The Psychopath

aka Schizo

A man is brutally murdered in an alley and the killer leaves behind a doll sculpted to look like the victim. So begins a string of murders, each more gruesome than the last, and each time a creepy doll is left behind at the crime scene. As the number of suspects dwindles with every murder, it’s up to Inspector Holloway to suss out who might have the motive and the means to commit these heinous crimes. Given the title and the fact that it was written by Robert Bloch, you’d think The Psychopath would be trying to rip-off Psycho, but The Psychopath actually plays more like an English giallo than a proto-slasher. The killer is even seen wearing black gloves in one sequence. The Psychopath is fairly tame overall, with most of the violence happening off screen, but the story is good and there’s enough variety in the kills to keep the movie from being boring.

Rating: 61%

(Image from Wikipedia)

The Evil of Frankenstein

The Evil of Frankenstein is a soft reboot of Hammer's Frankenstein series. It rewrites Baron Frankenstein's origins, while totally ignoring the events of The Revenge of Frankenstein. It's essentially the sequel to a movie that never existed. The Evil of Frankenstein opens with the Baron being driven out of town because of his ghoulish experiments. He decides to return to his former home in Karlstaad, hoping to salvage possessions and furniture from his abandoned home that can be used to finance his experiments. It's there, in his ransacked chateau, that the Baron finally tells his assistant of the experiment that lead him to be driven out of Karlstaad. This new origin story, along with the design of the creature, puts The Evil of Frankenstein more in line with Universal's Frankenstein films. The movie becomes a hodgepodge of all of the Frankenstein films that came before it filtered through the bawdy, gothic lens of Hammer in the 1960s. The Baron, though not totally redeemed, is now more of a sympathetic character. A shadow of his former, murderous self. Most of the villainy in the film is carried out by Zoltan, a crooked hypnotist hellbent on revenge. As mentioned, the design of the creature approximates the classic look of Karloff's Frankenstein. Unfortunately, the bulky makeup robs any expressiveness from the creature's performance. And yet, despite all of these criticisms, The Evil of Frankenstein is actually quite entertaining.

Rating: 66%

(Image from Wikipedia)