How's this for a meeting of the minds - Castle, the inventor of "Percepto" and "Emergo" among other classic gimmicks, teams up with "Psycho" writer Robert Bloch to frame his ultimate gimmick: Joan Crawford. She can't really pass muster as a sweet young thing in the opening sequence, but she just has to last till the inciting beheading and then we flash forward 20 years or so to her release from the nut house. Voices follow her, she hallucinates, she has relapses, and random folks around the homestead - including another mind-boggling special effect, a YOUNG and less than chubby George Kennedy - are meeting the business end of the hatchet. But oh, we hardly suspected what might be going on, and after the truth is revealed in action, it is explicated at length in an absolutely preposterous wrap-up scene that one can only hope was grafted on "Ambersons"-style - though "Psycho" does seem to indicate a Bloch affinity for such devices. Before that howler we are treated to a different kind of camp - somewhat predictable, but high-energy, flamboyant and fun in spite of it.
Review of Strait-Jacket
