Psycho 1998 isn’t Psycho 1960 for the simple reason that it can’t be Psycho 1960. Why doesn’t it work?īecause filmmaking is alchemy. They’re working with material proven to be great. Macy, a highlight as detective Arbogast, Julianne Moore as Marion’s sister Lila, and Viggo Mortensen as Marion’s lover Sam Loomis. Taking over for Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates is Vince Vaughn, an out-of-the-box choice and arguably the remake’s biggest weakness Anne Heche steps into Janet Leigh’s shoes as the doomed Marion Crane, whose overnight stay at the Bates Motel leads to the worst shower anyone has taken. Ever the outsider artist, Van Sant decided to cash in all of that goodwill by finally realizing a long-held desire to do a shot-for-shot remake of Psycho-which, truth be told, is maybe the only way to even try to remake Psycho, even if the finished film doesn’t quite work. That alone has to be worth something.Ĭoming off the enormous box office success and a bunch of Oscar nominations for Good Will Hunting, indie director Gus Van Sant suddenly found himself with a great deal of studio clout. Think of it as a $20 million experimental film now that is has been tried and failed, we know that the experiment doesn’t need repeating.

It only serves to make the original movie that much better (as though such a thing was possible) by demonstrating all the things Hitchcock does so perfectly that the remake gets perfectly wrong. While I’m never going to consider it a “good” movie, I’m strangely glad that director Gus Van Sant’s shot-for-shot 1998 remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho exists.

Psycho 1998 cast