Psycho (DVD)

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The original Psycho is perhaps the most powerful, intriguing, scary, engrossing and just plain excellent thriller of all time, from the get go of the black and white classic the audience is catapulted into a terrifying and intricate world of psychological torture and escalating tension. Even now in 2004 it manages to remain horrifying even with the lack of gore that horror movie audiences expect these days, Psycho the remake is an almost ...
...long glaring stares and incoherent psycho babble you are all the time expecting Vaughn to soar in a role that he seems quite well suited to, but he never reaches truly terrifying or even very believable and his domineering presence undermines the gentle and twisty character development that is drafted so neatly into the screenplay. Not extremely impressive or scary.

Anne Heche is -in my humble opinion- one of the most god awful actresses ... more

Marion Crane has a secret. She has stolen four hundred thousand dollars and is on the run from the police, as she checks into the Bates Motel, under an alias, she decides to relax in the relative safety of the secluded accommodation and takes a shower. Whilst soaping herself up she hears a noise, looking out through the shower curtain she sees nothing. Slowly someone creeps up towards her naked body, grabs the curtain and stabs her to death, the unknown killer leaves its victim lying in the bath, blood still pouring from her lifeless body. Next morning Norman the owner of the Bates motel, cleans up the blood hides the corpse in the shed, feeling sorry for the blonde carcass. Above the motel stands a old house tall and proud, old and eerie, from the window looks a old lady, with a grudge against blonde, young women. Marion's sister desperately wants to find her sister, but a path of destruction leads to the Bates Motel, who's that old lady though……..

The original Psycho is perhaps the most powerful, intriguing, scary, engrossing and just plain excellent thriller of all time, from the get go of the black and white classic the audience is catapulted into a terrifying and intricate world of psychological torture and escalating tension. Even now in 2004 it manages to remain horrifying even with the lack of gore that horror movie audiences expect these days, Psycho the remake is an almost frame by frame 're-imagining' but why then does it feel so flat? This new version of the iconic 'godfather of horror' lacks the magic to pull the plot through; it is seldom subtle and rarely ever really intelligent, even though there is very little difference in execution between the two films, this one doesn't have the ever imaginative and adventurous Hitchcock keeping it on the straight and narrow and it doesn't have the same sense of importance that his version did. This film is allowed to become silly when the original wasn't, and because the makers where so narrow minded in sticking so closely to the original the production is never allowed to experiment or do anything remotely innovative. If you watch it as a stand alone film then it is a good little thriller, but it is near on impossible not to compare it to its far, far superior predecessor and it is here that the movie doesn't make the grade.

There is really weird time logic to Psycho, at the beginning of the movie it says that it is set in 1998, but all of the cars, costumes, buildings and hairstyles seem to say different. Even the language used is anachronistic to the supposed modern day setting and in placing the action in our times the production loses some of its magic, in the original the setting, time and characters were all key to building suspense and intrigue but this mind boggling shift in era seems like a lazy attempt to bring the movie up to date (it is perhaps the only change the team made) this doesn't work as the 1960s setting had a chilling and ominous feel to it and the whole production really would have been less infuriating if the story unfolded in the same period that the original did. There are hundreds of questions that are thrown up by this simple and ridiculous change and the logic doesn't really stand up today as it would have done at the time of release. Because this film is a carbon copy of its Hitchcock predecessor all the scenes are played out in exactly the same way, but this adaptation just doesn't have the brilliant acting of Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh or Martin Balsam or the truly masterful direction of Alfred Hitchcock to make them anything but lifeless. This remake is an intriguing experiment, it takes a new approach at remaking movies -simply copy everything about them and then take most of the magic away- which makes for an interesting production but not necessarily a good one.

Vince Vaughn's performance as the now infamous Norman Bates is passable but not half as skin crawlingly effective as that of Anthony Perkins and I found his interpretation of the character to be a little silly. Vaughn plays Bates like an out and out psychopath instead of building subtle layers of insanity and instead of being charming, realistic and interesting he goes for a more effeminate creepy approach, which works at the time of viewing but lacks anything very memorable to sit and look back on. With his constant mumbling and uneasy nature Vaughn's Norman is not half as devilish as it could have been and I felt that his character lacked the supreme intelligence that Perkins instilled into his role while constructing his characters psychological fragility. There wasn't a huge amount behind this portrayal of the iconic 'weirdo' and by the end of the movie I didn't really feel I knew his character anymore than in the opening scene. I suppose you could best describe this performance as Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter light, with the long glaring stares and incoherent psycho babble you are all the time expecting Vaughn to soar in a role that he seems quite well suited to, but he never reaches truly terrifying or even very believable and his domineering presence undermines the gentle and twisty character development that is drafted so neatly into the screenplay. Not extremely impressive or scary.

