In the end, Strait-Jacket can’t help but succumb to Castle’s B-Movie splendour, and while that may not lead to anything ground-breaking, the ride is certainly fun.
William Castle’s 1964 B-film, Strait-Jacket, is a psychological horror that follows Lucy Harbin – Joan Crawford, in the worst wig of her career – who has recently been released from a psychiatric hospital, having decapitated her husband and his mistress in front of her three-year-old child. But as Harbin moves back in with her daughter, Carol (Diane Baker), a series of murders once more haunt the town.
As horrifying as all this sounds, Castle’s film is more camp-horror than shocker, primarily due to the film’s low budget and cartoonish, bloodless beheadings. But this only adds to the fun of Castle’s horror romp. Written by Robert Bloch, the author of Psycho, Strait-Jacket could be described as Psycho’s less-scary twin, despite some visual shocks and a twisty ending. Yet it quickly forgoes its horror in favour of the ridiculous reasonably early on, marking it out from Hitchcock’s 1960 masterpiece.
Strait-Jacket follows the so-called hagsploitation trend set by Robert Aldrich’s cult classic What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). This horror subgenre predominantly featured a formerly glamorous older woman who was mentally unbalanced, joyously tormenting all those around her.
Undoubtedly, Joan Crawford proved an excellent choice for the lead, elevating the film with her delightful performance. However, her performance also carries a hint of sadness, as the parallels between Crawford’s declining career and her character’s inability to be taken seriously by society haunt each scene.
Throughout the film, Castle tries to surround the narrative with discussions on trauma, internal pain and personality disorder to varying degrees of success. But in the end, Strait-Jacket can’t help but succumb to Castle’s B-Movie splendour, and while that may not lead to anything ground-breaking, the ride is certainly fun.
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