Violent Midnight

Although the film's usually known as Psychomania, it shouldn't be confused with that zombie biker film from 1971. This 1964 shocker is instead a gritty, low-budget, black-and-white, post-Psycho slasher movie about a killer on the prowl in a small New England college town. When the model working for a reclusive artist is brutally stabbed to death in her apartment, the local police find themselves with an armload of possible suspects. Was it the rich but crazy artist with a violent past? The crazy ex-boyfriend with a violent past? Or maybe the creepy old botany professor who moonlights as a peeping tom? It's a real pickle.

Stylistically, this was the high point for Richard Hilliard and Del Tenney (the produce here), who together were also responsible for The Horror of Party Beach and Curse of the Living Corpse. Most reviews over the years have cited the obvious Hitchcock influence on the film-quick cuts, murder in shadow, a scream edited into a train whistle. For the most part, though, I think the "influence" is overstated. There's much more than slavish mimicry (a la early DePalma) going on here. The celebrity-obsessed might want to take a peek, as this is the film that launched the careers of Sylvia Miles (as the haggard chippie), Dick Van Patten (the tenacious cop) and James Farentino (the crazy ex-boyfriend). Seeing him here, actually, it's hard to believe that in only 25 years, Farentino would be making Dead & Buried and The Final Countdown.