m horror decided to introduce the book to the big screen. Alfred Hitchcock made Psycho into an instant horror classic in 1960. With an adapted version of the novel, a screenplay by Joseph Stefano, some character’s names were changed and actors were hired, but the story remained the same. Almost forty years later, following the release of Hitchcock’s Psycho, director Gus Van Sant brought the picture back to the screen. The big difference was that he added color and modernized the picture. Van Sant’s goal was to remain true to the original picture, but took advantage of what the 90’s culture had to offer. The base story of Psycho remains basically the same in the novel and film versions. A young woman disappears with money from her office to be used to create a better life for her boyfriend and herself. Along the way to meet her love, she stops at a roadside motel and meets the young owner Norman. After some deep conversation, she goes to her room and is murdered by Norman. It then becomes the quest of her younger sister to find her. Her sister, Lila, along with her boyfriend Sam, and an ill-fated private detective, they work to find the terrible secret of Norman Bates and the fate of Mary/Marion. The differences in the movies and the novel are subtle at times and at others, vast. Each director of the film chose to take different angles at some aspects of the story. Hitchcock was working within the confines of the late 50s and early 60s. One major change that was made in the movie was the physical appearance of the character, Norman. In the novel, Norman Bates is middle-aged man with a “plump face…rimless glasses…scalp beneath thinning sandy hair.â€

Some topics in this essay:
Van Sant, Van Sant’s, Norman Bates, Anthony Perkins, Bates Motel, Mary-simply American, PSYCHO Psycho, Bates Norman, Joseph Stefano, Hitchcock Psycho, van sant, norman bates, sant 98, shower scene, van sant 98, version car plus, version car, bates motel, van sant’s, novel bloch, american dream, 1998 version,