Homicidal (1961)

Why do these screams matter?

Released on the heels of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), William Castle’s horror/thriller hybrid Homicidal (1961) engages with similar themes of gender performance and repression while also including the outlandish promotional gimmicks for which the director was so well known. Initially receiving mixed reviews in which most critics were more interested in the film’s “Coward Certificate” and fright break marketing ploys instead of its plot, Homicidal has gone on to become an underground cult favorite for its twist ending and complicated character motivations (Dowling 62). In the film, Emily (Jean Arliss) commits a brutal stabbing before returning home to care for Helga (Eugenie Leontovich), a woman whose mutism and physical limitations make her completely dependent upon the care Emily provides at the behest of her husband, Warren (Jean Arliss). When Miriam (Patricia Breslin), Warren’s half-sister, grows suspicious of Emily, shocking revelations are divulged that forever alter that fate of all involved.

When Homicidal hit movie theaters, the power of The Production Code, a number of narrative restrictions designed to bring back “morality” to cinema, was in a tenuous state. While the governing agency still wielded power, Hitchcock’s decision to ignore censoring guidelines with Psycho opened the door to its subsequent decline (Robb). Although the cinematic sea change toward a new rating system- The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) film rating system- was still a few years out, Homicidal represents an interesting hybrid of acquiescence and defiance to The Code evident in the film’s only scream.

Having fled with Warren to their childhood home, a distraught Emily ignores Warren’s order to stay in the car. As she enters the home, she is surprised to find Warren waiting with a knife. Realizing that she is in extreme danger, Miriam unleashes a bloodcurdling scream when Emily and Warren are revealed to be the same person.

 

Unlike Psycho’s Norman Bates, whose dual gender performance is explained as a pathology of which he is unaware, Emily/Warren’s gender performance is a result of violence perpetrated against them. As the film reveals, Emily/Warren were assigned female at birth. However, their mother, realizing that her husband would only accept a boy child, bribed the county clerk -the man murdered at the start of the film- to record the sex of the child as male. She then enlisted the help of Helga in helping to perpetuate the lie. The violence done to Emily/Warren as a result of their mother and Helga’s duplicitous actions cannot be overstated. They are forced to conform to a gender presentation that is not their own and the ramifications of that have clearly impacted Emily/Warren, most obviously when Warren/Emily smashes the picture of the very masculine attired Warren. And yet, unlike Norman Bates, Emily/Warren have learned to leverage gender performance as an act of masquerade by which to protect themselves. While their decision to perform both genders is fueled by a desire to obtain their inheritance, it is also a way for them to reclaim some of the agency stolen from them in childhood. They are in full control of which identity is performed when and for whom.

Certainly, Miriam’s scream here is fueled by shock that her half-sibling has been embodying two distinct gender performances right in front of her without her knowledge. Her scream is also a recognition that a person Miriam loves is a violent killer who has not only murdered others, but now wishes to kill her, as well. When Emily/Warren are killed right as they are about to plunge the knife into Miriam, the film appears to be advancing a narrative in keeping with cinematic norms of the era related to depictions of queer identity. As Steven Paul Davies notes in Out at the Movies: A History of Gay Cinema, queer characters on film during this period were almost unilaterally depicted as “Desperate figure[s] whose inevitable end was to be destroyed” by a natural comeuppance via bullets, fire, or suicide” (18-19). But Homicidal is an exception to that rule.

The film’s decision to code a sympathetic reading of its queer character was something of an anomaly for the time. Unlike Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) and The Killing of Sister George (1968) which worked to ensure zero audience sympathy for its respective queer villains, Homicidal asks its audience to empathize with what Emily/Warren have endured while also indicting them for their crimes. Its approach to the fluidity of gender performance echoes pre-Code films such as Mabel’s Blunder (1914) and Sylvia Scarlett (1936) and challenges the audience to have a human response to Emily/Warren not predicated solely on a queer/straight binary. Ostensibly, Homicidal meets the requirements of the Hays Code in that Emily/Warren, the character representing a challenge to heteronormativity, is killed and audience sympathy is directed toward the remaining heterosexual couple, Miriam and her boyfriend, Karl (Glenn Corbett). But that reading fails to account for the complexity embedded within the narrative and how the pathos generated for Emily/Warren subversively challenges the Code’s intent to demonize cinema’s queer characters.

That the film is engaging with conversations around sex and gender taking place in the late 1950s and early 1960s is without question. The Emily/Warren revelation echoes news stories of the time exploring gender, identity, and performance (“Danes Change,” “N.Y. Couple Joyous”). When the film makes frequent mention of Emily/Warren having returned from living in Denmark, it is not so slyly connecting the experiences of women like Tamara Rees, Christine Jorgensen, and Charlotte Francis McLeod who became minor celebrities after traveling to the country to receive gender affirming surgery to the experience of Emily/Warren (Rees 32; “American Youth Encounters”; Uenuma). This narrative beat is important because it reminds the audience of the real lives impacted when one is forced to perform a gender at odds with their identity. Given these conversations, it is reasonable to assume that William Castle believed audiences were primed to engage with a more nuanced look at gender performance that codes possibility instead of pathology. Notably, the film also codes and amplifies queer desire when both the men at the hotel and the doctor remark on Emily’s attractiveness. In their performance as Emily, this desire reads as heteronormative and conventional. But to queer audiences, these exchanges signal that one need not be just one thing to be found desirable.

