Anatomy of a Psycho (1961) User Reviews

Darrell Howe's Anatomy

[wes-connors · 3/10 · 8 March 2009]

"A young man is despondent over the conviction and subsequent execution of his older brother. Having idolized his brother to the point of it being an obsession, the young man cannot believe he was guilty, even though he was, and swears to avenge him. The crazed young man decides to carry out his revenge by tracking down and killing all the officials and jurors responsible for his brother's trial and execution," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

Boris Petroff's "Anatomy of a Psycho" is a pale period piece, which seemingly sought to (given the title) bask in the glow of two significantly more timeless films. It might have been interesting had it tweaked the covertly homosexual relationship between Darrell Howe (as Chet Marco) and Frank Kiliman (as Bobby Brown), for starters.

By the way, it's easy to mistake Mr. Howe for Ronnie Burns (as Mickey Craig), due to the latter's star billing. Mr. Burns, who plays a slightly more secondary role to Mr. Howe's "bad boy" lead, was the more well-known actor, due to his appearing from 1955-'59 on his parents' TV series. Relax, Ronnie does not stray too far from his familiar role as the nice young son of George Burns & Gracie Allen.

*** Anatomy of a Psycho (1961) Boris Petroff ~ Darrell Howe, Ronnie Burns, Pamela Lincoln

It's hard to imagine that with a title like "Anatomy of a Psycho" that the film would be THIS dull!

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 22 January 2013]

some of same music as "Plan 9" scar came and went as well as changed size killed guy--made it look like another guy killed him.

The title "Anatomy of a Psycho" would certainly lead you to believe this would be an exciting and most likely salacious film. I was very surprised, as the film was anything but like this. It was, surprisingly, a bit dull. The story is about a screwed up young man whose older brother was convicted on murder and was executed. However, the guy won't believe that his brother was guilty and he's sworn to get revenge on those who convicted him. Now considering that much of what he does for revenge requires planning and a cool head, this isn't exact what anyone would term psychotic! Sociopathic....sure...but NOT the behaviors of a psycho. So, I was expecting a wild-eyed and over the top performance by the guy...but got very, very little of this. What a disappointment. In addition to not living up to the title and being a bit dull, the film also suffers from occasional poor acting and a moving and disappearing scar! What do I mean by this? Well, the troubled young man gets his face slashed in the beginning of the film but the continuity is so bad that in some scenes it's gone and in later scenes it's back! And, often the scar grows and shrinks before your eyes! It should also be noted that some of the music was previously used in "Plan 9 From Outer Space"--need I say more?

The bottom line is that this is a bad though not horrible film. And, it's not bad enough to be funny--just pretty dull. Probably not worth your time.

Better Than I Expected

[Rainey-Dawn · 5/10 · 19 January 2016]

Chet has a strange attachment to his older brother that was executed. He has a sister, Pat, that will reveal more about the older brother - reminding Chet of who his older brother was but Chet feels differently about him. In the film, we watch Chet spiral into madness and built up anger over the death/execution of his older brother.

It is true this film is slow at times but the film is better than it's given credit for. I do believe this film will bore some crowds - in particular the younger crowds that want a lot of action. This film is little action and all crime-drama with a few thrills. Worth a watch for fans of the older crime-dramas.

5.5/10

So THIS is what became of George and Gracie's son!

[Nozze-Foto · 27 April 2002]

Ronnie Burns, the star of this movie, is the adopted son of George Burns and Gracie Allen. He guest starred on their TV show many times but I guess he wanted to branch out on his own. Unfortunately this movie, directed by the same guy who did THE UNEARTHLY, is as far as he got. Actually it is quite good as JD films go. Ronnie is a kid bordering on psycho already whose older brother is sent to the gas chamber for murder. Ronnie does not know, or does not want to know, that the brother he used as a role model was a thug, robber and general no-good. Instead he decides to avenge his death by getting rid of everyone responsible for the trial and sentencing. This would be okay if Ronnie's character were any good as a delinquent but in truth he is just an amateur. Early in the film he tries to beat up a guy who insults his brother but only ends up getting slashed with a broken bottle. For the rest of the movie you can watch the scar change size and location. He does manage to burn down the house where his ex-girlfriend's new boyfriend lives and surprisingly no one catches on that he did it. We think the whole plot will be about him seeking revenge but the movie takes a turn when Ronnie kills his best friend and frames his sister's boyfriend for the crime. Will goodness win out? Hey. it's just a 73 minute picture, it won't be long before you find out. One thing you will notice right away is how very low the budget was. For key dramatic scenes the music is instantly recognizable as coming from PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE (1959). A fight scene is backed up by the music where Tor Johnson rises from his grave. That is sure to distract all B movie fans.

