If nothing else, Gus Van Sant's Psycho is an interesting exercise - a shot-for-shot remake of Hitchcock's classic, using the same script, music, and fair representations of the set, props etc., only in colour this time. And, like many experiments, it doesn't meet with the success its makers may have hoped for.
I can't go along with those who have marked it down to 1 - the strength of the source material alone justifies a more positive reaction than that. Plus, a score of 1 surely intimates that Hitchock's script, set, music, and shot choices were terrible, because they are all here in this version, so there can be no other conclusion. They weren't terrible then, and they're not terrible now. No, a score of 1 is no more than a knee-jerk reaction to someone having the nerve to remake Hitchcock.
Where this version fails in the sheer essence of being copied: that fact drains it of any originality, and robs the performers of any opportunity to add anything of themselves to the film. Instead you end up with sterile copies of the classic performances elicited with Hitchcock, and this is a shame because the performers are all good (and Vince Vaughan, who went on to play the same character in a series of increasingly poor comedies, edges perilously close to his own version of creepy).
I was going to say that what you end up with is like a painting-by-numbers version of an old master - you can see what made the original a classic, but there is something drastically lacking in the execution. But perhaps a better analogy is that this version is like a reanimated corpse - you can see the person it used to be, but it has no life of its own.
I would add a couple of further thoughts: making this film was not a crime, and it hasn't removed Hitchcock's original from the world. It's still out there, folks. And it's far more worth seeing than this.
I can't go along with those who have marked it down to 1 - the strength of the source material alone justifies a more positive reaction than that. Plus, a score of 1 surely intimates that Hitchock's script, set, music, and shot choices were terrible, because they are all here in this version, so there can be no other conclusion. They weren't terrible then, and they're not terrible now. No, a score of 1 is no more than a knee-jerk reaction to someone having the nerve to remake Hitchcock.
Where this version fails in the sheer essence of being copied: that fact drains it of any originality, and robs the performers of any opportunity to add anything of themselves to the film. Instead you end up with sterile copies of the classic performances elicited with Hitchcock, and this is a shame because the performers are all good (and Vince Vaughan, who went on to play the same character in a series of increasingly poor comedies, edges perilously close to his own version of creepy).
I was going to say that what you end up with is like a painting-by-numbers version of an old master - you can see what made the original a classic, but there is something drastically lacking in the execution. But perhaps a better analogy is that this version is like a reanimated corpse - you can see the person it used to be, but it has no life of its own.
I would add a couple of further thoughts: making this film was not a crime, and it hasn't removed Hitchcock's original from the world. It's still out there, folks. And it's far more worth seeing than this.