SECRETS OF A PSYCHOPATH (2015)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

There may not be any momentous secrets in PSYCHOPATH, but the recently deceased Bert I. Gordon may have had a "secret of youth" that allowed him to once more assume writer-director status on a movie when he was 92 years of age. True, it was his last film, and I don't imagine it ever got wide distribution, but it's an interesting accomplishment nonetheless.

Gordon may well have thought he was making some statement about Freudian psychology, but I think it's pretty likely that PSYCHOPATH derives almost completely from earlier movies about serial killers-- not least Norman Bates of PSYCHO-- who lure victims into their homes before slaughtering them. There are even a couple of films about brother-sister teams that go around murdering persons looking for romantic hookups, though there's naturally no proof that Gordon saw any specific film. 

Psychotic Henry Foster (Mark Famiglietti) lives in a house owned by his sister Catherine (Kari Wuhrer, the only readily recognizable name in the cast). Throughout the film Henry, who suffers from impotence, invites three or four women into the house so that he can try to get it up, and when he can't, he and his sister dress up in faux children's clothes and murder the women. 

There's no secret about Catherine's motives; she and Henry have already slept together a few times, and she believes that they ought to stay together for keeps. Henry may or may not be impotent with Catherine, which could be his motive for trying to find other mates. He also alludes to some trauma that he thinks caused his little problem, though he can't quite remember what it is. There's not much forward momentum to Gordon's plot; the killings are very episodic until Henry randomly chooses one girl to keep prisoner at the house, which in theory is supposed to ramp up the excitement. The maneuver does serve to push Catherine over the edge, so that she tries to eliminate her rival. However, Henry, who has finally remembered His Secret Trauma, finally strikes back against his domineering sibling.

Gordon really has no interest in any of the characters but Henry, with even the seductive Catherine rating as a support-figure. But what is the big secret? It turns out that Henry flashes back to one of his romantic interludes with his sister, and remembers that because she distracted him, their two children-- not mentioned until then-- get drowned in a ridiculously shallow wading pool. This led to the sinful siblings dressing up like their dead kids-- more or less resembling a male and female Shirley Temple masquerade-- in order to exterminate victims. As revelations go, this one doesn't even have the shock value of absurdity; it just sits there and looks dumb.

And thus ends the director's last "B.I.G." film. It's not badly photographed, and I've certainly much worse psycho-films. But the murders are as boring as the psychology, and so the movie's only virtue is how sexy Wuhrer looks in all of her scenes (except when she's in kiddie-drag).