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Homicidal

Rating

Director

William Castle

Screenplay

Robb White

Length

1h 28m

Starring

Glenn Corbett, Patricia Breslin, Eugenie Leontovich, Alan Bunce, Richard Rust, James Westerfield, Gilbert Green, Jean Arless

MPAA Rating

Unrated

Basic Plot

A psychopathic woman wreaks havoc when no one else seems to be watching.

Review

Who wears the pants in this family?

“Homicidal” opens on a little girl playing dress up with a doll. Her little brother comes into the room, rips the doll out of her hand and breaks it. The girl is depressed and starts crying.

Cut to present day. A blonde bombshell talks a hotel bellboy into marrying her for only a few days in exchange for a large sum of money.

When they arrive at the marry-and-go wedding chapel, it takes some finagling and a bit of money to get them in…after all, it is the middle of the night. Once inside, they are about to be married when the officiator makes the wrong comment and she pulls a knife from her handbag and kills him.

She escapes in her ex-fiancee’s car and ditches it a few miles away.

Next, we meet her mute charge, Helga (Eugenie Leontovich). Emily (Jean Arless), as we’ve come to know her, terrorizes this misfortunate, wheelchair-bound old woman. There’s nothing Helga can do to get away and must endure knowing secret after secret about Emily and her shady dealings.

We also meet a young brunette, Miriam (Patricia Breslin), who is friends with Emily and comes to visit her at Helga’s mansion. There’s also the concerned friend, Karl (Glenn Corbett), who has a thing for Miriam, but has never told her.

Emily’s brother, Warren (true identity withheld) returns to town from overseas and assumes a live-in position at the mansion. Things start going wrong when Emily believes Miriam has fallen for Warren.

“Homicidal” is a bizarre film that has a very interesting, if not predictable, surprise ending.

It’s a classic horror film of the genre from the man who brought a new medium to the screen, William Castle. For his films, as featured in the film “Matinee” starring John Goodman, he created little devices to attract audiences. As original a showman as P.T. Barnum, Castle was known for his gimmicks.

In one feature he installed buzzers under seats and at the right times in the film, a technician would press buttons to jolt the audience members who sat in the seats. For some films, he had hired actresses to portray nurses in the lobby outside the theaters asking potential viewers to sign waivers and to warn them of the terror within.

For “Homicidal,” he used a rather flimsy gimmick of the “Fright Break” where you have time to flee the theater before the frightening conclusion.

The acting and plot of the film are standard to this genre during that time period. Mediocre to acceptable acting is plentiful and the plot, while for the most part inventive, lacks a lot of good narrative structure and yields and intriguing, but predictable ending.

“Homicidal” is a fun film with little redeeming value other than a bizarre performance by Jean Arless.

Review Written

November 4, 1998