Amazon.com Customer Reviews
 Rated 4 out of 5
Creepy Castle camp classic!
This film has been a favorite of mine for years, and I saw it long before "Psycho". A great setup from William Castle, with some genuine chills and a truly scary performance from Jean Arliss. The dialogue is laughable at times, but every nearly every scene offers a witty line or creepy plot twist. Hopefully on DVD, this above-average B-movie will get the attention it deserves. Rated 3 out of 5
Understated little chiller is a B-grade PSYCHO
The Master Of Gimmicks; William Castle, strikes again with this movie which inevitably will lead to comparisons with PSYCHO, though Castle is no Hitch. That said, the understated chiller HOMICIDAL is one of his best movies. Marion Webster (Jean Arliss) is a Danish nurse with an American accent, who happens to have HOMICIDAL tendencies (as you’’d guess by the title). This first announces itself in the scene where she disembowels the chaplain who conducts her wedding ceremony. Needless to say, the honeymoon doesn’’t even get underway. Pretty soon Marion is on the lam with the cops are tailing her.
Marion finds a new job caring for Helga (Eugenie Leontovich) an elderly woman confined to a wheelchair following a stroke.. Predictably Marion takes advantage of the poor old girl and physically and psychologically torments her, even though Helga tries tapping out warnings to her relatives that she is being abused by this pretty young blond. Or is she?
Of course, no Castle movie would be the same without the gimmick. That would be like Herschell Gordon Lewis without the gore and guts, or Russ Meyer without the boobies. For HOMICIDAL, Castle has inserted a 45 second "Fright Break" as a build up to what is to be the movies most notorious sequence to allow timid viewers to leave the room!! Add to this a laughable climactic plot "twist" and you have one of his most entertaining movies. Plus Patricia Breslin is possibly the best screen screamer pre- Marilyn Burns in TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. Vidiot_y2k says check it out. (Please don’’t sue me, Joe Bob!) Rated 5 out of 5!
See Emily Play
An amazing performance by Jean Arless as Emily, the homicidal maniac. Her rage’’s range knows no bounds. When she warns one of the characters, "if you don’’t leave this house in five minutes I’’m going to kill you" you know where they’’re headed. You’’ll find yourself asking so many questions after its ended. I’’m still wondering where Emily got the surgical knife from. Denmark? Her mad scene in the florist shop had me howling. It’’s explicit, but it’’s also very sly. William Castle must have been aware of what he was up to, but then again maybe not. If you are a fan of the Naked Kiss, you should give this a try.
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