Borrrrrrrrrrrrrrring

[manicgecko · 2/10 · 17 October 2005]

It may be that I am out of touch with 60's movies, but I am still waiting for the psycho. Great plot idea (man going insane over the wrongful death of his brother)- lousy deliverance, and was the dance scene really necessary??? I picked this movie up in a garage sale set of horror schlock and was extremely disappointed in this low budget afterthought of a movie. I couldn't even bring up the energy to make fun of it. The only good thing I can report on this was it was only 70 minutes. one minute longer and the psycho would be running through my house, cruelly torturing my DVD player. Say goodnight Gracie - this movie is toast.

Slow, no budget junk

[DrSatan · 1/10 · 26 December 2001]

This film, marketed as a horror flick, is in fact nothing but a very slow moving JD film. The film is deficient in every aspect-direction, budget, acting, plot, dialogue. Some may enjoy it's campiness, but that wore thin for me very fast as there really wasn't much to this slow crapfest. I only wish I had held out for a DVD of "Hatchet for the Honeymoon" that did not contain this fetid film.

A Real Bomb

[whpratt1 · 1/10 · 7 January 2009]

Decided just for fun to view this film in black and white and it sure was one of the worst films I have seen in a long time. Apparently in the 1960's there was a great deal of interest in the film Psycho and this film was introduced as another Psycho thriller.

This is the story about two brothers and one gets sentenced to prison for killing a man and the younger brother feels that his brother is innocent and should not go to the gas chamber and seeks revenge.

There is a great deal of poor acting and this is definitely a very low budget film with unknown actors doing very poor acting. If you want to fall asleep real fast, then don't miss this so called film.

I Didn't Expect Much and I Got It

[Hitchcoc · 3/10 · 5 November 2009]

The son of Burns and Allen plays a cold, messed up 25 year old teenager with a group of 25 year old high school friends. His brother is sent to the electric chair and he gets tunnel vision concerning him. There is nothing wrong with the premise. It's just that the acting is atrocious and the plot so stupid. There are two kinds of kids: the punks and the Leave It to Beaver crowd. The scene where the psychotic guy is invited to a party by his sister's boyfriend is absolutely ludicrous. You almost expect him to say, "They're going to have a clown and everything." Anyway, the good guy gets framed and the movie is about how that is handled. One thing I've noticed in watching all these films of the forties and fifties. If you kill someone, no matter the circumstances, they send you to the chair. They try really hard to make this one social commentary, but it's beyond help.

Magnificently awful

[AlsExGal · 6/10 · 5 May 2018]

The acting and direction are wooden, and the production values are minimalist. But from time to time I really enjoy these independent films from the 50s through the 70s. Last night on TCM was one of those times. A man is about to be executed for murder. You never get to see or hear from that man. All you know about him is what other people say. The man's brother, Mickey (Ronnie Burns) is angry at everybody who played a part in his brother's execution because his brother told him he was innocent. His sister, Pat (Pamela Lincoln), does not share in his anger because she does not believe in her brother's innocence. Besides, she knew he made his living robbing other people. Mickey points out that the money from those robberies went to them being raised by their criminal brother when he could have let them go to an orphanage.

Mickey hangs with a rough crowd of teens in "the shack" - an abandoned former pool hall. When Mickey swears vengeance on everybody that helped send his brother to the gas chamber the gang helps - some. But eventually things go terribly wrong. A complicating factor is that Mickey's sister is engaged to the son of the star prosecution witness against Mickey's brother.

The overall plot line is interesting and makes some good points, almost religious ones such as the importance of forgiveness and how when a person hates it is that person who is wounded most by it.. However the actual dialogue and some of the scenes are to die for. Examples - Mickey's straight arrow sister offering to drop out of college so her delinquent brother can go because "girls don't need school". The "tough cop with a heart of gold" threatening to shoot an unarmed Mickey for - climbing up a water tower??? Was he afraid he would fly away? When he comes back down the cop says "You know you can trust me???. Mickey's girlfriend dumps him, but I really didn't pay much attention to her dialogue because her hair has a life of its own! Is there a stylist and some hair gel in the house?

If you are looking for an A or even B list film, or if you are looking for a horror film, this will disappoint. But for MST3K style goodness without the rifftrax, this fits the bill.

Why is this considered a horror film?

