Psycho
Directed by Gus Van Sant
- horror
- mystery
- thriller
The story
A young female embezzler arrives at the Bates Motel, which has terrible secrets of its own.
What it’s like
Flat, saturated color and near-replica compositions give this remake a deliberately uncanny sheen: Gus Van Sant reshoots Hitchcock's scenes almost frame for frame, so the familiar rooms, staircases and rain-slick roads arrive in crisp, glossy late-nineties digital-era clarity rather than black-and-white grain. Camera movement is measured and mostly static, with long holds on empty motel corridors, a dim office lamp and the gray-green Californian dusk, while Danny Elfman's strings tighten into a restless, skittering score. The mood is unsettled and clammy, a dread that builds slowly under polite surfaces, with tension landing in brief, sharp bursts rather than sustained gore. Violence is short, shocking and bloody in its key moments, with a stabbing scene that lingers on the act; there is no gore beyond that, and the sexual content is minimal. A woman on the run checks into a lonely roadside motel run by a shy, watchful man, and the film's arc is about how quickly an ordinary night turns strange. Best for viewers who want a cool, knowing thriller to watch late at night, alone, with the lights low.
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