For most directors, the purpose of doing a remake of someone's film is to explore undeveloped themes in the original or to put fresh twists on old material. When Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer created their successful recent version of "The Parent Trap," for example, they basically revamped the humor of the 1961 Hayley Mills vehicle while preserving the storyline; director Ron Underwood's upcoming rewrite of the giant-ape fantasy "Mighty Joe Young" will address the issue of poachers hunting endangered species, a topic unheard of when "Joe" came out in 1949. Director Gus Van Sant's modernization of Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 "Psycho," however, is an oddball exception to the rule, a movie so slavishly faithful to its source that finally the audience begins to wonder what the point of the picture is. Universal Pictures refused to screen this "Psycho" for critics last week, arguing that Hitchcock never previewed his movie before its opening. But Hitchcock had a good reason, since in 1960 no one knew about the bait-and-switch structure of "Psycho," how the story begins as a tale of embezzlement and paranoia and suddenly becomes a shocker about the gruesome consequences of Oedipal obsession. Thirty-eight years later, even those who never saw the original know the basics of the story, and sitting through this "Psycho" is like watching a team of Kinkos employees assembling the world's most lavish Xerox job. Initially there's a certain wonder to seeing Anne Heche follow in Janet Leigh's footsteps as the doomed Marion Crane and hearing Bernard Herrmann's nerve-shredding score in digital stereo. But although Van Sant has obviously worked overtime to get the basic imagery right -- the movie's look is a cunning blend of early 1960s artifice and 1990s attitude -- he has utterly failed in his mission to recreate the gripping atmosphere that hung over virtually every frame of Hitchcock's film. This is a thriller that never generates a single jolt of terror. In fact, almost immediately after Van Sant's careful recreation of the infamous shower scene -- presented here with slightly more blood and much more nudity than would ever have been allowed in 1960 -- "Psycho" becomes one thing Hitchcock's movie never was: deadly dull. Van Sant's deviations from the model are cosmetic and mostly silly. Now when demented motel manager Norman Bates (Vince Vaughn) spies on Marion while she strips, we hear him unzip his pants, drop his trousers and breathe heavily. Thanks, Gus, we needed that. Similiarly dopey is the insertion of storm clouds and a shot of what looks like a cow standing in the middle of a foggy road during the scene in which snooping private eye Arbogast (William H. Macy, slouching around amusingly in a suit that looks older than its wearer) runs afoul of Mother Bates. The only major characterization change involves Julianne Moore's portrayal of Marion's sister Lila as a strident man-hater rather than the sweet wallflower Vera Miles created. It's not exactly a misstep, but it doesn't add anything to the story either. Plotwise, "Psycho" follows the first film as if the script had been chieseled on tablets of stone. The biggest difference is that in 1960 audiences were shocked to discover the willowy, quietly neurotic Norman Anthony Perkins gave us could have been capable of such savage violence. Here, the beefier Vaughn looks like something out of a dark alley right from the start, which removes any doubt about who's responsible for the mayhem and murder. When director Jim McBride transplanted Jean-Luc Godard's New Wave classic "Breathless" to Los Angeles as the basis for a flashy-trashy 1983 Richard Gere vehicle, reviewers howled about what a travesty it was. But better to be daring than to be overly reverent. Like the stuffed birds Norman Bates collects, Van Sant's "Psycho" is merely a lifeless shell of what was once wild and thrilling to watch.
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