[soulexpress · 1/10 · 24 August 2017]

Chet Marco (Darrell Howe) is despondent after the execution of his big brother Duke, whom he idolized. Chet is the only one who doesn't believe that Duke, a career hoodlum, committed the murder for which he was sent to Death Row. Following a back-alley brawl in which his face is cut up with a broken bottle, Chet becomes increasingly angry and paranoid. He swears vengeance on those he deems responsible for his brother's death. Chet beats the crap out of the attorney general's son, sets the judge's house on fire, pulls a knife on the son of the prosecution's star witness, stabs an innocent bystander to death, and pins the murder on his best friend (Ronnie Burns, the adopted son of George Burns and Gracie Allen).

All that happens in the first 45 minutes, leaving us with a plodding courtroom drama in the movie's final half-hour. Director Boris Petroff either paced his film at the speed of molasses, or was too inept to realize he was doing so. Adding to the dullness is an uninspired script and a cast of unknowns with the charisma of Steven Wright (but none of the humor).

Despite its classification as a horror film, this is really a juvenile-delinquent movie with a loonier-than-usual protagonist. The title was an obvious attempt to cash in on two far better movies of the time. If you're in the mood for a 1950s J.D. film, you're better off with "High School Confidential."

Good flick!

[Movie Nuttball · 8/10 · 29 June 2004]

This here movie is one of those old drive in type movies which actually its a fair film. The cast is different though and the movie maybe slow at times but this movie does have its moments. Some of the scenes in My opinion was ahead of its time and similar ones wasn't seen until films made later on down the road. The film has solid acting and interactions between the characters. Anatomy of a Psycho is written by the late Don Devlin who is the father of epic movie writer Dean Devlin. The late writer also has a part in this film. I wouldn't consider this film a horror film but more like a crime or a thriller. Sometimes movies like this one are some of the most realistic ones. This is part of a double feature which the other on the tape is called Hatchet for the Honeymoon which is also a good oldie! The movie is not perfect but like I said it has its moments. Give this movie a chance if you old crime flicks!

A good bad movie

[adam_658 · 6/10 · 7 August 2007]

It takes a certain type of person to enjoy Anatomy of a Psycho. If you like watching good movies, this will not be your thing. I mean imagine a horror movie in which no one dies. (Unless you count that opening scene with the gas chamber. And I suppose technically one guy did semi-accidentally get stabbed.) This has to be the most mild mannered psycho of film history. He comes up with a pretty good plan to get back at the witness, which seems to contradict the end of the movie where the main character has no idea what he's doing. But, I enjoyed Plan 9 From Outer Space, so to everyone out there who has a love for bad movies, this one is kind of fun. If you don't get enjoyment out of bad movies save yourself some time and watch your wife knit for a while.

A so-so juvenile delinquent drama.

[BA_Harrison · 5/10 · 5 June 2016]

When condemned killer Duke Marco is sent to the gas chamber, his younger brother, juvenile delinquent Chet (Darrell Howe), vows to take revenge on those responsible, his hatred and bitterness gradually twisting his mind.

This early '60s crime drama was going great guns for a while, Chet's revenge leading him to arson, the troubled youth burning down a judge's house, and murder, pinning the blame on Mickey (Ronnie Burns), the son of the chief witness in his brother's case. I was intrigued as to what even darker places Chet's spiral into insanity would take him; unfortunately, it takes him to court, where the film turns into a really dull legal drama, as Mickey tries to prove his innocence, and Chet watches on, hoping that witness Bobbie (Frank Killmond) doesn't crack under pressure. Yawn!

At the end of the film, Bobbie spills his guts, naming Chet as the guilty party. Chet makes a bid for freedom, pursued by cop Lt. Mac (Michael Granger), but the film wimps out on a fitting demise for the young hoodlum, instead opting for a happy(ish) ending, the misunderstood lad being taken safely away, rather than being pumped full of lead.

4.5 out of 10, rounded up to 5 for IMDb.

Anatomy of a failure

[lor_ · 27 April 2024]

The perils of independent filmmaking are demonstrated in this sour, depressing movie, an example of anti-entertainment. Not a "psychotronic" film (with apologies to author Michael Weldon, who I knew quite well back when he wrote that influential tome) with some outre content, but merely a tedious crime movie, with a terrible cast, non-direction and the dubious hook decades later of having Ed Wood as one of the writers.

Were it a sexploitaton movie, within the parameters of censorship of the time, it could have been titillating. Or if it were explicitly violent in some way, that would satisfy a different audience need. But these overage juvenile delinquents on display offer zero point of identification, and the genre hooks of fantasy, horror, you name it, are missing.

