A Cloud that Looks Like a Fish

On Robert Bloch and Freddie Francis's "The Psychopath," and Hirokazu Kore-eda's "Shoplifters"

I. Why Should a Madman Be Mad?

Film: The Psychopath
Director/Writer: Freddie Francis/Robert Bloch
Have I Seen Anything Else by This Director and/or Writer: Yes. Francis: Paranoiac; The Skull; The Deadly Bees; Torture Garden; Tales from the Crypt; The Doctor and the Devils. Bloch: Strait-Jacket; The Skull; The Deadly Bees; Torture Garden; The House that Dripped Blood; Asylum. Plus a bunch of his novels and short stories.

So what you’re telling me is that Robert Bloch, author of the original novel Psycho, later in 1966 wrote a movie called The Psychopath that feature a depraved and murderous mother-son relationship? Yes I am indeed telling you that, but this one is set in England.

It’s an Amicus film, is The Psychopath, Amicus being known to me as the cheap but still often pretty good knockoff of Hammer Films. And every bit as British! Looking at the above overlap, if you know some of those films, may suggest to you that director Freddie Francis and screenwriter Robert Bloch weren’t necessarily an ideal pairing. The Deadly Bees for goodness sake? And with how much this film does wind up being a retread of Psycho, it can’t possibly be that good can it? Well, maybe not that good, but good at all? Yes. It is!