Psychotic Reaction

There are film scholars who have devoted their entire area of film study to the movies of Alfred Hitchcock. I don’t pretend to be a Hitchcock scholar, although I’m a huge fan of his 1960 masterpiece, “Psycho,” which inspires this blog post.

In the 1930s, horror films focused on iterations of the Dracula and Frankenstein stories. In the ‘40s, we had the horror of a devastating world war, although the Wolf Man and various mad scientists got screen time. In the ‘50s, the space race encouraged movies about nefarious aliens, while the threat of atomic war and radiation spawned drive-in fodder about giant insects on the rampage.

“Psycho” came at the turn of a new decade, a departure from the more conservative ‘50s. While stark sexuality and violence in film were still unusual, “Psycho” broke the molds. Based on the grotesque murders of real-life killer and cross-dresser Ed Gein, "Psycho" was a new kind of thriller that played on the audience’s psychological fears.

The success of “Psycho” spawned a number of movies that either attempted to cash in on its shock value or told similar stories that plumbed the darker aspects of the human psyche. Like “Psycho,” most of these imitators depict the murder, abduction, and/or torture—physically and mentally—of women. You could say it all started when Janet Leigh took that fateful shower.

“Midnight Lace” (1960) – This big-budget Hollywood product would have been in production around the same time as “Psycho,” but I include it here because it follows the burgeoning psychological bent of thrillers of the ‘60s.

Doris Day plays a woman being antagonized by a strange, disembodied voice that threatens her in person and via telephone. She has various brushes with death; but is she really being terrorized, or is it all in her head?

This is a Douglas Sirk production, so it is quite sleek and genteel in its design, despite the harrowing experiences its star must go through. You can juxtapose its high Technicolor gloss with the more stark look and presentation of “Psycho.”

Still, “Midnight Lace” is an effective chiller as America's sweetheart Doris Day convincingly unravels—while wearing the height of 1960 fashion.

“Peeping Tom” (1960) – Mark (Carl Boehm) works as a cameraman for a British movie studio. He indulges his wish to become a professional filmmaker by recording the murders of women in first person so he can document their expression of fear at the moment of death. We learn that, as a child, Mark’s renowned psychiatrist father used him in psychological experiments about fear in children—which the father filmed. 

The implication is that the effect of this abuse manifested itself in Mark’s need to kill. Often called “The British Psycho,” this movie was very controversial in England, destroyed by critics and ignored by audiences. It ruined the career of famed director Michael Powell, and its release in the U.S. was delayed by two years. Now considered a classic, it’s an unsettling experience watching Mark’s voyeuristic obsession unfold.

“Homicidal” (1961) – Director William Castle fancied himself another Hitchcock, but he possessed more hucksterism than Hitch’s artistry. The films he directed or produced tended toward gimmickry and are famed for outrageous marketing campaigns.

In “Homicidal,” he takes an obvious spin on (read: rip-off of) “Psycho.” The film opens with a strange blonde woman named Emily murdering a justice of the peace. We’re then introduced to Miriam Webster and her brother Warren.

Warren, who has just returned from a trip abroad, tells Miriam that Emily is his wife. But why does Miriam never see Warren and Emily at the same time? One surprising murder scene involving a mute old lady on a stair lift gives Castle a chance to revel in “Psycho”-inspired macabre.

“The Sadist” (1962) – Maybe the least well-known, but most disturbing, film in this post is “The Sadist,” a low-budget B-movie that is based in part on the early 1950s killing spree of Charles Starkweather. Three buttoned-up school teachers on the way to a baseball game get sidetracked at a remote roadside stop. While there, they discover the bodies of the family that owns the property. And then they meet the murderer: an insane young man and his seemingly mute, but just as crazy, girlfriend. The film immediately takes a very violent turn, as the sadist murders one teacher and systematically hunts and tortures the others. Although the acting is amateurish at first (it reminded me of educational films of the period), the performers soon come into their own as the shocking moments pile on. The bland civility of the teachers is stripped away to match the raw depravity of the killer, a twist that influenced future films in which civilized people, stuck in a remote location, must fight for their survival.

“Experiment in Terror” (1963) – In this fairly conventional Hollywood thriller, which obviously takes cues from Hitchcock's style, director Blake Edwards still makes a convincing movie. A psychotic killer targets an unsuspecting bank teller, Kelly Sherwood (Lee Remick), to steal $100,000 from the bank for him, threatening to kill her sister Toby (Stephanie Powers) if she doesn’t do it. The bank teller contacts the FBI, which puts an agent (Glenn Ford) on the case.

As the FBI investigates, the killer claims another victim, revealed in a grisly moment that serves as the film's 'set-piece' murder. Meanwhile, he gives Kelly a specific time and date to steal the money, but kidnaps Toby as bait to ensure she does the job. Toby's ordeal of confinement—stripped almost bare—is jarring and may remind you of “Silence of the Lambs.”

