{"id":28977,"date":"2018-10-19T00:05:49","date_gmt":"2018-10-19T04:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=28977"},"modified":"2018-09-14T18:49:51","modified_gmt":"2018-09-14T22:49:51","slug":"strait-jacket-1964-blu-ray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2018\/10\/19\/strait-jacket-1964-blu-ray\/","title":{"rendered":"Strait-Jacket (1964) [Blu-Ray]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It\u2019s well documented that William Castle had aspirations to be Hitchcock, or in many ways rise to his level of filmmaking prowess. Speaking as someone who loves Castle as much as Hitchcock, I\u2019d say they\u2019re about neck and neck, but with different ideas of what constitutes a horror movie. Castle\u2019s talent is theatrics, and with \u201cStrait-Jacket\u201d he takes what is essentially his own version of \u201cPsycho\u201d and stages it as a twisty, occasionally campy, and very cerebral murder mystery. Castle also goes a step forward, turning his killer on their victims with an axe that they use to lop their heads off.<\/p>\n

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Twenty years after murdering her husband and his lover with an aex, Lucy is released in to the custody of her daughter Carol, who witnessed the event. Now that Carol has built a life and is on the verge of being wed, Lucy hopes to make a good impression. But soon Lucy begins experiencing hallucinations, and mysterious black outs, while people around the town begin disappearing. When Lucy\u2019s doctor from the Asylum visits and then suddenly disappears, she and Carol begin to wonder what\u2019s happening. Is Lucy murdering people unconsciously? Is she still mad? Is someone seeking revenge? Or is this some sick ploy from someone who doesn\u2019t want Carol and her husband together?<\/p>\n

There are a lot of parallels you can draw from \u201cPsycho,\u201d as much of \u201cStrait-Jacket\u201d involves the complicated mother and child relationship, the sick turns it takes, the shadow draped murderer, red herrings, murders of characters we don\u2019t see coming, and of course, the big reveal in climax. Castle\u2019s reveal is just as great as Hitchcock\u2019s, as \u201cPsycho\u201d opted for a shock, while \u201cStrait-Jacket\u201d aims for an emotional gut punch. It\u2019s noted in the documentary \u201cSpine Tingler!\u201d that Joan Crawford was not okay with handing the emotional weight of the finale to Diane Baker, so the cuts back and forth kind of lessen the punch. That said, \u201cStrait-Jacket\u201d is a damn good murder mystery that also presents us with heavy shades of a slasher movie long before the sub-genre ever came to popularity.<\/p>\n

\u201cStrait-Jacket\u201d is never afraid to get as grisly as possible within the constraints of censors, and despite the fact that most of the murders are committed in the shadows, one scene delivers the full aftermath of what unfolded in the prologue. Robert Bloch\u2019s script is very well paced, allowing us to view the fall out of the vicious murder in the prologue, and then see how it managed to affect mom Lucy and daughter Carol, respectively. A lot of the narrative relies foreshadowing and heavy set up, leaving us to wonder what\u2019s happening to Lucy, and if there\u2019s something more devious underneath the seams. Castle builds a very taut and engaging horror drama that I quite enjoyed through to the very end. I\u2019ve admittedly never seen it until recently; it\u2019s a fantastic horror drama and a perfect companion to \u201cPsycho\u201d if you\u2019re in to a twisted double bill.<\/p>\n

The new blu-ray from Shout! comes with an audio commentary with authors\/Film Historians Steve Haberman and David J. Schow and Film Historian Constantine Nasr. \u201cJoan Had Me Fired\u201d is a seven minute interview with actress Anne Helm, who discusses meeting with William Castle, and how she met and befriended Joan Crawford, only for her to turn around and get her fired from the movie. \u201cOn the Road with Joan Crawford\u201d is a six minute interview with publicist Richard Kahn who discusses working with Castle, and how he was brought together with Joan Crawford.<\/p>\n

He also explains how Crawford was the prop for the film much like the Ghost Glasses and Tingler Devices. \u201c\u201cBattle-Ax\u201d: The Making of Strait-Jacket\u201d is a fourteen minute segment from a previous release, with a lot of interviews, including Diane Baker. She and the surviving people behind the film discuss the legacy of the movie, and the people involved, including Anne Helm. Finally there are Joan Crawford Costume and Make Up Tests, an Ax Swinging Screen Test, HD Trailers for the film, and a Still Gallery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s well documented that William Castle had aspirations to be Hitchcock, or in many ways rise to his level of filmmaking prowess. Speaking as someone who loves Castle as much as Hitchcock, I\u2019d say they\u2019re about neck and neck, but with different ideas of what constitutes a horror movie. Castle\u2019s talent is theatrics, and with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7,12],"tags":[240,302,477,696,703,1087,1191],"class_list":["post-28977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collectors-den","category-halloween-horror-month","category-movie-reviews","tag-crime","tag-drama","tag-horror","tag-murder","tag-mystery","tag-thriller","tag-william-castle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28977"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28977\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28979,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28977\/revisions\/28979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}