5. Paranoiac (1963)
Mr and Mrs Ashby are a wealthy couple who die in a plane crash, leaving behind, three young children in the care of their aunt Harriet. The eldest son - Anthony, killed himself at age 15. The second son Simon is a cruel alcoholic who spends his time trying to drive sister Eleanor insane so he can get his hands on the family money. However a strange man appears and it happens to be Anthony who faked his death all those years ago. He is greeted with various degrees of enthusiasm by the different members of his family. Simon, of course, tries to kill both Eleanor and Anthony by fixing the car brakes but this fails. Then a second bombshell is dropped. Anthony is not Anthony, he is an impostor hired by an embezzling lawyer. This new 'Tony' goes to investigate some creepy music that he hears with Eleanor in the disused family chapel. A masked maniac attacks Eleanor and 'Tony' comes to save her, unmasking the attacker as Aunt Harriet. She is furious because she says it is a daily ritual thing to calm Simon down. It is then revealed that Simon knows Tony is not Tony because he forced the original 15 year old Tony to write a suicide note and then killed him. He misses his brother, whom he buried on the estate and sings along with a recording of Tony's voice in the chapel. Aunt Harriet is mad at Tony and accuses him of driving Simon mad (although to be fair to Tony, Simon had clearly lost his marbles from the first time we see him in the film). Fake Tony investigates the chapel and finds real Tony's mummified remains. He is confronted by Simon who ties him up. And then Aunt Harriet appears and what do you know? She is a murderess as well. There is a blazing conclusion in which the whole estate goes up in smoke. Who will manage to escape the inferno? Obviously inspired by Psycho, with a dead brother's body substituting for a dead mother's body, Paranoiac benefits greatly from the late, great Oliver Reed in a turn as resident bad guy, Simon. He brings the psychotic monster alive by nuanced facial expressions and mannerisms. He doesn't have to ham it up to give a chilling performance. The plot is rather convoluted, with twists and turns, and things don't really make sense until the end of the movie - but this just compels the viewer to watch the film to see what nuttiness will next unfold. It is not a widely viewed Hammer film, but it is one of the most interesting films they produced. It packs in a lot of drama, suspense and chills into its running time. And let's face it, anything with Oliver Reed in it is worth watching.