So, when this was made fans could watch infinitely better crime shows on TV, ranging from police procedurals like "Naked City" to suave detectives in action, all of which featured the best talent imaginable (including numerous stars of the future like Redford, Duvall and Martin Sheen just starting out).

I really dug it!

[BandSAboutMovies · 4/10 · 25 November 2019]

The only thing this movie has in common with Psycho is the title, but that seemed like reason enough to try and drag people into the theater. It does have Ronnie Burns, the son of George and Gracie, as the lead, which is something, right? And Pamela Lincoln from The Tingler!

After his brother is sentenced to death at a trial, a teen rebel named Chet goes bonkers. No one can help him - not his sister, his best friend or even his girl. He loses any semblance of reality and attacks the son of the attorney who sentenced his brother to death.

Michael Granger, who plays Lieutenant Mac, the cop who gets involved, followed up being in movies like this and Creature With the Atom Brain by appearing on Broadway in Fiddler on the Roof. Russ Bender shows up, too. He's in a ton of B and lower grade movies, everything from Panic In the Year Zero! to Maryjane. Don Devlin, who was in Blood of Dracula and later became a producer, plays Moe.

This is directed by Boris Petroff, who was also in the chair for Shotgun Wedding and The Unearthly. For its time, it's interesting that all three of these films were written by a woman named Jane Mann. You'd think that, but Jane Mann is really...Edward D. Wood. If you're wondering why all of the music from this movie comes directly from Plan 9 From Outer Space, now you have your answer.

Okay revenge thriller

[Woodyanders · 5/10 · 23 March 2012]

Hypersensitive Chet (endearingly overplayed with considerable scenery-gnashing panache by Darrell Howe) is left despondent over the conviction and execution of his hoodlum older brother. Despite the fact that his brother was guilty, Chet nonetheless decides to exact revenge by setting up the son of a witness for murder. The tepid direction by Boris Petroff and the blah script by Jane Mann and Don Devlin alas allow the meandering narrative to never pick up the steam it needs in order to really cook and be effective; as a direct result of this, the movie fails to build much in the way of both tension and momentum (for example, a major trial set piece doesn't pack any real dramatic punch to speak of). Moreover, the sudden moments of violence tend to be clumsily staged and hence unconvincing. That said, the decent acting from the game cast prevents the picture from being a total wash-out, with especially commendable work by Ronnie Burns as the likable Mickey, Pamela Lincoln as Chet's sweet sister Pat, Michael Granger as the diligent Lt. Mac, co-writer Devlin as the short-tempered Moe, and Frank Killmond as the wimpy Bobbie. Howe's occasional hilariously histrionic outbursts provide a few unintentional belly laughs. Joel Colman's snazzy black and white cinematography makes nifty use of fades, dissolves, and super-impositions. Michael Terr's overwrought score hits the rousing melodramatic spot. A merely acceptable time-waster.

Confused and Confounded

[sol1218 · 5/10 · 26 February 2007]

(Some spoilers) Can be said to be one of bad movie director Edward D. Wood's forgotten masterpieces in that the movie was ghost written by the Great One using the name Larry Lee and even had in its soundtrack the music from Wood's greatest work "Plan Nine from Outer space". One of the many "toubled youth" movies that came out of Hollywood in the 1950's and 1960's "Anatomy of a Psycho" has to do with young and confused Chet Marco, Darnell Howe. Chet's really a good boy who got caught up in the emotional whirlwind that he finds himself in with his older brother Luke a convicted murderer and sentenced to death now facing a one way trip to the gas chamber when the clock strikes midnight.

Chet who looked up to his brother as a father figure since Luke brought up both him and his sister Pat, Pamela Lincoln, when his parents either died or deserted him and his two siblings. Chet honestly believes what his brother told him when he visited him on death row the night before his scheduled execution. Luke swore to his baby brother Chet that he was totally innocent of murder despite the evidence, including an eye-witness, against him. There's no doubt in Luke's guilt but the stubborn and delusional Chet has convinced himself that Luke was railroaded and nothing, not even his and Luke's sister Pat, can change his mind. After Luke was executed Chet went slowly insane getting together a number of his friends to get those individuals, the D.A Judge witnesses & jury, responsible for Luke's death. This results in the brutal beating of the D.A's, who prosecuted Luke, son and the burning down of the judges, who sentenced Luke to death, home.

Slow moving at first with Darrell Howe playing the fast losing it Chet and becoming more and more unpredictable due to his deteriorating mental condition as he begins to look and act as if he were lobotomized or suffering from an OD of downers. The movie picks up when Mickey, Ronnie Burns, Pat's boyfriend gets into the act by first asking Pat's hand in marriage, and she accepting, and then going to talk things over with Chet at his and his friends clubhouse known as the shack. Telling a shocked and totally nuts Chet that it was his own father Frank, Russ Bender, who's secret testimony sent his beloved brother Luke to the gas chamber Mickey's foolishly thinks that it would make things better if that fact came out!

We get to see Chet go out of his head ranting and talking to himself as well as talking to his now departed brother Luke, as if his ghost were somehow trying to contact him, as all hell breaks loose in the shack. It's there that Chet gets belted silly by, as he tried to attack, Mickey and then his friend Moe, Don Devlin, getting into the act and ending up with a knife, that the mindless and out of control Moe landed on, through his chest. Chet now seeing his chance to get even with Mickey and his father for Luke's death instead of calling for help to save the badly wounded Moe's life rams the knife into his heart killing him.It's then that Chet concocts, with the other person in the shack at the time, his best friend Bobbie (Frank Fillman) that it was Mickey who actually killed Moe.

It's when Mickey, who was convicted of the murder of Moe, is about to be sentenced that Chet starts to feel that he's not all there up stairs. With the help, or friendly persuasion, of friend and police let. Mac, Michael Granger, and a guilt-ridden Bobbie that Chet after almost killing himself, by jumping off a telephone pole, decides to go straight and set the record right so that he could be able to sleep at night and get back to sanity.

Ronnie WHO???

[pcino1957 · 2/10 · 2 July 2003]

This is for Erzebet of Philly. What Ronnie are you talking about?? I believe it was Darrell Howe who played Chet in the film was the villian and not Ronnie. You might want to view the film once more. Anyways, the film is still a piece of poop and yes, this was not Ronnie Burns greatest hour :( Paul

Grade Z Stinker

[fwdixon · 1/10 · 13 July 2020]

"Anatomy of the Psycho" has a great title and a good plot device in having an executed killer's teenage punk brother go nuts and seek revenge on the judge, prosecutor and witnesses but that's about it.

Ronnie Burns got top billing but not too much to do, the real star is Darrell Howe, the aforementioned teenage punk.

Anyhoo, the pacing of this relatively short film is glacial, making it seem much longer. The acting is wooden and amateurish but even Lawrence Olivier would have had a tough time with the dialogue, the inanity of which is the only humor in this film, albeit unintentional. The interior sets are extraordinarily cheap & shoddy. The film borrows some of the music from Ed Wood's shlock masterpiece, "Plan 9 From Outer Space".

Generally I like the old juvenile delinquent from the fifties and early sixties but this film just bored me to tears.

Not bad, for what it is.

[Hey_Sweden · 6/10 · 13 May 2023]

Chet Marko (Darrell Howe, in his only feature credit) idolized his older brother Duke, to the point where he genuinely believes Duke was innocent of a murder that got Duke sent to the gas chamber. Chet, an extremely troubled young man all twisted up with hatred, vows to get even with everybody responsible for convicting Duke.

This amusingly sordid young-punk melodrama provides some fun for B movie lovers, as long as they don't take it very seriously. Howe does his level best to emote and project a sense of "cool", while Ronnie Burns, the adopted son of George Burns & Gracie Allen, is fine as Mickey, the very sincere young man who intends to marry Chets' sister Pat (Pamela Lincoln, "The Tingler"). Solid support is provided by character actors Russ Bender ("War of the Colossal Beast") and Michael Granger ("Creature with the Atom Brain"), the latter playing a compassionate police lieutenant who hopes to get through to Chet rather than just write him off as a lost cause. Frank Killmond, who'd previously been in Hitchcocks' "Psycho", is the kid with a misguided sense of loyalty to Chet, whom he regards as a benevolent older-brother type. Don Devlin ("Blood of Dracula"), who plays the role of the antagonistic Moe, also co-wrote the script. (It might interest people to know that Don was the father of Dean Devlin, the actor turned writer & producer who's best known for his collaborations with Roland Emmerich.)

Once this viewer got over the fact that the film didn't really live up to its lurid title, or play out like a standard tale of vengeance, he found that this was pretty entertaining, flaws and all.

Six out of 10.

