“To make a great film you need three things - the script, the script and the script.” – Alfred Hitchcock

Just the other day I was looking on IMDb to check on what Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose, The Day the Earth Stood Still) was up to. I remember seeing his 1995 short film and I've followed his filmmaking career ever since. I was surprised to discover he is writing the script for a remake of The Birds with Naomi Watts rumored to be attached. But even more shocking, in a Hitchcock kind of way, was finding out that Michael Bay is producing it.

Why?!?

I have no problem with Michael Bay. He did an awesome job with Transformers. The real question is why would you want to mess with a classic film from the Master of Suspense? Why are movie studios so obsessed with remaking films that should be left alone? Take a risk and do something new for a change. So okay, developing Akira Kurosawa’s films into American remakes is acceptable. They are foreign language films and sometimes it translates into a completely different genre. For example, The Magnificent Seven was a remake of Seven Samurai. A little bit of Star Wars was taken from The Hidden Fortress. A Fistful of Dollars gave a spaghetti flavor to Yojimbo.

What’s my problem?

Here is my case…Psycho was directed by Gus Van Sant (Good Will Hunting). Again, a talented filmmaker but why attempt to shoot Psycho scene by scene like the original 1960 version by Hitchcock? It’s like someone trying to mimic a Kobe Bryant dunk in an elementary school playground at recess. In other words, it’s not the same thing. Second, it was obvious to the audience that Anthony Perkins’ Norman Bates was a lonely man with some serious problems. He was a voyeur and that’s all Hitchcock needed to convey to show what kind of person he was. But Vince Vaughn’s Norman Bates played out like a creepy perverted man looking for a quickie via his right hand. We get it already.

Psycho was not the only movie. A Perfect Murder starring Michael Douglas was okay but not as great as the original Dial M for Murder in which Hitchcock filmed most of the scenes in one room! Throw Momma from the Train was a loose remake of Strangers on a Train, but I’m not even going to discuss that one. However, the teen suspense drama Disturbia succeeded very well. It’s not really like Rear Window but it steals the voyeur sense of the movie and spins it into a different direction. D.J. Caruso (Eagle Eye) got lucky.

I’m reluctant to see The Lodger starring Rachael Leigh Cook. I just might wait until it comes out on Netflix. In 50 years, let’s hope the movie studios don’t decide to remake films by Kevin Smith…snoogans!

Story by Victor Ho

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