Product Details

• Actors: Vince Vaughn, Anne Heche, Julianne Moore, Viggo Mortensen, William H. Macy
• Directors: Gus Van Sant
• Writers: Joseph Stefano, Robert Bloch
• Producers: Gus Van Sant, Brian Grazer, Dany Wolf, James Whitaker
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Special Edition, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Universal Studios
• VHS Release Date: August 29, 2000
• Run Time: 105 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (289 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0783243456
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #323,022 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Numerous critics had already sharpened their knives even before Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot color "re-creation" of the 1960 black-and-white Hitchcock classic was released, chiding the Good Will Hunting director for defiling hallowed ground. This intriguing cinematic curiosity, though, is hardly as sacrilegious as critics would lead you to believe. If anything, Van Sant doesn't take enough liberties with his almost slavish devotion to the material, now updated with modern references. At times, you wish Van Sant would cut loose with a little spontaneity, a little energy, a little something. Unfortunately, when he does venture outside Hitchcock's parameters, with inserted shots of storm clouds during the murder sequences, it's to little effect. Granted, he liberally splashes color throughout the film (especially in the case of the infamous shower scene), and this is a great-looking movie, but in his obsession with adding a new physical dimension to the film, there's little insight into these characters that Hitchcock hadn't already provided. Vince Vaughn, a robotic and giggly Norman, doesn't crawl under your skin the way boy-next-door Anthony Perkins did, and Anne Heche is admirable if not very sympathetic in the Janet Leigh role. Van Sant does score a minor coup, though, in his casting of the supporting roles: Julianne Moore provides a welcome shot of energy as Heche's irritable and curious sister, William H. Macy is a perfect small-time detective, Viggo Mortensen is studly enough to make you understand why Heche would want to run away with him, and James LeGros walks away with his one brief scene as a used car salesman. And Danny Elfman's gorgeous rerecording of Bernard Herrmann's score is a potent supporting character unto itself. Students and fans of the original film will get a kick out of the modern revisions, but don't expect anything of Hitchcockian caliber; watch it for the sum of its intriguing parts, but not the whole. --Mark Englehart

From The New Yorker

If the original did not exist, would this picture be worth seeing? Sure, but it's doubtful that Gus Van Sant's scrupulous color reproduction would inspire much of a buzz. The famous murder sequences (the shower and the staircase) still work, but the triumphs belong more to the original storyboarding-and the moviegoer's memory of dread-than to Van Sant's small, lurid contributions. Anne Heche and Vince Vaughn try a bit too hard to bring fresh nuances to their iconic characters, but Julianne Moore, Viggo Mortensen, and especially William H. Macy allow the audience it set aside its comparisons and enjoy the clever narrative. -Ken Marks
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Put This One Down In The Fruit Cellar, April 2, 2002

By 

DC Glass (San Diego) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Psycho (DVD)

Where was Alfred Hitchcock's name in the credits? Was the film dedicated to him and I blinked and missed it? Was he acknowledged in any way, other than his silly cameo? How much money was Patricia Hitchcock paid to say, in the featurette, that her father would have approved of this movie? These and many other questions can be condensed into one word: why? Remaking this, shot-for-shot and in color, was a huge error in judgement made by whomever it was that green-lighted this cinematic travesty. Whereas, in the original, Anthony Perkins, under the guidence of the master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock, played Norman as the somewhat disturbed but likeable boy next door and therefore the ending was a shock, Vince Vaughn played crazy right from the get-go, completely spoiling the rest of the film. Viggo Mortensen's acting couldn't have been worse, and what's the deal with them changing the house? The old house was sinister and creepy, especially in black and white; the new house looks like a reject from a William Castle movie. The opening credits, in color, look very nice, but the film slides quickly downhill from there. This film might have worked if only Anne Heche had played Norman instead of Marion. If you've never seen either version, please see the original!

45 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars MOTHER! OH GOD, MOTHER! BOMB!! BOMB!!!, May 2, 2002

By 

Michael K. Beusch (San Mateo, California United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Psycho (DVD)

This remake of the cherished 1960 Hitchcock classic is pointless and unnecessary. It's like remaking Sunset Boulevard (rest in peace, Billy Wilder) in color with Raquel Welch and Freddy Prinze, Jr. in the Gloria Swanson and William Holden roles and throwing in a Basic Instinct sex scene for good measure. Psycho is like Casablanca, Laura, It's a Wonderful Life, Some Like It Hot and To Kill a Mockingbird -- great films where the audience, after seeing them, can never picture other actors playing those roles. For me, Marion Crane will always be Janet Leigh and Norman Bates will always be Anthony Perkins -- period. Hitchcock's Psycho is a masterpiece that deserves to stand on its own without a shot-for-shot pale imitation to stain its memory. There are many things wrong with this version, but I'll concentrate on four areas:

First, Vince Vaughn has a completely and utterly impossible task of trying to match up to Anthony Perkins' performance in the original. Perkins' Norman Bates came out of his own personality. He, like Norman Bates, lost his father at an early age and had a internal conflict over his own sexual identity. He, like Norman Bates, had a clinging, possessive mother. Vaughn, in contrast, is behind the eight ball as soon as he appears on the screen in the remake. Vaughn plays Norman Bates. Perkins IS Norman Bates. Vaughn tries his best, but it isn't nearly enough.

