PSYCHO A film p)review by David N. Butterworth Copyright 1998 David N. Butterworth
**1/2 (out of ****), maybe...
"Check in. Relax. Take a shower."
You have to admit it's a pretty nifty tagline. But you'd have to *be* a psycho to review Gus Van Sant's redo of the Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece, so I won't even attempt it here. I mean, what are you going to say? "Van Sant's picture surpasses the original "Psycho" in style, substance, and shock value." Or "Director Gus Van Sant has thrown together a disastrous film that makes the 1987 television movie "Bates Motel" appear Oscar-worthy by comparison."
No. Chances are your comments are going to fall somewhere in between. And that's the basket into which I'm putting all my eggs.
Van Sant is no hack, and has been slowly gaining a reputation as a mainstream filmmaker since his early directorial days, when controlled substances featured as heavily as the characters in his films ("Drugstore Cowboy," "My Own Private Idaho," "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues"). Many people missed the fact that Van Sant was the man behind "Good Will Hunting"; his star was eclipsed by two young up-and-comers named Matt Damon and Ben Affleck.
Given his off-beat but critical success ("Cowgirls" excepted), Van Sant isn't likely to trash Hitch's classic film (although one of his reasons for remaking it is "to do it in color"--sounds a tad suspect to say the least). His version of "Psycho" is less a remake and more a scene-by-scene reconstruction, with all of the original dialogue intact.
In fact, Van Sant's goal was to "update" the story by taking advantage of some of the innovations in the medium that weren't available in 1960 (a helicopter's eye view of a motel room, for example).
The story, by Robert Bloch, was inspired by the real life exploits of Ed Gein, a cannibalistic mass-murderer who turned his picturesque Wisconsin farmhouse into a human abattoir (Gein was also the inspiration behind "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and the lesser-seen "Deranged"). "Psycho" tells the tale of Marion Crane, a disenchanted real estate worker who embezzles $40,000 and escapes town in order to marry her boyfriend, Sam. On her way to meet Sam, Marion stops at the Bates Motel run by a troubled young man called Norman who, it turns out, is very much tied to his mother's apron strings.
Crane (played by Janet Leigh in the original and Anne Heche in the update) buys it in the first few reels--an innovative and rarely imitated idea--and Norman Bates was so immortalized by Anthony Perkins in the 1960 film that Perkins couldn't get any non-psycho offers for a long while afterwards. Vince Vaughn plays Norman in the remake.
If you haven't seen Hitchcock's "Psycho" (and still want to having read this far), I implore you to rent it *before* settling down to watch Van Sant's interpretation. The version that hits the theaters December 4th doesn't have Saul Bass' superb editing (the infamous shower sequence, arguably), Bernard Herrmann's screeching violins, or John Russell's eerie black and white photography but, for better or worse, it does have that very satisfying publicity campaign.
-- David N. Butterworth dnb@mail.med.upenn.edu
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews