Edwardslcn Reviews

The Victim (1972 TV Movie)

Remakes really can be better.

[8/10 · 14 February 2006]

After learning that her sister Susan is contemplating divorce, Kate decides to travel to the distraught woman's remote country home and spend some time with her. When Kate arrives, however, Susan is nowhere in sight. That's because someone has murdered her and stuffed the body in a trunk in the basement. As a storm rages outside, Kate tries to figure out where her sister could have gone and places her own life in great danger...the killer is still on the premises! In her first post-BEWITCHED vehicle, Elizabeth Montgomery gives a solid dramatic performance. Merwin Gerard's teleplay is based on a short story by McKnight Malmar. Malmar's tale was first brought to television in 1962 as an episode of Boris Karloff's THRILLER anthology series. THRILLER stuck very closely to the story, which is kind of a pity, for it could have used a little punching up. Granted Malmar wrote a moderately creepy number, but Gerard (creator of the ONE STEP BEYOND show) adds several clever ingredients that heighten the tension and suspense.

Homicidal (1961)

No match for PSYCHO, but certainly worth a look (possible SPOILERS ahead)

[7/10 · 1 February 2006]

A coldly attractive blonde (Jean Arless) checks into a swanky hotel and offers a handsome bellboy (Richard Rust) $2,000 to marry her, assuring him that the marriage will be annulled immediately after the ceremony; Rust is clearly perplexed, but agrees. While they are standing before the justice of the peace (James Westerfield), Arless pulls out a knife and stabs the magistrate to death. Arless then dashes off to a spooky old mansion, where she terrorizes - and eventually murders - a wheelchair-ridden old woman (Eugenie Leontovich). It appears that our heroine is killing for no reason, but there definitely is a method to her madness. This was B-movie pioneer William Castle's answer to PSYCHO and although it never quite reaches the same level as Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece of horror, HOMICIDAL does have its virtues: gritty cinematography by Burnett Guffey, a few effectively-staged shocks, and some deliciously nasty villainy from Arless, who went on to portray Lily Munster in the pilot episode of THE MUNSTERS television series.