Homicidal (1961)

Purely Joyful Movie!

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

William Castle directed this blatant rip off of "Psycho", featuring Patricia Breslin as Miriam Webster, who is set to inherit a fortune along with her half-brother Warren, who still lives in their childhood home with his guardian Helga(now wheelchair bound) and her strange nurse Emily. Weird things are going on, and after a justice of the peace is brutally murdered with a knife, it is obvious that a homicidal psycho is on the loose, and may well be living closer than Miriam suspects... The gimmick of a "Fright Break" was used for film goers too scared to finish the film, though they would have to stand in the "coward corner" in the theater! Too bad this obvious film wasn't as imaginative...

Everybody and his or her dog keeps yelping about how this is a bargain-basement copy of "Psycho". I wrote a paper on the Hitchcock film during my Master's studies in film so I know the film reel by reel. This one, the Castle film, was INSPIRED by "Psycho"or, more to the point, inspired by that film's financial success, but the impetus and the format are vastly different. There is no heroine in peril or any old, dark house. Nobody has been embalmed and frankly, I don't remember any bathtubs at all. It doesn't feature any major stars and wasn't made at a major studio. There is gender confusion for the audience to solve but the characters are all very much alive. There is very little humor in "Homicidal" while humor is hidden all over "Psycho". Perhaps viewers take Leonard Maltin too seriously. He writes "popcorn reviews" aimed right down the middle of the viewing public and that's about it. Nothing that sways in any other direction is valid for him, alas.Curtis Stotlar

Since I knew this was a William Castle film I knew what to expect gimmick wise but not plot. Halfway through when we see the "Warren" character, I knew why it seemed familiar...Psycho!!! This film is for those who just watch em to get a kick and don't really look too deep. Unfortunately for me I dig in films to see and when the "Warren" character arrives I knew he and the "Emily" character were one in the same. Unless you are blind you couldn't miss it. This may have fooled people back in 1961 but it didn't slip by me at all.The only thing that held me to this was why the character was doing this. I mean you know right off this chick/guy...or whatever they were...was a little bit off...but you really don't get the answers until the very last minute. With that, it cleared things up and I had the answers I was looking for.This isn't a blatant ripoff of Psycho at all. It just has 1 of the same story devices...guy or girl dressing up as a guy or girl etc. Everything else is a bit different so it's was no rip-off. I imagine if you need somethin' to watch on a lonely Saturday night this will fill the bill. If you miss it, don't shed a tear.

If you can't afford to catch Psycho at the local revival house, this is the movie to see. While it's clear that Homicidal had no pretensions of seriousness or originality, the camp fun is marred by lapses into incompetence. It's starts off with a bang and then bogs down into an endless talky exposition. But then, it attracted an audience that required careful explanation. While it probably stands as the only picture ever set in Solvang, they made disappointingly little use of the town's attributes as a miniature golf course version of Denmark. The references to Denmark also were a tipoff to the gender bending plot gimmick at the heart of the picture, due to that country's early 60s reputation for leadership in sex change surgery. I would also have to say that Leonie Leontovich had the makings of a great rap artist, conveying a surprisingly nuanced range of emotional subtleties in her non-speaking part. A shame, really, that she was neither seen nor heard more widely in the movies.