Psycho (Van Sant, 1998)
Gus Van Sant's 1998 remake of Alfred Hithcock's Psycho is a film that not many people know is out there on video store shelves, mainly because it received most negative views from critics for what critics say is an awful directorial for Van Sant. However this remake of Psycho could actually be seen as more of a shot-by-shot update for the movie, which is simultaneously clever and quite awful.
I say this because on one end of the spectrum it is something that has never been done before and will provide a financial boost for the original as people would be likely to revisit Hitchcock's work of art as the film opens the door up for people who did not know of such a film. Although the film is also awful due to the fact that a shot-by-shot remake is pointless and doesn't have much thought going into it, another reason is that due to the success of the original this version would never be in competition because the first was too good, which may have been why Van Sant ended up finding himself nominated for worst director at the Golden Raspberry awards.
Despite this I like the shot-by-shot way of recreating this film, as many people can be put off when they see a film is in black and white, and so these people may be inclined to watch an almost carbon (more update) copy of a film because of this. I feel that this film will be quite influential in making my artefact piece, as the original film itself could not be made any better, and so a shot-by-shot process may be worth doing.
Disturbia (Caruso, 2007)
In 2007 D.J. Caruso released Disturbia, a film about a teenage boy who assaults his teacher and to get out of a jail sentence agrees to have an electronic tag placed around his ankle to keep him in house arrest and one evening whilst casually filming a neighbour realises he filmed a woman being murdered by the neighbour. The film was inspired by another of Hitchcock's most famous films, 1954's Rear Window about a man with a broken leg who witnesses a murder.
Caruso's updating of such a clever story has always been one of my favourite films not only because of it's background inspiration, but due to it's contemporary story, as it's much more relatable to see a young man as the subject of the story, as well as a more modern day love story mixed with a darker horror story.
It would be good to mix the element of a contemporary Hitchcock film whilst also maintaining a shot-by-shot part of the story.
Stoker (Park, 2013)
Stoker is a film that when released by director Park in 2013 caused a lot of confusion as to whether this was a movie based on Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1954) especially after the trailer release revealed the main antagonist of the film to be a character named Uncle Charlie (the same name of the antagonist in SoaD) and the story revolved around the lead female attempting to work out whether her uncle was a serial killer.
The film, as much as it's inspiration is SoaD, takes a very different turn from a Hitchcock whilst also retaining techniques similar to that of the Master of Suspense.
As much as I find Stoker interesting when looking into a more modern take on one of Hitch's greatest films, I do not think taking on such a change to a classic film would work very well for a short artefact piece.
