Psycho (1998)

Psycho

IMDB rate: 4,6

Genre: Serial-Killer

Starring: Vince Vaughn, Julianne Moore, Viggo Mortensen, William H. Macy

Not too long ago I first watched Psycho, the original one. While I'm often not the biggest fan of 'old' movies, I fell in love with this masterpiece. I decided to watch the original movie after watching a few episodes of Bates Motel (a prequel series of Psycho), and I was honestly so surprised by it. It's funny because  have owned the 1998 version of Psycho on DVD for 2 years or so already but I never felt like watching it. Now I finally made the step and watched the remake of Psycho.

When a movie is being remade, you'll assume it's because it has something new to add, something important that changes the view on a movie. The Psycho remake seems to have missed this point because it's identical to the original in every single way. Even the 'bad' looking stabbing scenes in the bathtub are exactly the same. This movie is purely made to attract a younger generation, because the only difference between the original and the remake is that the original is in black and white and the remake is of course a color movie. Oh, and Vince Vaughn's Norman Bates is masturbating to Anne Heche's character, probably only added because people might not notice that he's 'attracted to her' elsewise.

I think director Gus Van Sant completely missed the point about remakes, much like the director of the Carrie remake, because these two remakes don't add anything new to the movie, they're both just an updated version of the movie that's completely identical beside the slight changes. A good remake is something like The Hills Have Eyes or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, both completely different than the original, and both made a great improvement to that movie.

The first thing you notice when looking information about this movie is that Vince Vaughn plays Norman Bates. One of the best things about the 1960 version of Psycho is of course the brilliant performance of Anthony Perkins. Thinking of Vince Vaughn playing that mysterious, but charming character? I did not feel it. My thoughts about Vince Vaughn being cast was quite right since Vince Vaughn is in no way a charming man, he misses the charms of Anthony Perkins which is what makes Psycho so incredibly good. Great miscasting of Norman Bates.

Other cast members include Viggo Mortensen, Julianne Moore and William H. Macy. I must say that Viggo Mortensen did a good job as Sam Loomis. Julianne Moore and William H. Macy did a nice job as well. Anne Heche plays Marion Crane, one of the main characters of the movie, but she's not the one for the job. She was unbelievable as Marion Crane and her acting was not very good either.

It's somewhat strange to discuss a remake of a movie that's an exact copy of the original. Strangely enough you would think that there shouldn't be much of a difference between the original and the remake. But there really is. Of course, the original is black and white, and there are subtle things to notice with that. For example, at the beginning when Marion didn't do nothing wrong yet her underwear was entirely white. But after she did something bad she wore black underwear. In the color version Marion is just wearing every type of color underwear that's in no way related to the situation.

Fact is, Psycho's remake is entirely unnecessary and I'd advice you to just not watch it. Even when you're not in old black and white movies I would not suggest to go watch this movie because it's just a pathetic attempt at recreating Psycho. It's not a good movie in any way. The bad looking murder scenes were perfectly fitting for the time the movie was made in, when seeing it in a movie made in 1998 you'll just laugh at it, because it really does look ridiculous in a modern movie.

Interested in reading my review of Psycho (1960)? Click here!

The Walking Dead: Season 5, episode 9: What Happened and What's Going On

This review will NOT be spoiler free!

After 3 months of waiting The Walking Dead has returned. Last sunday the mid-season premiere aired and I was somewhat excited to be able to watch The Walking Dead again. This also because the mid-season premieres are often very exciting, just like the season premiere, mid-season finale and the season finale. If you have been following previous reviews of episodes you know that I hadn't much good to say about recent The Walking Dead episodes, I had high hopes The Walking Dead would improve the standard formula and would attempt to make thing surprising again. Unfortunately, it did not succeed.

This season may have a bit of a higher character death-rate but it's still the side characters that get killed off, aka people we don't really care about. Sure it was sad when Bob died and sure it was sad Beth died, but that's more because of the reactions of the actual main characters rather than because of the characters that died. In the mid-season premiere another character died, but again not a very important character. It could've been a sad death but this episode was so goddamn boring that it just didn't matter a whole lot. Normally I cry at every stupid thing, I can't hold my tears at whatever Disney movie I'm watching and I even cried when Beth died even though I hated her intensely. When this specific character died, it should have been sad, because it was a loving character that I actually liked, but the episode ruined it so damn hard.

The episodes name 'What Happened and What's Going On' is actually just that. A short recap of everything that happened with a sad event thrown in. I'm going to say who died this episode so if you really don't wanna know I suggest you stop reading right about now! The one who died is Tyreese, and for those who followed The Walking Dead he has some issues because he couldn't kill a few people and he was a bit of a pussy sometimes. And when the man was bitten he is starting to hallucinate or something and sees the Governor, the two girls, the man who snatched them to Gareth and Beth. All because he thinks it's some sort of Domino effect that got everyone in danger because of Tyreese's failing to kill. 

This hallucination is going on almost the entire episodes, nothing made sense of it and it was just plain boring. Worst part? That stupid Beth was still singing, even when she's dead she can't shut up. Meanwhile, Rick, Michonne and Glenn are searching the place they're at and discuss where they will be heading. It's more a bit of rambling though, since what they said was not important whatsoever. 

By the way, is it just me or is everyone noticing that whenever someone with a dark skin tone is being added to the group, another one dies? For example, Gabriel got in, Bob died. Noah got in, Tyreese dies. And even in previous episodes, T-Dog and Oscar died, Tyreese and Sascha get in. Coincidence? I think not. 

To be honest, The Walking Dead really needs to step up it's game to make it watch-worthy again. Next season I won't probably do these weekly reviews anymore, simply because it sometimes because hard to get myself to watch this again. But then again, I finished watching Lost, so it couldn't become much worse than that, right? Right?! I think they already lost a hell of a lot viewers, and with episodes such as this one I can't be surprised about it since it was plain boring. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.