Psycho (1998)

1998

Directed by Gus Van Sant
Starring Vince Vaughn, Anne Heche, Julianne Moore, Viggo Mortensen and William H. Macy

I've spoken in the past about the Roger Ebert Movie Companion book that led me to discover a lot of movies from the past as a kid.  I'll never forget reading his review of Halloween, an honest-to-goodness classic slasher flick that got a four-star rating and a line where Mr. Ebert said that the movie was "comparable to Psycho."  Fuck me if that didn't whet my appetite to check it out.  I actually saw the sequels first on a particularly awesome "USA Up All Night" marathon where Gilbert Gottfried was searching for a copy of the original film at his parents' house to show and just wound up settling for them.  A few months later, my awesome sister rented it for me at the often-mentioned Greatest Video Store Ever.  And it was awesome.  I've loved Psycho since sixth grade, I watched it something like 287 times throughout middle school, and then the news filtered out in 1998 that Gus Van Sant, fresh off the success of Good Will Hunting, was doing a shot-for-shot remake.  Wut?

I'm not going to lie to the people.  I loved this flick when I first saw it back in the day.  Since I watched the original version so many times, I already knew every shot and followed along with every line of dialogue.  I even thought that the stuff Van Sant added was cool, because it made me feel like a genius for noticing that they were added much like all those asshats who kept saying "oh yeah, that's new" during the Star Wars Special Editions.  Fortunately, I've gotten a little smarter since then.  Honestly, though, I don't think this movie is QUITE as bad as a lot of people say it is.  Is it unnecessary?  Yeah.  Is it a total waste of time?  Eh, probably.  But I'm not gonna lie, I still dust it off to watch every couple years or so.  I think what really killed this movie more than anything was the CASTING, because oh boy were there some disasters on that front.  Like, every single main character.  More of that as we delve into the abyss of one of Hollywood's biggest misfires of all time.

Forewarning: for this review, I'm just going to assume that a lot of you are familiar with the story of Psycho, so a good portion of this review is going to be on the differences (some slight, some massive) between the original and this film.  The first third of the story is focused directly on the character of Marion Crane, friendly, relatable office worker in a relationship with a guy who owes a buttload of money to his ex.  Of course, this means that I have to point out that these characters are played by the 1998 versions of Anne Heche and Viggo Mortensen.  See, kids, in 1998 Anne Heche was a big deal fairly quick.  I'm sure that was the reason she was cast, but while Janet Leigh was also a big deal fairly quick in 1960 she came across as extremely likable despite her character stealing a big wad of money.  Anne Heche...is not.  The '98 Razzies also singled her out for their "Worst Actress" nomination, and it was deserved.  Thus, the section of the movie that's meant to throw us for a loop by making us think the whole movie will be about Marion isn't really riveting.

Which brings us to Marion finding her way to the Bates Motel after a few close calls with the law.  The slow reveal of the hotel sign through the rain and the creepy house up on the hill is still cool to watch to this day, complete with the classic Bernard Herrmann score redone by Danny Elfman.  And then we meet Norman himself.  And...ugh. 

Now, folks, let the record show that I love Vince Vaughn.  I think he's one of the most talented dudes I've ever seen in all of my years watching movies, as he can play dramatic and violent roles with ease while also being one of the funniest motherfuckers of all time.  But as Norman Bates?  In the original movie, Anthony Perkins was awkward and endearing, but Vaughn is someone we know as being slightly dark and violent underneath the surface, and there goes the suspense.  He also says his lines fast; compare Perkins delivering the classic monologue about institutions and "the laughter and the tears and the cruel eyes studying you" to Vaughn's nervous skeeviness in the same scene.  Yikes.  Hard to imagine Heche didn't just run for the hills right there.  I remember reading Ebert's review of this film when it was released and laughing pretty hard at the following line: "The biggest difference between this movie and the original is that it contains a masturbation scene."  Yeah.  Spoiler alert. 

If you're one of the FEW people reading this who hasn't seen the original movie, I won't spoil what comes next, so I'll just leave it at this: a major character dies, and it's now up to a newly-introduced character and Sam Loomis to wrap up the plot.  Said new character is played by Julianne Moore, yet another terrible decision for reasons that aren't the fault of the actor in the least bit.  Moore is a really good actress, but she projects superwoman confidence where the character of Lila is really just there to be a placeholder.  You notice Moore, and not just because she's ridiculously hot.  And I just realized that I've barely mentioned Viggo Mortensen in this review other than pointing out that he plays Marion's lover.  Yeah.  You know, his actions and lines are the same, but Van Sant decided to give him the presentation of this cowboy-ish tough cool dude since it's pretty much the only role that Mortensen plays.  Suffice to say he's pretty grating.  All of it leads up to a finale that is actually comedic gold these days; the original's slam-bang double reveal at the end worked because it was short, sweet and to the point.  This one tries to be long, grand and well-choreographed, and as a result it falls totally flat.

So now the time has come to talk about what worked and what didn't work in this movie.  Still to this day, I admire the hell out of the direction and attention to detail that Gus Van Sant had.  It's clear with every frame - since almost every frame is a carbon copy - that he has a huge boner for Alfred Hitchcock, and nobody can say that he didn't want to bring this amazing story to a new generation.  Reportedly, he spent the entire production with a stopwatch and timer.  That's how dedicated he was to keeping everything exactly the same.  From a film-making standpoint, doing something like this had to be insanely difficult and I still appreciate it to this day.  If you're a huge fan of the O.G. version like me, you can't say that the guy did anything other than pay total reverence to it.  I'm well aware that this is most people's main gripe with the movie, but nobody ever said I wasn't an annoying contrarian.  At this point, it's almost a badge of honor.

Since I didn't really have to give a detailed plot description in this review, I've already touched on most of the stuff that doesn't work.  Specifically, a large portion of it is the casting - with the exception of the not-mentioned-until-now William H. Macy.  He shows up to play Detective Arbogast, and he's awesome.  But there's also just these little weird touches that occasionally pop up.  Interestingly enough, it was the stuff that Van Sant ADDED that sunk it.  The aforementioned "Norman beating the meat" and finale sequences are the biggest examples, but there's also the weird move of adding surreal dream imagery to the two murder scenes.  Three words to describe that move: W...T...F.  As a thriller, 1998 Psycho doesn't work because it's nowhere near the exercise in less is more.  Less is more, people.  It's one of my life credos, and it fits in almost every situation.

Rating time.  ** out of ****.  I don't think this flick is anywhere near the waste of time that almost everyone else does and still believe that a shot-for-shot remake of Psycho COULD be awesome.  You can't ask for a better template.  Come at me, bros.