Homicidal (1961)

"If you do not leave this house in the next minute, I will kill you!", 2 April 2006

I'm very impressed with Homicidal. William Castle accomplishes more with the obviously small budget he had to work with in Homicidal that a lot of filmmakers could have with ten-times the money. Homicidal is Castle's rather obvious attempt to cash-in on the success of Psycho, released the year before. And, he's mostly successful. The surprising thing is that Castle is actually able to outdo Hitchcock in some areas. Take the opening as an example. I can honestly say that I enjoyed the first 15 minutes of Homicidal more than anything in Psycho. This may be surprising to some and downright blasphemous to others, but I'm just being honest. It's a quirky beginning with some very unexpected violence. The ending of the film is almost as good. Castle is actually able to build some nice tension in the film's finale. You know there's a killer in the house and you know who it is, but you also know what they're capable of and you're not sure when the killer will strike. Anyone who has seen more than three movies will have guessed the twist before it actually reveals itself, but that hardly matters. It's how the twist is pulled-off that's important.

I couldn't do the film justice without saying hats off to Jean Arliss (it's actually Joan Marshall) for her work in Homicidal. She's completely over-the-top in her madness but never veers too far into camp. It's an excellent performance.

7/10