In Miriam’s scream, all of these dynamics find a voice. The scream is obviously a traditional horror scream that both acknowledges a looming threat and anticipates that threat’s eradication. Upon realizing that she has been deceived by Emily/Warren, Miriam’s reaction is one of betrayal but interestingly not one of abject repulsion. Miriam isn’t repulsed by Emily/Miriam as much as she is hurt by their betrayal and frightened by their stated intention to murder her. By choosing to have Miriam reflect disbelief and fear instead of disgust in her scream, Castle avoids associating Emily/Warren’s queerness with their monstrous acts and offers the audience a far more complex understanding of trauma than was popular in horror films at the time.

But the scream also amplifies Emily/Warren’s silence. The ability to scream is clearly something that is on Emily/Warren’s mind as they reference the act of screaming twice, both while in conversation with Helga. The first time occurs early in the film when Emily/Warren returns home from committing their initial murder and tells Helga, “Adrims died screaming” (20:39) with a clear emphasis on the word screaming. Not surprisingly, Emily/Warren is interested in the performance of Adrims fear in the face of death and makes special note of his auditory response as a way to communicate that fear. The reason for this becomes clearer at the end of the film when Emily/Warren with knife in hand taunt Helga:

What we want is quiet. No one to disturb us. It’s a pity you talk too much, Helga. Before you couldn’t talk at all. Well, at least you won’t scream the way Warren did when he was a little boy. Out here in the woods no one could hear him scream, could they? I never liked your eyes, Helga. They see too much. (1:07).

Miriam’s scream is heard, both by the police who arrive and by the audience. But for queer people like Emily/Warren, their screams are silenced by a dominant culture that would rather they disappear than be visible. At a young age. Emily/Warren realized that no one would answer their distressed screams and so they began to move in silence with the understanding that certain gender performances may be necessary for their survival.

Homicidal is a film about the power that lies in the rejection of gender binaries. From the male presenting narrator who introduces the film while engaged in the historically feminine coded act of needlepoint to Emily/Warren’s desire to play with a doll as a child to Emily/Warren literally smashing the figures representing heteronormative marriage, the film contrasts the silence forced upon Emily/Warren as someone who rejects a culture of binary gender norms and contrasts it against the voice (and power) granted to Miriam because of her conformity to gender roles. To see this film as simply another Psycho knockoff, does a disservice to the tremendous-and highly unusual for its time-work the film is doing to complicate discussions of queer villainy.

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Works Cited

“American Youth Encounters Trouble in Seeking Change of Sex in Denmark.” Portland Oregonian, 25 Feb. 1954, https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/files/ww72bb659.

“Danes Change 2nd GI to Girl.” The Associated Press, 24 Feb. 1954, http://transascity.org/files/news/1954_02_24_Boston_American_03.jpg

Davies, Stephen Paul. Out at the Movies: A History of Gay Cinema. Kamera Books, 2016.

Dowling, Maxine. “Brooklyn Fox Picture Full of Chills, Thrills.” New York Daily News, 20 July 1961, p. 62. https://www.newspapers.com/article/daily-news-homicidal/85787720/

Homicidal. Directed by William Castle, performances by Jean Arless, Glenn Corbett, Patricia Breslin, Columbia Pictures, 1961.

Psycho. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, performances by Janet Leigh, Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles, Paramount Pictures, 1960.

Mabel’s Blunder. Directed by Mack Sennett, performances by Mabel Normand, Charley Chase, Eva Nelson, Mutual Film, 1914.

“N.Y. Couple Joyous Son Now Daughter.” The Associated Press, 1 Dec. 1952, https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/files/xg94hp64n.

Robb, Stephen. “How Psycho Changed Cinema.” BBC News, 1 April 2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8593508.stm

Sylvia Scarlett. Directed by George Cuckor, performances by Katherine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Edmund Gwenn, RKO Radio Pictures, 1935.

Suddenly, Last Summer. Directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, performances by Elizabeth Taylor, Katherine Hepburn, Montgomery Clift, Columbia Pictures, 1959.

The Killing of Sister George. Directed by Robert Aldrich, performances by Beryl Reid, Susannah York, Coral Browne, Cinerama Releasing Corporation, 1968.

Uenuma, Francine. “A gender-affirming surgery gripped America in 1952: I am your daughter.” The Washington Post, 12 June 2023, https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/06/12/first-transgender-surgery-christine-jorgensen/