CineBad!!!

“Why?,” you ask yourself. “Because it’s never been done before” is the response. Well, OK. I’m all for experimentation… but please don’t do it again!

Gus VanSandt has re-created the Hitchcock thriller in this 1998 re-make. He’s done more than re-create it, however, he’s remade it almost exactly like the original. Every camera angle, piece of dialogue, actor’s expression, are exactly the same. He even used the same score. I don’t know if this was the intention, but the similarity forces you to compare it to the original in every moment. I found myself saying to myself “I don’t remember those pineapples being on top of the bannisters,” or other such trivial details. One of the major differences was when we find Norman (Vaughan) spying on Marion (Heche) through a hole in the wall- I don’t remember him flogging the log in the Hitchcock version! But then, I suppose everyone is due his own artistic license.

The result is an oddly surreal film with dialogue that sounds laughably weird and stilted for the 90s. The music was eerie and tense in the 60s, but at the dawn of the new millennium, it’s kind of annoying. Watching this film was just… weird.