Deathmatch: "Psycho" (1960) vs. "Homicidal" (1961)

History

"Psycho" was an unwanted surprise to Paramount Pictures in 1959, expecting out of Alfred Hitchcock the Audrey Hepburn vehicle "No Bail for the Judge." With the star pregnant and Hitchcock's assistant introducing him to the Robert Bloch novel "Psycho," it was clear what Hitch wanted to put on screen next despite Paramount's wishes. When the book was distributed to studios that same year, Paramount script reader William Pinckard deemed it "too repulsive for films, and rather shocking," but Hitch still wanted to make it. (Rebello, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, 1990) Acquiring the book rights for $9,500, the studio continued to put the kibosh on his plans. His usual budget was gone which led to the decision to shoot black and white and with his television crew from "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." Even this was rejected, the sound stages having been reportedly booked. So Hitch would finance the film himself as long as Paramount would simply distribute the adapted film. 

Shot in the same studio of his television show, "Psycho" was shot from November 11, 1959-February 1, 1960 with a budget of $807,000. ""He wanted the camera, being the eyes of the audience all the time, to let them [view the action] as if they were seeing it with their own eyes," script supervisor Marshall Schlom explained. Again, Hitchcock reinforced the sensation of voyeurism -- of "cruel eyes studying you,"as Norman Bates puts it -- that permeates the entire film." (Rebello, Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, 1990) This voyeurism even worked in favor of the occasional improvisation which Hitchcock would have otherwise never allowed on set. But Anthony Perkins was inspired by an oral fixation in allowing his Norman Bates to eat candy during scenes as well as the heightened erratic nature of his interaction on the porch with Martin Balsam (P.I. Arbogast). 

But for all the surprising flexibility, the famous shower scene remains one of the greatest moments in film history although one of the most meticulous. "The shower scene [...] required 78 shot set-ups and took seven days to film. The set was built so that any of the walls could be removed, allowing the camera to get in close from every angle. Although other scenes were shot with more than one camera, this one only used one cameraman. The shower scene was originally written to see only the knife-wielding hand of the murderer. Hitchcock suggested to Saul Bass [...] a number of angles that would capture screenwriter Joseph Stefano's description of "an impression of a knife slashing, as if tearing at the very screen, ripping the film." ("Behind the Camera - Psycho") 

The reception was mixed, even with Hitchcock's creative marketing ploy in turning away latecomers. "The consequence in [Hitchcock's] denouement falls quite flat for us. But the acting is fair," wrote Bosley Crowther of the New York Times, "There is not an abundance of subtlety or the lately familiar Hitchcock bent toward significant and colorful scenery in this obviously low-budget job." Variety was kinder in prescribing "The 'Psycho' diagnosis, commercially, is this: an unusual, good entertainment, indelibly Hitchcock, and on the right kind of boxoffice beam" and praising Anthony Perkins's performance as a "remarkably effective in-a-dream kind of performance." "Psycho" would gross 32 million by the end of its run in theaters, and earned over $12 million for Paramount on release and $15 million by the end of 1960.

By chance, William Castle that same year had a new gimmick for Colombia studio execs. "During the last two minutes... I'll stop the picture. Then my voice will go over the sound track. I'll say something like, "Ladies and gentlemen, if you're too frightened to see the last two minutes of "Homicidal," please go to the box office and get your full admission price refunded. You must leave immediately. You have only sixty seconds to get your money back."" (Homicidal (1961) - Articles - TCM.com) The "Fright Break" almost blew up in Castle's face when finding moviegoers staying for the first viewing to only going back to the box office during their second viewing. It was immediately fixed by insisting theater owners to clear the theater after each viewing as well as creating the "coward's corner" where a nurse would attend to those humiliated. 

