adonis98-743-186503 Marion Crane steals a lot of cash from a man whom her boss is in business with. On the way to see her boyfriend, she stops off by an old motel, run by the odd Norman Bates. She is murdered in the shower. Her sister, boyfriend, and a private investigator try to find out where she is, while we learn more about Norman Bates. Psycho is a low life piece by piece remake of the original that is nowhere near as good as the classic 1960's film both in terms of spirit and form but also pretty much ruined the shower scene and turned it into garbage fire. (0/10)

Brian T. Whitlock (GOWBTW) Alfred Hitchcock is known for his horror, thriller, and suspense. But for this adaptation of "Psycho"? I am going to be mum on this. Anthony Perkins played Norman Bates in the 1960 version. A very quiet, but equally disturbing character. Vince Vaughn plays the same person, not quite the same way. Vivian Leigh played Marion in the 1960's version. Anne Heche, a little sexier, but not quite like her. The afternoon delight scenes are about spot on. Like them in both versions. But the updated version was silly. The voyeur scenes was too much. Norman Bates in the 1998 version was worse than the 1960 version. Perkins was decent, Vaughn pleasured himself. TOO MUCH! The shower scene is classic. Only the stab wounds in the back was the major difference. Stopping Norman Bates wasn't a team effort, but it could have been. The updated version of "Psycho" had a good cast of stars, but the end result was negative. It did honor Alfred Hitchcock though. I rather choose the 1960 version over the 1998 version. The remake was sillier than the original. 2 out of 5 stars

Councillor3004 Why did this movie need to be remade? I am not going to add anything to the comments already posted on IMDb, but this film infuriated me to such an extent that I can't keep myself from adding to the pile of negative reviews on here. I am a big fan of Hitchcock's original "Psycho", have seen it several times already and consider it as part of my top five favorite movies of all time. Anthony Perkins' acting was phenomenal in the original version. I even love "Bates Motel", the TV series adapted from Hitchcock's classic starring Freddie Highmore and Vera Farmiga, and Robert Bloch's source material. Not everything about the TV show may be perfect, but all of them, the film, the series, the book managed to captivate me to a certain extent, so much that the story of Norman Bates, whether he is portrayed by Anthony Perkins or Freddie Highmore, has not been able to let me go ever since I first watched Hitchcock's "Psycho".This remake directed by Gus Van Sant, the director who also brought us some great movies such as "Good Will Hunting", "Milk", "To Die For" or "Finding Forrester", butchers the original story even though each shot, each movement, each line, each part of the soundtrack is almost exactly the same. Regarding it through the technical perspective, this movie remains faithful to the original version, yet it lacks so much more. The coloring feels out-of-place and distracting, especially if you consider how perfectly the black-and-white coloring worked in the original. And the acting should not even be talked about; it's that bad.I watched the remake mainly because Viggo Mortensen, Julianne Moore and William H. Macy star in it, all of whom are actors I respect highly and enjoy to watch on my screen. They made me think, how bad could this movie be? Critics were not as harsh with this movie as I imagined, so I decided to give it a chance and build my own opinion. In fact, neither Mortensen and Moore nor Macy were terrible at all; they all did a decent job at portraying their characters (even though it felt at some times like Julianne Moore was overacting a bit), but those are more or less the only positive things which can be said about the film. The main reason for why this movie failed may well be the horrendous acting skills of Anne Heche and Vince Vaughn. Whereas Perkins (and Highmore in the 2013 TV series) both succeed in portraying Norman's nervousness to perfection and presenting Norman as a multi-layered character, Vince Vaughn just ... just fails utterly. Not a single line which comes out of his mouth feels credible throughout the course of the movie, and perhaps even more importantly, you never catch yourself thinking, "how can this man do such horrible things?", as I (and probably everyone else) did upon watching the original movie. Vaughn plays Norman Bates like someone would play him in a parody, painting a stereotypical serial killer without the characteristic elements which made Anthony Perkins' version of Norman Bates such an extraordinary performance.In addition, to put it mildly, Anne Heche cannot act. In the 1960 film, the shower scene shocked me, it made me feel disgusted and overwhelmed and intrigued by Hitchcock's directing skills at the same time. In this film, the only thing I felt was relief that it was Anne Heche's final moment in the movie, as horrible as that sounds. It's a shame that the people responsible in Hollywood for all the remakes of beloved classics seem to think that young people nowadays don't watch those old movies anymore, and thus decide to remake them to make them more accessible. In most cases, those remakes simply do not work (there are exceptions, of course, but they are rare treasures among all the nonsense), and "Psycho" may be the prime example for this. You would be better off watching the original, reading Robert Bloch's novel or, if you want to see a more modern, a more timely adaptation of the story, then you should turn on "Bates Motel". The 1998 version of the story should simply be avoided like the plague.

dwasifar I was unimpressed by this when it first came out, but I thought I'd give it another chance recently and tried to watch it with an open mind. No; it's still not good. And the thing is, it could have been good, if the cast had found something new in the characters. But they mostly didn't, and I think that's because of the extremely questionable casting decisions. Anne Heche in particular seems lost and floundering in her role, and she is not helped by the crew cut that plays up her resemblance to Pee-Wee Herman. Once you see that, you can't unsee it, and it's Pee-Wee as Marion from then on. Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates is another bad choice. Anthony Perkins' Norman is superficially likable, and when he turns scary, the transformation is unsettling. Vaughn's Norman is creepy from the beginning, so there's no unsettling shift when he turns out to be a creep. Viggo Mortensen's affected aw-shucks cowboy accent deprives the Sam Loomis character of its needed gravity; and Julianne Moore tries hard to convey the steely desperation that Vera Miles earlier brought to Lila Crane, but in the end just comes off as cranky. Only William H. Macy brings something new and welcome to his role, giving the Arbogast character a refreshing abrasive charm, different from Martin Balsam, but as good if not better. In the supporting roles, there's nothing much to comment on except maybe for James Remar's note-perfect reproduction of the original film's state trooper.This is intended to be a shot-for-shot remake, yet Van Sant felt compelled to add a couple of needless things. For example, we don't need to see Norman masturbating as he looks through the hole in the wall; it's better if his desire is completely frustrated. And having Lila cut loose with martial-arts moves at the end seems like a gratuitous nod to obligatory female empowerment. In any ordinary movie it would be unremarkable, but in this film, when you know it didn't happen in the original, it sticks out like a sore thumb and you know immediately that it was added for the wrong reasons.I'd like to see someone else try this again. It's not really a BAD idea. It's just bad execution.