The updated touches director Gus Van Sandt has added -- namely the masturbation, vomiting, nudity and the added gore. Instead of making a positive additional contribution to the story, these updates merely seem like a gratuitous tack-on that Van Sandt has added to appeal to modern audiences. Martin Scorcese's remake of Cape Fear earned the right to deal more graphically with its subject matter than the original. In that case, the added story elements gave that version a depth that the original did not possess. The updates in the remake of Psycho, however, seem like pandering to an audience that Van Sandt fears won't accept his version without the modern expected minimum of sex, violence and gore.

Van Sandt also makes a concession to modern audiences by filming in color. If there has ever been a film that was destined to be made in black and white, it is Psycho. Whether Hitchcock meant to film the original in black and white for artistic reasons, to save on the budget or merely to spare audiences the gore of the shower scene, the final effect worked beautifully without color. Bernard Herrmann even wrote his brilliant score exclusively for strings, striving for a "black and white sound." A perfect example is the scene where Detective Milton Arbogast (Martin Balsam in the original, William H. Macy in the remake) sneaks up to the Bates house. In the original, even though it is still daylight, there is a sense of foreboding due to the black and white photography. The shadows are darker and the house looks even more menacing. Macy's climb up to the house, in contrast, seems too colorful and too bright. There's no menace or foreboding to the scene at all. Anyone who finds black and white films unwatchable might change their tune if they see both versions of Psycho.

However, for me, the biggest weakness of the remake of Psycho is Anne Heche's performance. Heche is a good actress, but here she makes all of the wrong choices. Marion Crane, as played by Janet Leigh, is a person who has followed the rules all of her life -- a "good girl" who has worked hard and has a good head on her shoulders. We identified with Janet Leigh's Marion because we saw a lot of ourselves in her. When Marion steals the $40,000 in the original, we root for her because Leigh has done such an effective job of establishing Marion as a good person who sees her life slipping away and is driven to her larceny by her desperation. And when she is gone, we all feel the loss of someone we cared about.

Heche, in contrast, has stated that she saw Marion as a flightly, scatterbrained person who has no perception of the consequence of her actions. This approach misses the whole point of the character. In the Hitchcock original, there is a moment of indecision by the audience after Marion's exit over shifting allegiance to Norman Bates. We have spent the first half of the film becoming involved in the fate of a person we identify with and care about. Now, Hitchcock forces us to identify with the person who is covering up her demise. Because of Heche's approach to the role, Marion becomes a superficial dingbat who elicits no sympathy while she is alive and who the audience does not miss when she is dead. The whole point of the story is that Marion IS a good person who "just goes a little mad" when she steals the $40,000. She isn't, as Heche suggests in her interpretation, an irresponsible person who doesn't realize the consequences of her actions. Heche's approach blunts all of the dramatic impact of the story and irrepably hurts the film's effectiveness.

Aside from a performance by Julianne Moore that improves upon the shrill performance of Vera Miles in the original and a performance by William H. Macy that equals that of Martin Balsam, this film has nothing new or positive to offer. Gus Van Sandt is a talented filmmaker who hopefully will avoid projects like this in the future. He should concentrate on establishing his own legacy rather than trying to copy the legacy of Alfred Hitchcock. If he goes up against The Master of Suspense, he's going to lose badly.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Pointless., July 19, 2003

By 

Dark Mechanicus JSG "Black Ops Teep" (Fortified Bunker, USSA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Psycho (DVD)

Gus Van Sant is a talented director in his own right, as he proved in his stirring and depressing account of the travails and adventures of a latter-day Henry V "My Own Private Idaho." So why, then, did Van Sant feel the need to make this version of "Psycho", which isn't even a 'version', since this movie is a slavish shot-for-shot remake of the original, albeit set in the 1990's.

As I've said on many an occasion, I have no problem with a true remake: a fresh look on an old theme is perfectly fine, so long as it's well done and has something new to say. But given Van Sant's directorial talent, and considering the top tier (albeit underrated) acting talent involved (Vince Vaughn, Anne Heche, William H. Macy, and Viggo Mortensen, it's hard to fathom why Van Sant would choose to use his talents on something like this.

It's worth emphasizing to the incredulous that this movie is NOT a remake, but is, indeed, a SHOT-for-SHOT reshoot of the original Hitchcock classic. Except for perhaps two little inexplicable touches, the film uses every camera angle, and every snippet of dialogue, and all of the characters, in the original film: the only departure from the original "Psycho" is that this movie is shot in color. Of the two departures, there isn't much to say: they take the form of brief 'visions' edited MTV-style into the killing sequences, and include a roiling stormy sky, a masked woman in a bikini, and an ewe.

For this we needed a feature film? What's more, while the movie itself is at first intriguing as a curiosity ("hmmm...let's see how Anne Heche plays the shower sequence) quickly begins to resemble bad dinner theater, and the film and actors, by definition, draw comparison to the original. Lamentably, they don't do well in the comparison. Anne Heche is tasty as always as Marion Crane, but she doesn't hold a candle to Janet Leigh's subtle portrayal of a libidinous woman wracked simultaneously by greed and guilt. Viggo Mortensen adds more of a Lil' Abner sensibility to his role than should be decent.

William H. Macy, usually outstanding, is just embarrassing in the role of Detective Arboghast, and Vince Vaughn is completely underwhelming and unbelievable as Norman Bates: watching Vaughn exerting himself on the lines that Anthony Perkins made seem effortless, you begin to realize just how supremely well-suited Perkins was for the role. If anything, watching Van Sant's reshoot of "Psycho" is almost the ultimate homage to Hitchcock's film, if only that you in doing so you realize what a marvel the original was.

Van Sant's reshoot of "Psycho", then, is interesting for about 15 minutes; after that you begin wondering what the point is. Put the original "Psycho" on the hopper instead; you'll be glad you did.