Anne Heche is -in my humble opinion- one of the most god awful actresses on the face of this planet, everything she does makes me cringe and I will never forgive her for almost single handedly destroying the fourth season of Ally McBeal, she always comes off of arrogant and deeply untalented and her performances range from awful to god awful. Here is no exception, she is in no way shape or form an adequate substitute for Janet Leigh, her portrayal of Marion Crane lacks any substance and asides from her still startling shower/death scene there is very little to remember about this. Instead of adding a sinister edge to Marion Heche tries to play her likeable, which doesn't work, you wouldn't believe that she could or would steal four hundred thousand and her deliciously scary death sequence is more depressing than anything else. Anne is part of my top ten most hated celebrities and will stay there as long as she refuses to get out of the movie industry. Julianne Moore is an actress that I actually do like, but again her huge talent is wasted on a character that slots into the 90s girl power category without having the necessary spunk to pull it off, but Moore furrows her brow with the best of them and goes on to make a likeable character, she portrays strength and resilience even when her characters sheer stupid ness bogs her down and has a nice rapport with her co stars. Viggo Mortensen also makes an appearance, but adds little to the production, he stands around and stares blankly a lot. That is sadly the amount that the director saw fit to draw out of this usually impressive actor; William H. Macy's private investigator doesn't add much to the film, but Macy looks natural in front of the lens and stays at least believable throughout.

Production values didn't really blow me away, what made Hitchcock's thrillers so revolutionary was the fact that he wasn't afraid to play around with tone, visuals, set pieces or colours (Birds is his best example for visual finesse) this movie instantly makes itself look more dated than the black and white original by using antique furniture, a unenchanting sixties wardrobe and grainy camera work. While Hitchcock's version had style and exercised the whole 'less is more' theory, this just looks like a dated old television flick with very little visual flair. The first big murder (the infamous shower scene) is still striking and the gore looks realistic enough, but the camerawork is grainy and unprofessional looking and all the set pieces look like something out of an old sixties sit-com, visually for me Psycho the remake just didn't work. Putting the whole thing into colours didn't really help the proceedings I didn't feel, the black and white helped build tension, the toneless lack of intimacy always kept you at arms length, shadows seemed to form around every corner and your imagination was allowed to run riot, in-fact it was encouraged to. The black and white helped Norman Bates terrifying struggle with his mother and his own psychological demise, somehow it added an eerie sense of authenticity to the production and plopping this into glorious Technicolor does nothing but make you wish you were watching the original.

Even though Psycho isn't a great film the screenplay and core ideas are still corkers, the wicked build up of steady character development, pant wettingly tense sequences and a stomping standing ovation worthy climax do still resonate and scare, but still not in the same way. As the script is almost taken word for word from the originals, there is nothing really to moan about, the movie starts with a mystery, one that you think the whole film will be based around, but just as you think you know what is going on, the rug is pulled right from under you and you are left speechless at a mindless act of violence. Then a morbid and macabre tale of treachery, cover ups and who dunnit type plot elements push this on and a steaming pace until one of the most mind blowing twists in movie history. There is a nice amount of character development on display here and the steady build up of tension is edge of your seat stuff, why I the mother killing all these helpless victims, why is Norman almost robotically clearing up the mess? Will this motel of death be found out? Can Normans psychological state worsen? You will be asking yourselves questions like these throughout and the central story remains one of the most complex engrossing and damn right shocking of all time.

Gus Van Sant takes on the task of directing the Psycho remake, sadly and maybe inevitably he is no where near as good at making high tension out of almost nothing as the Hitch master. Sadly he plays this production more as an experiment than an actual movie to be viewed by millions, there is a lazy feel about his direction, you sense that he watched the original and decided to just copy everything about it and in doing so destroyed any redeeming factors that could have been in this potentially brilliant movie.

Overall Psycho is a good little thriller, it rivals anything out recently and becomes enjoyable, but in a trashy way. It isn't until you start comparing this to the brilliant, stunning original, in refusing to add anything new to the terrifying story they fail to spark any of the audiences attention. I would personally be more scared whilst watching the first than this, as this feels stale and not terribly intelligent. It is recommended but not very highly.

Norman Bates: A boy's best friend is his mother.

Norman Bates: We all go a little crazy sometimes.

Thank you all for reading and rating, it really does mean a lot, as always I wish you all the best. Jay

You can buy This Dvd From Amazon.co.uk For £5.97 ASIN: B00004CZAN
 

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