HOMICIDAL (1961)
Article #359 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing date: 3-9-2002
Posting date: 7-26-2002

A blonde woman murders a justice of the peace under the name of a woman who runs a flower shop.

William Castle’s take on PSYCHO does a pretty good job of emulating that movie without stealing from it outright; the first murder definitely comes as a surprise. I was able to figure out the final twist the first time I saw it, largely as a result of noticing that a certain character’s voice had been dubbed, but it was still a fun movie experience. This is one of the Castle’s movies which actually has the gimmick built into the movie itself; a 45 second fright break near the climax of the movie. The gimmick seems fairly lame, but it’s really a lot of fun to read about the full set-up, where people who took advantage of the fright break to get their money back had to sign a yellow card that said “I am a bona fide coward,” plus having to go to the yellow-lit coward’s corner, where a speaker would proclaim that they were too chicken to see the end of the movie. My wife would love to have one of the yellow cards!