Well, Stripe sent in a much more detailed analysis of the PSYCHO recreation, so I figured I'd go ahead and let you people take a gander at it. Now before you go getting to reading, now you this, he's gonna go point by point on a lot of this, so if you want to be surprised, if you don't want to know... DON'T READ.. Just so ya know, I didn't read it, I had Father Geek look it over before I put it up, cause I don't want to know all the changes. Here ya go...
Stripe (heh heh) here...
Here's some more on the Psycho screening.
I watched the original before I went to the theater last night, so I tried to catch all of the differences between the original and the remake.
The opening credits are practically identical to the original although in color. The opening shot panning over Phoenix, AZ is now one long zoom shot that starts over the city and ends in the hotel room.
Once in the hotel room, both Marion and Sam Loomis are lying in bed. As they get up, Marion is dressed as she was in the original, but Sam shows a little more in the posterior area if you know what I mean.
There's a Hitch look-a-like outside Marion's office as in the original, but one thing I didn't notice, that you might want to look for is if there is a cameo by Van Sant.
The money this time is $400,000 instead of $40,000 and it's in $1000 bills instead of $100's.
...Little interjection here, wait til you see some of the outfits in this pic, talk about adding color....
The car ride is pretty much the same as is the police stop and car dealership. I think they used the same quy to play the policeman as the original, exact duplicate.
Anyway, rain starts and Marion ends up at the Bates Motel. The hotel has been spruced up a little with some new signs.
The office and rooms are identical though. Norman comes across a bit more sinister this time, not as innocent as the original.
Moving along, Marion goes to her room and settles in while Norman does his "peeping-Norman" thing. Except this time it's to the added sound of Mr. Bates getting friendly with himself. I got to tell you, it's a weird sound. I wonder what the sound effects people use to get that sound. ...And what's with this sudden explosion of masturbation at the movies. It's kinda awkward to sit there next to your girlfriend while some dude on screen is working his willie....
Anyway, after Norman is done he puts the picture back on the wall and goes back to the house, a little more at ease, I guess.
So Marion hits the shower and Mrs. Bates hits Marion. Mrs. Bates got rid of the hair bun for this one and looks more like Keyser Soze from "The Usual Suspects". Evil looking lady. The knife comes down and theres a little more blood this time. There's also some added shots of storm clouds mixed in with a lot of the original cuts. Mrs. Bates stays around a little longer too to stare at Marions as she slowly sinks down along the tiled wall. A cool close up of Mrs. Bates? eye is mixed in. As Marions slithers down the wall, there's some extra blood that shows up behind her smeared on the wall. As she collapses to the floor, theres a long shot of her spread out over the edge of the tub. In the making of Psycho, Joseph Stephano mentioned that they wanted to add that shot in the original to make the scene more disturbing but knew it would never get by the censors.
There's a better shot of Marion's eye in this one, too. Apparently, Anne Heche was a little better at not breathing or moving. The camera spins too as it zooms away from Marion which looks really cool.
Norman comes running and disposes of Marion and does that excellent job of cleaning up all that blood with his supermop and supertowels. The car nose dives in this time too but still gets stuck.
Back to Sam Loomis writing his love letter to Marion. Here we meet Lila Crane and Milton Arbogast at the hardware shop. Theres a cool cameo here by Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers as Sam's coworker. We learn Lila runs a record store and she comes in to the hardware store wearing her blaring headphones.
Milton the detective then visits all the hotels in the area and eventually meets Mr. Bates. On his second visit he meets Mrs. Bates. This murder is more grisly as there is a closeup of Milton as the knife comes down and slashes across his entire face, twice. Cool for effect though. There's some added images here too as in the first killing although this time the images are more bizarre. I'm not sure, they were fast, but I think that Rob Zombie shot is thrown in here too.
Well Lila and Sam get nervous and finally head to the Bates motel. Sam keeps Norman busy while Lila goes to talk to the old lady. While looking for her she goes into Normans room. Same stuff except for army men and a different record on the record player. Also, there's some smut mags that Lila picks up and pages through. Well Norman clocks Sam with a golf club and comes looking for Lila. Lila heads into the fruit cellar which now works as Norman's hobby area (taxidermy), and runs into Mrs. Bates. She looks a bit nastier this time.
More like a mummy than a skeleton. There's a bit more drama here than in the original with Norman approaching in the shadows instead of popping around the corner. He's all business though as he runs for Marion. Well Sam tries to save the day and takes down Bates. But this time Lila gets a good kick to the face to help. Later, Robert Forster makes a nice cameo as the psychiatrist and there's no mention of "transvestite" as in the original.
Overall, really cool though. It's just not the same if you've seen the original though. I thought Anne Heche was great as Marion and liked William H. Macy as Milton the detective. Viggo played a good mimbo role as Sam Loomis, and Vince Vaughn was a more sinister but equally menacing Norman Bates.
I would be interested to find out who played the voice of Mrs. Bates this time around. Anyone famous?
