Homicidal (1961)

William Castle gleefully reimagines Psycho with profoundly entertaining results in Homicidal, producing what amounts to a shamelessly derivative yet hugely enjoyable trash-classic companion piece to Hitchcock’s masterpiece.

The film openly follows the Psycho template while simultaneously foreshadowing later thrillers such as Dressed to Kill with its own twisted variation on split personalities, sexual repression, and homicidal madness.

At the centre of the chaos is a tall, striking, immaculately coiffed blonde drifting ominously around town conducting suspicious errands with increasing instability. Like Janet Leigh in Psycho, she initially appears glamorous and morally dubious rather than overtly dangerous.

Soon enough, however, the worst suspicions are confirmed.

After a furious confrontation with an attorney, she completely loses control and viciously stabs him to death in front of the bewildered man she has conveniently just married.

Clearly, this is not a woman with especially sound coping mechanisms.

Castle wastes absolutely no time getting down to business, and from that point onward the film barrels gleefully into increasingly ludicrous territory filled with murder, family secrets, questionable psychology, and enough melodramatic hysteria to power an entire soap opera.

What makes Homicidal so entertaining is that Castle never quite manages to replicate Hitchcock’s precision or sophistication — not even remotely — yet somehow still succeeds in crafting a thoroughly enjoyable thriller entirely through sheer nerve, pacing, and outrageous enthusiasm.

The film eventually hurtles toward a deliriously amusing Psycho-style climax in which all is revealed, although most viewers will probably have guessed the central twist within the first few minutes.

Still, that hardly matters.

Part of the fun lies in watching Castle strain heroically to emulate Hitchcock’s style while simultaneously plunging headlong into pure exploitation absurdity.

And naturally, being William Castle, there is a gimmick involved.

The famous “Fright Break” arrives midway through the film, allowing terrified audience members an opportunity to flee the cinema before the horrifying climax unfolds. Castle even installed yellow footprints in theatre aisles so cowards could shamefully exit while the audience mocked them.

It was utterly ridiculous.

And absolutely wonderful.

Meanwhile, the murders continue mounting as our homicidal blonde periodically disappears, while suspicion increasingly swirls around an oddly effeminate sibling who simply refuses to believe his beloved sister Emily could possibly be capable of violence.

Interspersed throughout are various solemn lectures and pseudo-psychological discussions attempting to explain homicidal behaviour in a manner clearly inspired by the psychiatrist epilogue in Psycho.

The results are unintentionally hilarious.

Still, for all its blatant imitation, Homicidal possesses considerable charm. The cinematography and lighting are often surprisingly elegant, the performances — particularly from the female leads — are genuinely solid, and Castle stages several suspense sequences rather effectively.

There are even moments where the film briefly threatens to become genuinely tense before plunging happily back into glorious camp melodrama.

There was always a reason Castle became known as “the poor man’s Hitchcock,” though in truth even the comparison is probably far too generous to Castle.

Hitchcock was a master craftsman.

Castle was a carnival barker.

But what a magnificent carnival barker he was.

While later stories frequently portrayed Castle as something of a lovable fraud who somehow bluffed his way into Hollywood filmmaking through pure showmanship and opportunism, one thing remains undeniably true:

William Castle rarely, if ever, made a boring movie.

His films may have been lightweight, gimmicky, derivative, and occasionally ridiculous, but they were always entertaining. Castle understood instinctively that audiences wanted fun, shocks, atmosphere, and theatricality above all else.

And Homicidal delivers all of those things in abundance.

It may fail miserably as an attempt to rival Psycho, but as a wonderfully trashy slice of early-60s horror-thriller hokum, it remains an absolute scream.