**spoiler alert** But the plot itself has surprising weight against Castle's usual gimmicks. Inspired by the fascination with the first American to undergo gender reassignment surgery and also a little on the sudden timeliness of Robert Bloch's cross dressing psychopath (although Castle himself admitted his aspirations to create Hitchcock-like films), this film launched the career of Joan Marshall. Castle described when meeting Marshall through talent agent Jerry Lauren. ""We shook hands. Her grip was firm."It's a difficult part to cast, Miss Marshall. A known face would be easily recognizable to the audience, and the whole success of the picture depends on making audiences believe there are two people - a man and a woman." "Will you let me read the script, Mr. Castle?" "Her voice was low-pitched and husky. Intrigued, I gave her the script of Homicidal." Castle was finally convinced to cast her after makeup artist Ben Lane convincingly transformed her into a man. "Two hours later, Joan Marshall came back to my office. My secretary, not recognizing her, asked the man his name. The transformation was indeed astonishing.""  The choice to bill her as Jean Arless was a neutral one, "it could have been either male or female."

With or without gimmick, Time Magazine dubbed "Homicidal" as "surpass[ing] [Psycho] in structure, suspense and sheer nervous drive" and naming it one of the top ten films of 1961. 

"Why She Wouldn't Harm a Fly" to "If You Don't Leave This House In the Next Minute, I will Kill You"

Norman Bates. The very name offers up chills to everyone who has ever watched "Psycho," is both fascinating and terrifying, being the second greatest villain according to A.F.I.'s "Top 100 Heroes and Villains." As the only son of an emotionally abusive mother, Norman did not have an easy life with Norma. Explaining to Marion Crane in the office's parlor, he admits that he believes "we're all in our private traps, clamped in them, and none of us can ever climb out. We scratch and claw ... but only at the air, only at each other, and for all of it, we never budge an inch." His own personal trap includes his mother's hypocritical beliefs that all sex was sinful and all women (except for Norma herself) were whores.

Whether it was these beliefs or an incestuous jealous rage (delved into in the novel) that propelled him to kill Norma and her fiancee, Norman was immediately hospitalized for shock. But during his stay at the hospital both in guilt for killing her and pretending away his awareness that the death had even happened, he immediately developed the then-named Disassociative Identity Disorder (now Multiple Personality Disorder). Within this untreated diagnosis, Norman began to "keep alive the illusion of his mother being alive" as explained by the psychiatrist at the end of the film, "and whenever reality came too close, when danger or desire threatened that illusion, he'd dress up, even into a cheap wig he bought, and he'd walk about the house, sit in her chair, speak in her voice" even going as far as to dig up his mother's corpse and using his taxidermy expertise on the body as if to atone for his guilt.

After the Mother personality, in the illusion of repressive abuse and protection towards Norman's personality, kills both the empathetic Marion Crane and the P.I. Arbogast, she is convinced that "she did nothing, that Norman committed all the murders just to keep her from being discovered. [...] Of course, she feels badly about it... but also somewhat relieved to be, as she put it, free of Norman, at last." All of this happens while the body of Norman is staring into nothingness, knowing even if the Mother personality, now the dominating identity, would compel his shell to kill the fly buzzing around him, Norma would never be suspected of ever being a murderer. This is probably the greatest horror, or rather tragedy, of "Psycho" of a man losing control of himself not necessarily to a woman, but to a psychosis greater than him.  

Warren Webster is another story. Born a female, the true biology a secret only among his mother, the county clerk (who would become a justice of the peace), and Helga the housekeeper, her life would surely be in jeopardy under a ruthless and misogynistic father intent on having a boy. Helga even took Warren to Denmark where there might have been a sex change operation. But growing up in this gender still did not change the relationship between his father and himself, having been physically beaten and even being emotionally damaged after Father Webster's death. His older half-sister Miriam is to inherit the Webster estate if Warren dies before marrying and unable to produce a son. But his 21st birthday is nearing, and the estate is almost his. When Helga has a stroke in Denmark, they are forced to return to the states and Warren, or "Emily" on the other side of the ocean, back into the gender he was thrust into.

Unfortunately, Miriam is in love and engaged to pharmacy owner Karl Anderson, which is clearly a threat to receiving the inheritance. It also does not help that two out of the three people who knows Warren's true biology is still alive, although at the beginning of the film, the county clerk was taken care of. Warren still doubles as "Emily," now his "wife" and a nurse for Helga now mute and an invalid in her old age. Although unable to verbally attest to Warren's biology, Helga is still alive, which would still ruin his chances of receiving something close to atonement for that awful childhood.

