Funny about HOMICIDAL. For a Castle picture, it's at least a valid B-movie (while most of his stuff is C or D). But the irony in his obvious and unmitigated imitation of PSYCHO is that Hitchcock made PSYCHO to begin with because of William Castle! Hitch saw that Castle's movies were doing well at the box office, but weren't very good. So he wondered what a film like that might be like if someone good (i.e., himself) made it. Hence, PSYCHO... And then Castle sees PSYCHO and copies it with HOMICIDAL.
So you have the imitator imitating the imitation of the imitator: Castle copying Hitchcock copying Castle copying Hitchcock! But you can't really even call it a "rip-off" of PSYCHO; it's more of an homage, being so similar and coming out the very next year.
Of course, it's stupid, the film. But I rather "like" it. In an odd way, it's actually one of Castle's most polished -- well, comparatively -- films. And if anything, it's slightly creepier than PSYCHO, perhaps because of its downmarket elements.
So you have the imitator imitating the imitation of the imitator: Castle copying Hitchcock copying Castle copying Hitchcock! But you can't really even call it a "rip-off" of PSYCHO; it's more of an homage, being so similar and coming out the very next year.
Of course, it's stupid, the film. But I rather "like" it. In an odd way, it's actually one of Castle's most polished -- well, comparatively -- films. And if anything, it's slightly creepier than PSYCHO, perhaps because of its downmarket elements.