PSYCHO

A virtually shot-to-shot recreation of Hitchcock’s horror masterpiece, this modern PSYCHO seems redundant although it contains a few unnecessary additional images which yield even more immorality. Furthermore, the acting, no matter how earnest, seems timid and misdirected since the actors have to inhabit a very well-known script with lines that many a horror fan can quote verbatim.

Stepping into the Janet Leigh role of Marion Crane is lesbian Anne Heche, an inconsistent actress at best. This time around, Marion steals $400,000, rather than $40,000, which she is supposed to deposit in a Phoenix, Arizona bank, and heads off in her car to meet up with her clandestine lover, Sam Loomis, played by Viggo Mortensen (a Fabio-type who played the bad boyfriend in another Hitchcock redux, A PERFECT MURDER, a takeoff on DIAL M FOR MURDER). Tormented by the voices in her head condemning her for the crime she just committed, Marion checks into a motel (the Bates Motel!) to spend the night and plans to return to Phoenix in the morning to make things right.

At the motel, she meets Norman Bates (this time played by Vince Vaughn, who also seems intimidated by the 40-year-old words of the classic script). Norman makes her dinner, shows her his parlor with stuffed birds on the wall and tells her that “a boy’s best friend is his mother.” When Marion retires for the evening in cabin 1, Bates watches her undress through a peephole and pleasures himself (something avoided by Hitchcock in 1960 although it was in the original book by Robert Bloch).

As Marion showers behind a kaleidoscope-type show curtain, a blond-haired person opens the curtain and stabs Marion to death. Thankfully, Van Sant doesn’t show the knife penetrate, unlike many other modern horror movies. He does add a few different shots during this sequence, such as a view from above, revealing a little more of Marion than the original, and he adds a few totally strange quick shots of thunder clouds and a bull standing in a field as some kind of goofy metaphor (Why?).

Private detective Milton Arbogast (William H. Macy) checks out the scene and is killed. Then, Marion’s sister Lila (Julianne Moore) and Sam check into the motel as man and wife, searching motel and home for clues to Marion’s death. Lila meets Norman’s “mother” in the basement of the home, the crimes are solved, and Bates and his “mother” take up residence elsewhere.

The only differences from the original are minimal. There is one long continuous shot from the skies of Phoenix into the motel window of a seedy high-rise bedroom where Marion and Sam have just fornicated. Marion is not topless, but Sam’s hind end is in clear view. Later, Lila mentions her Walkman radio. Finally, Norman has an Aviary in his basement, where he keeps live birds. (This seems like a direct nod to the moth cages seen in SILENCE OF THE LAMBS.)

Anthony Perkins worked very well as Bates because he was skinny, odd and quirky. While Vaughn has the nervous laugh down, he is tall, well-built and has clearly established himself as a confident, masculine lead in other movies. He is completely miscast here.

Hitchcock’s original PSYCHO became a pattern for today’s mad slasher movies and thus is responsible for inspiring many copycat murders. This modern PSYCHO is nothing more than a novelty. Even in color (which Hitchcock could have used if he so desired), PSYCHO 1998 seems redundant and unnecessary as well as immoral. Some parents may be tempted to take their teenagers to see this movie as a way of letting them see a movie from their own youth, but horror is horror, and parents should exercise caution before exposing their children to murder, excess nudity and masturbation. Like WIZARD OF OZ, CITIZEN KANE and GONE WITH THE WIND, Universal could have scored just as easily with a re-release instead of a redundant re-creation.