“Strait-Jacket” (1964) – This time, William Castle capitalizes on the early-‘60s trend of casting aging movie queens in horror films. After the success of Robert Aldrich’s “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” in 1962, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford found renewed careers. In “Strait-Jacket,” Castle casts Crawford as a middle-aged woman who has just been let out of prison for the axe-murder of her two-timing boyfriend and his lover two decades before. But suddenly, there is a new spate of killings. 

Has she relapsed, or is someone trying to pin the gruesome new deaths on her? While the chopping off of heads is not convincing, especially these days, Crawford gives the role her all. The movie entered the realm of camp long ago, but would certainly not have been produced if not for the success of “Psycho.” It is emblematic of the more sensationalistic horror films that were made in "Psycho"'s wake at this time.

“Lady in a Cage” (1964) – This sordid psychological tale preys on an invalid woman (Olivia de Havilland) who gets stuck in an elevator in her apartment due to a power failure. Three thugs break in to steal her pricey possessions and generally taunt and torment her in her “cage.” While de Havilland doesn’t exemplify the empowered woman depicted in similar-themed films of today, she does turn the tables on her attackers (specifically, the leader of the gang, played by a very young James Caan).

The claustrophobic and menacing atmosphere of the film was reflective of audience members’ fears of the wild, reckless, and violent “younger generation.” But besides the generation gap, the film captures other then-timely themes: An increasingly disconnected society, fast-changing attitudes toward morals, urban decay, and a growing sense of nihilism in America.

“I Saw What You Did” (1965) – Two teenage girls living in picture-perfect suburbia prank call unsuspecting people by whispering suggestively, “I saw what you did… and I know who you are” and then hanging up in a hail of giggles. But when they inadvertently call a psychopath who has just murdered his wife (Joan Crawford—again), they get themselves into a heap of trouble.

William Castle’s least gimmicky, and perhaps best, thriller of the 1960s mimics the famous shower scene from “Psycho” by (spoiler alert) thrusting top-billed Crawford through a glass shower door when you least expect it. With the slick, over-lit, stage-bound look of a typical 1960s sitcom, “I Saw What You Did” possesses a discomfiting air of joviality, and even innocence, amidst the dark proceedings and violent moments.

“The Collector” (1965) – This film concerns a lonely young man named Frederick (Terence Stamp), who abducts an art student named Miranda (Samantha Eggar) and imprisons her in a secluded stone cellar. (Shades of "Silence of the Lambs" again.) The film depicts Frederick’s sick obsession with a girl who is as pretty as the butterflies he pins to a board in his collection. As Miranda attempts to negotiate release from Frederick, she uses her own wiles to try to escape. 

Like Norman Bates’s calm narration at the conclusion of “Psycho,” the end of “The Collector” is a matter-of-fact voice-over from Frederick. William Wyler, who made a number of respected classics over a 30-year career, was criticized for the sordid subject matter and downbeat conclusion of this film. But, as the popular Petula Clark song went, it was a sign of the times.

“Targets” (1968) – A clean-cut Vietnam veteran returns home to a loving family. Then one day he shoots his wife and mother point-blank with a high-powered rifle, and continues killing indiscriminately. Meanwhile, a veteran movie star—played by the legendary Boris Karloff (basically playing himself)—is considering retiring, as he realizes that his harmless horror opuses can’t compete with the real-life horrors he sees happening all around him. These two disparate plot threads culminate at a drive-in theater where Karloff is making a personal appearance, which is interrupted by the sniper picking off unsuspecting customers as they sit in their cars watching the show. (Shades of the Aurora movie theater shootings.)

An early film from director Peter Bogdanovich, “Targets” was inspired by actual snipers Michael Andrew Clark, who in 1965 killed or wounded 13 people driving on a California highway; and Charles Joseph Whitman, who in 1966 killed 16 people at the University of Texas (including his wife and mother). Additionally, the movie was released shortly after the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, so it was certainly topical. Meanwhile, the Zodiac killer was beginning his killing spree and a year later Charles Manson and his ‘family’ would close out the decade with a murderous rampage of their own. “Targets” reflects an America gone mad, underscoring seeming societal degradation. The casting of Karloff, a real-life movie monster, juxtaposes his movie artifice with the reality of modern fear and loathing.

By 1970, so much had changed in America—there was so much new to be afraid of—that, from a cinematic perspective, a glossy movie like “Midnight Lace” or a silly, comparatively innocent William Castle frightfest were considered anachronistic.

In the wake of “Psycho,” the movies took a different approach to what it meant to scare and be scared. Without it, would there have been “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” “The Hills Have Eyes,” "Halloween" or “Friday the 13th”? For better or for worse, “Psycho” opened the door to a more grim view of human nature and encouraged an increasingly accelerated level of graphic violence in the horror genre. Today, in a hyper-violent world, it seems to require a greater level of gore, torture, and nihilistic hopelessness to frighten us at the movies.

[Side note: This blog post's headline was inspired by Count Five's 1966 single “Psychotic Reaction.”]