As "Emily" and as if in his true extension, Warren is able to be truly awful to Miriam and Helga, going as far as to flirt with Karl and verbally threaten his childhood nanny with ideas of how to kill her. To get to the justice of the peace, "Emily" even ropes a hotel bellboy in pretending to marry her. "Emily" proves to be far more crazier than Warren after attempting to ask Karl out on a date. When he refuses, she immediately trashes Miriam's flower shop. Although the film paints a picture of "Emily" as a "homicidal maniac," as the sheriff describes Warren, this character study could bear closer inspection and even possibly a more intimate remake if someone was interested (and with a better wig)!

Death Match Round

Unfortunately, William Castle was never without his gimmicks and while some of them do indeed work (the electrical "Percepto!" in "The Tingler" (1959), "Illusion-O" in "13 Ghosts" (1959)) "Homicidal"'s gimmick relied on fear rather than something more sensory which made the previous two film's ploys. "Yellow stripes appeared on sidewalks near the curb, leading past the theaters - and stenciled on the stripe: "Cowards, keep walking." Inside, large yellow footsteps were stenciled on the floor from the seats back to the box office - and over the box office there hung a sign: "Coward's Corner." A blood-pressure outfit sat on a table nearby, attended by a nurse who offered free tests to cowards. A yellow light bathed Coward's Corner, and a recorded message kept repeating, "These cowards are too frightened to see the end of Homicidal. Watch them shiver in the Coward's Corner. Coward...coward...coward." Castle describes in his autobiography Step Right Up! I'm Gonna Scare the Pants off America. 

As if the "Fright Break" was bad enough, "Homicidal" had something rather unique at its core and this was the conversation of biology versus gender with or without psychosis. There is something to remember about older films with out-of-date tropes such as what Edward J. Ingebretzen calls "the popular link between homicide and gender-deviancy" (At Stake: Monsters and the Rhetoric of Fear in Public Culture, 2001) and that is There. Is. Still. The. Conversation. There is still the conversation with or without psychosis, with or without popular media studies on sociology or vice versa. Many people watch films for the characters and the reverse. If a person is able to look at Warren as a tragic figure or as a homicidal maniac, there is an interesting conversation to be had and the fact that this conversation was brought up in 1961 (albeit in a horror film), that is still advancement to some degree!

Norman Bates is a fascinating psychopath (or tragedy, however you want to look at it) and only amplified nowadays with the critically acclaimed A&E television show "Bates Motel." What the original film does so well is studying the aspect of the visceral, especially in the shower scene. Kjetil Rodje best explains this in Images of Blood in American Cinema: The Tingler to the Wild Bunch, "During the acts of violence the editing is very swift, and physical harm towards the body is not shown. The blood ensures there is no confusion regarding the actual outcome of the scene and provides audiences with information to fill in any gaps after the sudden displays of violence." The timing is made up for in the following scenes, feeling that previous horror still coarse through the audience member's body watching the all too patient Norman slowly cleaning up his other personality's mess. 

"Psycho" is beautiful, artistic in the use of Janet Leigh's dead stare to the angles of the dead birds in Norman's parlor to my favorite scene in Arbogast's death. Though the pacing is not always up to the right speed in some parts which mostly involve exhibition and the backstory, the editing from wide shot to singles flimsy and awkward compared to the fantastic cutting of the shower scene. But Hitch was always better at action sequences than the storytelling. Even the reveal of Norman's psychosis from the psychiatrist is woefully wooden and rather needless, but nothing can equal up to how the film should have ended with that fantastic last minute superimposed skull over Norman's face, then fading out, forever condemning Norman with his mother or the remnants of her in his now dominated mind. 

Both films are perfect within their own merits, no matter how much "Homicidal" was influenced by "Psycho." Warren Webster and Norman Bates are fascinating character studies whether it is the question of gender with or without psychosis on Webster's part or who killed who in Norman's mind. In all of Castle's unfortunate schlock and Hitchcock's meticulousness against the occasional cinematic lethargy, I can't choose between the two. 

Interesting Links:
PSYCHO (Hitchcock Film Series) | Castle of Horror Podcast | Podcast Chart