Review for Paranoiac!

An early diversion from their usual array of monsters after midnight, Hammer's Paranoiac wades instead into the icy waters of psychological terror. Indeed, with its myriad plot twists, fragile psyches and family histrionics, Freddie Francis' picture appears like the precocious younger sibling to Clouzot's Les Diaboliques (1955) and Hitchcock's Psycho (1960). And like many a kid attempting to emulate a more successful brother, the film never really stakes its own place in the world. Telling the story of a privileged family torn apart by death, and the subsequent return of the brother believed to have committed suicide (played by Alexander Davion), Paranoiac is as melodramatic as its plot suggests. Oliver Reed as older brother Simon is bug-eyed and raving (drinking and threatening to cut up fellow rummies with a set of darts) while Janette Scott as his sister mopes forlornly for her dead/returned brother before taking her turn to erupt into hysterics; "I'm mad! I'm insane!!!!"

Hammer regular Jimmy Sangster's script does offer constant surprises, but any intriguing psychological questions offered (an incestuous liaison, childhood trauma and threats of fratricide) are simply thrown in and tossed aside to keep up the narrative's spiralling momentum. Francis directs with a brisk pace and adds a couple of set pieces (including the appearance of a demonic choirboy that prefigures the dénouement in 1973s Don't Look Now) that enhance the delirium. Equally rewarding is the former DP's (Francis lensed the not altogether dissimilar The Innocents in 1961) total embrace of Hammer's trademark Gothicism. Billowing gowns and dark shadows hide the family shame and the isolated cliff top estate adds a claustrophobia that reflects the protagonists' various cognitive prisons. A curiosity worthy of attention then, but without the jet black humour of Hitchcock or the humanism of Clouzot Paranoiac is exposed as an affected 'might-of-been' that keeps us guessing but fails to leave a lasting impression.