To remake a film like Psycho and not change a single shot seems like putting a gigantic bullseye on your forehead, but that's what Gus Van Sant does. By refusing to distance himself from Hitchcock's original film, it just makes it that much more obvious that he and the cast he's assembled aren't up to the demands of the material.
The script is the exact same unless you take out a few small tweaks here and there. The murder scenes are spruced up with bizarre stock images from a Rob Zombie video, but that's all Van Sant does to distance himself from the Hitchcock film. Of course, it's also shot in color and, actors being actors, many of the performances have a different feel than the ones in the original. Sometimes, this is a good thing. Julianne Moore and Viggo Mortensen almost make their characters work, but Heche and Vaughn feel underpowered.
The script is the exact same unless you take out a few small tweaks here and there. The murder scenes are spruced up with bizarre stock images from a Rob Zombie video, but that's all Van Sant does to distance himself from the Hitchcock film. Of course, it's also shot in color and, actors being actors, many of the performances have a different feel than the ones in the original. Sometimes, this is a good thing. Julianne Moore and Viggo Mortensen almost make their characters work, but Heche and Vaughn feel underpowered.