10 Films You Won't Believe Were Released At Christmas

Release Date: December 4, 1998

Remaking Hitchcock is a dicey proposition at best, but when it’s the movie credited with bringing the horror film out of gothic castles and into the modern era, you’d better have a damn good reason for doing so.

Determined to court disaster, Gus Van Sant stages a shot-for-remake (albeit with occasional new touches) of a movie shot in 1960, which works surprisingly well if his intention was to suck all the life out of the material. It’s Hitchcock’s movie in colour, with all the fancy camera movements the technology of the time didn’t allow, but the result is so dull and stilted you have to wonder why Van Sant bothered.

The final insult is the casting. Watching Anne Heche flail around hopelessly in Janet Leigh’s role is one thing, but who in their right mind would cast Vince Vaughn as a schizophrenic transvestite armed with a butcher knife? And you thought he was bad in Four Christmases.