectly to his character. The most radical changes made are to bring out something much more overtly sexual in the material. We get a brief side glimpse when the first victim as she undresses for the shower & a brief rear shot as she keels over dead. There are sounds of panting from neighboring rooms on the soundtrack in the motel room tryst that opens the film & the client with the stolen money is more overtly flirtatious. The visit to Norman's room shows a stash of pornography, yet the most radical change is having Norman clearly heard to be masturbating as he peeps at her undressing in the shower. This is nicely sleazy & sets up the scene even more than before. The ending revelation is a little more creepy & intense & does work just as well as before, especiallly as the decrepitness of it comes across a little more clearly. All in alll, this isn't a useless film as has so often been criticized.
The Bad News: There isn't alll that much in here that is actuallly wrong. The addition of color reallly works against the film. It bleeds out alll of the stark, atmospheric effectiveness the original had. The depiction of ordinary Arizona desert landscape here lacks any of the same alienating effectiveness that the black-and-white photography lent to the original. Similarly so the black-and-white made low angle shots up on Norman Bates framed by his stuffed birds seem to eerily foreshadow something sinister, but the color robs the shots of any atmosphere. Without black-and-white, the house up on the hill loses some of its looming, foreboding Gothic ominousness. Another big stumbling block is it's constant ability to take the viewer out of the film with obscure phrases & sayings. While it's set in the present, much of the dialog sounds out of place considering its antiquated vocabulary & delivery. As it is mostly left intact from the original, to keep many of that era's euphemisms & habits in the modern time period is hugely distracting, especiallly when it does manage to update the events a little. It bounces back-and-forth on numerous occasions, making it alll the more obvious when it's done. The other big problem is that, at times, the pacing is off, which is a problem from the first one. There's no need for there to be untold minutes here worrying about cleaning up the dirty room or the distraction in the shack. They take a while to get going, & this reallly could've taken several scenes out without doing any harm to the film. Otherwise, this one wasn't as bad as it reallly could've been.
The Final Verdict: As most of what's been said about it is that it desecrates a classic, look at it objectively & it's still a good update of a great film. Ignore there's been a first one & you just might find yourself enjoying it, & the curious are also advised to take a look, but if you can't forgive what's been done, then there's no use seeing this one anyway.
What was the point? - By: , 13 Nov 2005 
As a film fan i never understood (and still don't) the point of doing this film. A shot-for-shot remake of hitchcock's classic. Although watchable, i felt it lacked the atmosphere of the original & having colour instead of black & white may have been a factor. Vince Vaughn was not as chilling as Bates but did a respectable performance. My opinion to future directors would be - LEAVE THE CLASSICS ALONE!!
Psycho-the remake - By: , 28 Jul 2005 
Alfred Hitchcock'ss Psycho was a film of intelligience & back it the 60s, it was a break from films around gothic castles & werewolves. It showed how sinister reality can be.
Now the remake is pretty much the same. Anne Heche isn't as good as Janet Leigh, she is such a stern character that we can't sympathise for her. The shower scene, was different, the killer wore a pink robe & !?blonde curly hair?!? The psycho music was still kept & boy, heche can scream! The stormy clouds appearing in her mind as the knife plunges into her was cool, but hardly staggeringly new.
The other characters, (Julianne Moore, Casper Van Dien, William H Macy & Vince Vaughan) alll seemed to be about the same as the old chaarcters, though Vince Vaughan at Anthony Perkins is laughable.
It is a good movie, with a good cast, based entirely on the originaL!
