Never having seen this horror mystery film, we caught up with it recently as it turned out in one of the cable channels. Our main interest was to see what Freddie Francis, its director, had done with this tale of revenge in England. The screenplay is by Robert Bloch, a man associated with this genre and whose work was used by people of the stature of Alfred Hitchcock.
"The Psychopath" is dated, but still it will not bore, although the avid fan of this sort of film will guess from early on who the person doing the horrible murders is. The story is simple enough. Four English colleagues who had been on a war crime commission after the end of WWII have found a wealthy German industrialist guilty of using slave labor for his own benefit. Herr Von Sturm widow, and son Mark, now living in England have their own agenda to clear the late entrepreneur's name. When one by one the four friends begin dying, the police, specially Inspector Holloway, become interesting in finding who is the person leaving dolls with a likeness to the victim when they are found.
Having not seen Patrick Wymark in a while, we couldn't help noticing how much looking at him at this period of his life reminded us of another English actor, Anthony Hopkins. They are not exactly alike, but there is an air about both actors that made us think about it. John Standing, a good actor of stage and screen is the young Mark Von Sturm. Margaret Johnson plays his mother, the obsessed widow. Alexander Knox also appears.
"The Psychopath" is dated, but still it will not bore, although the avid fan of this sort of film will guess from early on who the person doing the horrible murders is. The story is simple enough. Four English colleagues who had been on a war crime commission after the end of WWII have found a wealthy German industrialist guilty of using slave labor for his own benefit. Herr Von Sturm widow, and son Mark, now living in England have their own agenda to clear the late entrepreneur's name. When one by one the four friends begin dying, the police, specially Inspector Holloway, become interesting in finding who is the person leaving dolls with a likeness to the victim when they are found.
Having not seen Patrick Wymark in a while, we couldn't help noticing how much looking at him at this period of his life reminded us of another English actor, Anthony Hopkins. They are not exactly alike, but there is an air about both actors that made us think about it. John Standing, a good actor of stage and screen is the young Mark Von Sturm. Margaret Johnson plays his mother, the obsessed widow. Alexander Knox also appears.