Guilty Pleasures: Psycho
By Samuel Hoelker
February 10, 2011
BoxOfficeProphets.com

The hot water seems to have run out.
I usually open up this column with a paragraph about how I’m never guilty about a movie I like. I never feel guilt about anything I like – taste is subjective, after all. I may have a soft spot for Soul Plane and you might actually like Spider-Man 3 (although let’s hope not). There’s one movie, though, which cannot be liked. Its very premise for being is an affront to many people, and its execution is pretty much a failure from just about every viewpoint. I agree – taken by itself, the remake of Psycho is bad, unnecessary, and could even be insulting. But, as I rarely do, I think Psycho (1998) works conceptually – it’s actually a success in its failure.

Much like probably two-thirds of the world, Psycho is my favorite Alfred Hitchcock film. It’s got the right amount of tension, humor, oddity, and mystery in it, something which I think Hitchcock never quite perfects in some of his other movies. Everything works swimmingly in it – the music is perfect, haunting and suspenseful, the cinematography is stylish and fitting, and the script is subtly complex, fun, and acceptably dated. The film is very indicative of the time period, and when watching it for the first time or the 20th time, you can definitely tell that it’s a one-of-a-kind film, one that does not need to be remade to appeal to a younger audience.

At least Psycho wasn’t remade to appease today’s wayward youth. Director Gus Van Sant, whom you may know as the director whose output is probably the most versatile, both in terms of quality and mainstreamness, has said that his motivation for making it is to prove that a movie can’t be truly remade. I don’t know if this is a point that really needs to be made, but it makes it. Psycho is more than just a generic remake in the vein of The Trouble With Charlie (remember that?); it’s a shot-for-shot remake. Just about every shot is copied from the original, down to the unique cinematography and 1960s clothing (although Julianne Moore’s Lila Crane has a Walkman to show how far we’ve come – and to date this version immediately). Although some things have been updated (the $40,000 Marion steals becomes $400,000), the characters and dialogue remain the same – and it’s occasionally cringe-worthy. Anne Heche’s Marion is flattered when her boss’s client flirts with her, despite her having Viggo Mortensen. She’s still a 1960s secretary. Is this part of what Van Sant was going for?

I think it is, yes. Things like that make Psycho not work as a standalone movie. Bernard Hermann’s score is intact (with Danny Elfman doing something to it to put his name in the credits) and it’s used exactly the same way. Yet it doesn’t work. Although it’s an iconic score, it comes across as cheesy and overdramatic. Why is that? Is it because we know that this is a fabrication? Or is it just because it’s in color and it’s made in 1998? I can’t say, but the color doesn’t help. It slows the film down, and it’s not exactly a fast-paced film to begin with.

Although I turned ten the year the remake came out, I can safely say without any facts backing me up that the largest question was how the acting was going to hold up, especially Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates. Anthony Perkins’s Norman Bates is a singularly iconic (to be redundant) performance and one that would be impossible to emulate. Vaughn does a decent job taking the performance in his own direction a little bit but he’s no replacement. It is fun to see him in retrospect, though, because he’s rarely in anything that’s not godawful anymore. My favorite, William H. Macy, as the private investigator Arbogast, seems to embody the 1960 mentality the most; Moore and Mortensen suffice as well. Anne Heche, however, sadly sleepwalks through her performance. Since she anchors the first half of the film, one would think she should have had a strong performance, whether it be a faithful performance or not. Van Sant gave his actors leeway on how his actors were to act, but he really should have exercised his directorial power in this case. Then again, having seen Last Days and Michael Pitt’s performance in it, I suppose I can say that Van Sant isn’t exactly an actor’s director.

So what’s the deal? I’ve basically spouted only negative things about Psycho. For someone who, somehow, had never seen nor heard of the Hitchcock version, they would find this film not very good and probably forget about it instantly. For everyone else, though, it could be considered a success. At the very least, for me, it reminded me of everything I loved about the original but with actors I recognized. It also is a benchmark (if I am indeed using that word correctly) that shows how far filmmaking has come in 38 years. Like Van Sant said, a movie can’t truly be remade (although he said that after the negative reviews, so who knows if he was just trying to cover his ass. He should have tried to cover his ass after Last Days too. Oh man, do I hate Last Days). The Psycho remake could have been redone differently, with Marion somehow surviving or Norman being more physically crazy or something (as it would most likely be done), but this experiment wasn’t. The music that worked so well in 1960 falls apart in 1998. Fashions and women’s roles have changed in 38 years as well as audience’s expectations. From my copious film history classes, I know how the timeline has moved from period to period and why we’re where we are now. It takes something like this, though, to really show how cinema changes. I’ve seen neither of Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much-s, but I’m sure the same thing is evident from that.

The 1998 Psycho is a representation of change in cinema, and really, I can’t think of very many other movies that can say that. Well, I can’t think of any other bad movies that can say that.

I’m proud to appreciate (not love) Psycho (1998).