PSYCHO
CAST


Vince Vaughn-Norman Bates


Anne Heche-Marion Crane


Julianne Moore-Lila Crane


Viggo Mortensen-Sam Loomis


William H. Macy-Milton Arborgast


Robert Forester-Dr. Simon


It is a very difficult thing to review this movie. I'm still not entirely sure how to do it. It perhaps should be said that I'm leaning toward the approach of not taking this as a film at all, but instead a fact. Hitchcock's original was a masterpiece, the best film of his career and quite probaly one of the best movies ever made. The plot was intruiging and whicked, and it drew you right in to the head of a true psychopath. Norman Bates, as played by Anthony Perkins, was a most shy and nonchalant killer. In fact, you too couldn't possibly believ that he was a killer, he wouldn't harm a fly. Of course director Gus Van Sant wasn't really attempting to make a better movie then Hitchcock. In fact, I don't believe that he was really attempting to make a good movie at all. His real ambition was to get right inside Hitchcock's head and see what it must have been like to be this man, making this movie. And maybe by completely re-creating this movie shot by shot, he could uncover some interesting secret that we have yet to stumble upon.


But the question still remains, is this a good movie? I'd have to say yes. The script is good and the camera angles and various visual techniques work just as well as when Hitchcock used them. But, then again they are the exact same camera angles and various visual techniques that Hitchcock used. Exactly the same. But that still doesn't distract from how good they are. And that's really what drives this movie, it is the exact same film that Hitchcock made, no different.


But there just seems to be a little inkling of something that keeps this "Psycho" from being as good as the other "Psycho". Perhaps it's the simple fact that something always seems better when you see it for the first time. It juse seems fresher, and that is one of the big elements in the judging of a movie.


But it's still a good movie.

***3/4
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