PARANOIAC PSYCHO

Hammer studios in the UK are best known for their horror films especially with directors like Terence Fisher and stars like Peter Cushing. 

PARANOIAC made in 1963 by cinematographer Freddie Francis is shot in black and white and features an upcoming actor Oliver Reed. 

Reed's brother died in his teens but a villager who is also the son of the village lawyer and therefore has access to a range of secrets and wills - has found a lookalike of the brother whom he uses to claim an inheritance. 

But the plan runs up against Oliver Reed (the surviving brother and therefore legal heir), his older aunt (who has a thing about Reed), and the sister who thinks she is going mad when she first sees the lookalike. Reed himself is mad and careens his Jag around the family mansion's well manicured driveway. 

The movie's horror mechanism is above average though not exceptional. It's more interesting for its reflection of the impact of Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO which had been recently released by the time of PARANOIAC's production (the title alone should give some clue to its debt to Hitchcock's ground breaking movie). 

The essential elements are there - the dead brother preserved (badly) in the basement as a reference to the mother in PSYCHO; a double undercurrent of incest - the aunt lusts after her nephew, the lookalike brother falls in love with the sister; and most notably, Reed as a beefy psychopathic version of Anthony Perkins. 

Reed however plays it without the subtle creepiness of the original and more like a volatile and raging libertine who broods and roars in equal proportions. 

As with all comparisons, the re-interpretation and "edits" from the original are key. The transformation of the closeted Perkins to campy Reed is a market choice - a more blustery pervert could better impress the audience. 

The omission of stuffed animals and voyeurism is notable. The former is understandable but the latter - the scopophilic gaze that is central to PSYCHO - is puzzling until one realises that Michael Powell's PEEPING TOM released around the same time as PSYCHO, was panned and invoked the British censor's wrath.

There were probably more films around the world that were influenced by PSYCHO. Maybe they constitute a simmering sub-genre like the Bruce Lee clone films, that will at some point erupt!