"Don't hurt me, Mac!" - pathetic script, amateur actors

[adrianovasconcelos · 1/10 · 23 August 2023]

I had never heard of Boris Petroff, but on the strength of this idiotic and inane effort entitled ANATOMY OF A PSYCHO, I have to rate the much maligned Ed Wood a great director by comparison - what is more, with such Russian names, I am amazed that Petroff escaped Senator McCarthy's HUAC inquisition.

It pains me to have to write 600 words about this film. It has one of the worst, most wooden scripts that I have ever had to sit through. Stilted dialogue from beginning to end.

Darrell Howe acts badly enough without a scar, even worse with one. Pretty Pam Lincoln reminds me of a school student, Ronnie Burns through his lines, Michael Granger makes a ridiculous cop brandishing a gun and threatening to use it while Howe howls: "Don't hurt me, Mac!"

Garbage ANATOMY through and through. Avoid it! 1/10.

Decent in a low rent way

[Leofwine_draca · 6/10 · 18 September 2021]

I quite liked this B-movie crime flick. The marketing and title make it seem like a Hitchcock rip-off but it's actually a 1950s style juvenile delinquent movie with a guy going berserk when his brother is executed for murder. He and his goons don sack masks to terrorise the neighbourhood before the cops and the good guys close in on him. Plenty of violent action and sequences of people being terrorised here make this decent in a low rent kind of way.

The Brotherhood of the Traveling Scar

[NoDakTatum · 3/10 · 10 October 2023]

In 1959, "Anatomy of a Murder" was released. In 1960, "Psycho" hit the theaters. One year later, "Anatomy of a Psycho" debuted. The only thing this film has in common with the previously mentioned classics is that "Anatomy of a Psycho" is also a film. Chet (Darrell Howe) is down in the dumps. His big brother Duke (William Salzwedel) is being sent to the gas chamber for a murder. Duke helped raise Chet and their sister Pat (Pamela Lincoln), and Chet still believes in Duke's innocence. Even though the family is from the wrong side of the tracks, Pat has taken up with well-to-do Mickey (Ronnie Burns, son of George Burns and Gracie Allen). As coincidence would have it, Mickey is the son of the anonymous star witness (Russ Bender) who sent Duke to death row. And what of Chet's love life? He was taking up with the questionable Sandy (Judy Howard) who, as coincidence would have it, is now canoodling with the son of the judge who presided over Duke's trial. In the opening minutes of the film, Chet is slashed in the face with a broken bottle, and sports a large mobile scar on his cheek, and a giant chip on his shoulder. He and his gang beat up the son of the district attorney who prosecuted Duke's case, and Chet becomes a one-man crime spree until another fight results in a stabbing and suddenly Mickey is put on trial for murder...have you got all this?

Rumor has it that Ed Wood had a hand in the screenplay, and I totally believe it. I didn't even mention peripheral characters like the tough police lieutenant who is always hanging around, or the other members of Chet's shanty-dwelling gang. It's a lot for a seventy-five minute movie. The film is cheaply made, with some scenes making me laugh out loud. The life journey of Chet's facial scar could have been a film in itself. I think Pam and Mickey are high school students even though the actors were in their mid-twenties, and one hilarious scene has Pam begging Chet to go back to school, I assume to finish up his master's degree studies? Aside from Bobbie (Frank Killmond), all of the young male cast look alike. They have nice parted black hair, swarthy looks, and I was often confused about who was who, with the exception of Chet and his magical scar. Although the plot moves at a lightning fast pace, the first few scenes take place in a matter of hours, it's strange that most of the footage bored me. The pitch of the film is doable, but the execution (sorry, unintentional pun) is a disaster. The climax is very unsatisfying. This is a harmless, juvenile delinquent movie that isn't very good but might provide a few laughs, and is a prime candidate for any riffing project.

Wasted potential

[Wizard-8 · 14 October 2014]

"Anatomy of a Psycho" has a premise that I'm pretty surprised that hasn't been copied to death by other movies - someone swearing revenge against those who were responsible for sending his brother to the gas chamber. There could have been a lot of perverse pleasure seeing judges, district attorneys, and jury members get snuffed. Unfortunately, the filmmakers don't seem to understand the potential they had. Despite a 73 minute running length, the movie is really slow- moving, and the central character only enacts revenge on three people - and two of those people are just RELATED to the people who were actually responsible for the central character's brother's death. With that in mind, the only way the movie could have been saved would be with unintentional humor. While there are some laughs here - miscast actors, bad acting, dopey dialogue - for the most part the movie is just drab and dull. If you want to see a more successful telling of the movie's theme, watch "Law Abiding Citizen" instead.