“Who do I have to murder?” “No one.” “What do I have to do?” “Marry me.”
Emily (Jean Arless) takes a room at a hotel under the name Miriam Webster. She offers a bellboy (Richard Rust) at the hotel 2 thousand dollars to marry her for a day. The guy is a little baffled, but he agrees. 2 thousand dollars is a lot of money. They go to a justice of the peace that night. Just as the ceremony ends Emily takes a knife out of her purse, murders the justice of the peace and runs away. At home she brags to Helga Swenson (Eugenie Leontovich), an elderly mute woman that she cares for, of her crime.
At one time Helga was the nanny for Miriam Webster (Patricia Breslin) and her half-brother Warren. They have the same father, but different mothers. Miriam was first born. Because she wasn’t a boy her father divorced her and married Warren’s mother. Warren’s father was abusive to him. A few years later his parents died. Warren grew up in Denmark with Helga and has just recently returned to California with Helga, after her stroke, and her caretaker Emily. Warren is now of age and heir to his father’s estate. Should he die before he is married the estate will go to Miriam.
Emily breaks into Miriam's flower shop and wrecks the store. In the meantime, Miriam has been at the mansion watching Helga. She spends the night. During the night she wakes up to find Emily in her room watching her. In the morning Miriam confronts Emily. Emily denies it. Miriam says she is going to have Warren fire her. Emily tells her she is married to Warren and threatens to kill her. Miriam believes her and flees the house in terror.
When the police question the real Miriam, about the murder of the justice of the peace, they find she has an alibi, and the bellboy witness says she is not the murderer. Later she tells her boyfriend Karl (Glenn Corbett) about the confrontation with Emily. Karl tells her about the break-in and shows her the picture in the paper of the murderer that looks like Emily. The pieces are beginning to fall into place. They both tell Warren that his wife may be a psychotic murderer.
“Homicidal” was released in 1961 and was directed by William Castle. “Homicidal” is sorta William Castle’s take on Hitchcock’s “Psycho”. It’s not too difficult to figure out who’s who and what’s what. There is also a big twist at the end that may not be so big if you pay attention, but it’s not a bad story if you like psychotic homicidal maniacs.
I’m not sure how serious Castle meant for the movie to be. It does seem to present itself that way. At least until you get to the “fright break”. The 45 seconds it takes for Miriam to walk from the car into the mansion looking for what happened to her brother in the spooky house with the murderess in it. No one is smart in this movie. You can just tick off the horror movie tropes one by one.
The fright break promised that you could get your money back if you couldn’t sit through the ending. That backfired when people just waited for the next showing and left then to get their money back. Back then the movie ran continuously all day, and you didn’t have to leave the theater between showings. To stop that Castle had tickets printed in different colors for each showing. When people still persisted in getting their money back, Castle created the “coward’s corner” in the lobby. People leaving the theater to get their money back had to listen to a recording calling them a coward and sit in the coward’s corner. Then you were required to sign a card that stated you were a bona fide chicken.