Strait-Jacket

Strait-Jacket (1964) is a black-and-white horror thriller you can watch online on iFILM. Two decades ago, Lucy Harbin took an axe to her husband and his lover while her little daughter watched. Now she's released from the asylum and comes home to a grown-up Carol who barely knows her.

Lucy wants it all back — her daughter, a household, the approval of Carol's well-off fiancé. But the moment she steps into the home of the brother who raised the orphaned girl, old memories start tilting her fragile calm. Then the axe turns up again. Joan Crawford plays it raw, swinging between pity and dread, and never lets you settle on whether you're watching a sick woman or a predator.

Director William Castle, the great showman of gimmick cinema, shot it from a script by Robert Bloch, who wrote Psycho. Watch for George Kennedy and a very young Lee Majors in small parts. A model sixties psycho-thriller for anyone who likes suspense built with shadows instead of effects. Stream Strait-Jacket (1964) online on iFILM.