Former actor Ray Danton, acknowledged for playing the title role in THE GEORGE RAFT STORY (1961), would sink his teeth into the horror genre by directing three low budget cult films. In the early 1970s, Danton helmed the Robert Quarry hippy/vampire opus THE DEATHMASTER, shot the added American scenes for HANNAH QUEEN OF THE VAMPIRES (aka CRYPT OF THE LIVING DEAD) and then went on to the gonzo ESP shocks of PSYCHIC KILLER, followed by a prosperous career as a television director up until his death in 1991. Although I favor his moody bloodsucking duo by a long shot, most fans of 1970s B movies typically hold this piece of trashy hokum as the best of the three.

Thirty-something mama’s boy Arnold Masters (Jim Hutton) is wrongly accused of killing the doctor who refused to treat his mother’s brain tumor, and has now been committed to an asylum. Inmate Emilio (Stack Pierce) is able to murder a pimp from his cell with a special amulet, and after he commits suicide, the precious item comes into the hands of Arnold. Conveniently enough, the real mudererer in Arnold’s case comes clean, so he is set free and returns to the now decrepit house where he lived with his late mother. From his living room armchair, Arnold is able to have “out of body” experiences to slaughter those responsible for his mother’s death and for sending him to the asylum. Since all those murdered (in various, inventive ways) are somehow connected with the just-released Arnold, suspicious Lieutenant Jeff Morgan (Paul Burke) stakes out his house with the help of the disturbed man’s psychiatrist, Dr. Laura Scott (Julie Adams, who was married to the director at the time). Not being able to figure out how Arnold could commit murder without leaving his home, a psychic expert Dr. Gubner (Nehemiah Persoff) is brought in with his far-fetched, but on-target theory of astral projection.

PSYCHIC KILLER is the umpteenth movie to play on the “mother” complex from Hitchcock’s PSYCHO, but it also predates the more-thrilling psychic horrors of films like CARRIE, THE FURY and PATRICK by several years. The film can be entertaining, but it’s basically a series of shoestring shenanigans played out by a “who’s who” cast of B movie veterans. Producer Mardi Rustam (who was associated with director Al Adamson's DRACULA VS. FRANKENSTEIN and THE FEMALE BUNCH) was very good at assembling solid casts, even if the names only meant something to those who follow exploitation films (this would also extend to his more celebrated EATEN ALIVE the following year). Another associate of Adamson, Greydon Clark here serves as executive producer, as well as one of the writers, and he also appears in on-screen as a doomed detective with a really loud 1970s suit.

Along with the aforementioned actors, there’s also Whit Bissell (I WAS A TEENAGE FRANKENSTEIN), Aldo Ray (EVILS OF THE NIGHT), Judith Brown (THE BIG DOLL HOUSE), Rod Cameron (THE ELECTRONIC MONSTER), John Dennis (BLACKENSTEIN), Neville Brand (here as an irate butcher who dies apparently because his meat prices are too high!) and Della Reese (!). Sultry Mary Wilcox (THE BEAST OF THE YELLOW NIGHT, LOVE ME DEADLY) is a nurse who teases her elderly bed-ridden patient, stripping her way into the shower where she generously strokes her breasts. legs and buttocks before her sudden, very violent death. You would think this portion of nudity and blood would give the film an “R” rating, but it actually got by with a “PG”, something that could only slide in the 1970s. For today’s generation, the name Jim Hutton means nothing, except maybe for being the father of Timothy, but to us who grew up in the 1970s, he was a very familiar star. Horror fans will best remember him as the husband in the haunting telefilm DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK (1973), but he was also in many major movies, several opposite John Wayne, and was briefly TV’s “Ellery Queen” in 1975. Hutton’s appeal as an actor is on display here with his creepy, isolated and sarcastic portrayal of Arnold Masters: the tall and lanky actor sadly died of cancer in 1979 while still in his 40s.