Homicidal was announced as filmmaker William Castle’s next project in a 25 Aug 1960 DV news brief. Although a 14 Sep 1960 DV item noted that the title had been changed from The Haunted, the 25 Aug 1960 DV indicated that The Haunted was a separate project. Castle’s most recent picture, 13 Ghosts (1960, see entry) was said to have cost $500,000, which the budget for Homicidal was expected to exceed.
       A 4 Nov 1960 DV production chart stated that principal photography began 1 Nov 1960. Location filming took place in Ventura and Solvang, CA, according to the 27 Oct 1960 and 4 Nov 1960 issues of DV.
       Castle promised a gimmick to coincide with the theatrical release, as stated in a 6 Apr 1961 NYT article. The “B-movie” filmmaker had previously arranged for skeletons to fly over audiences at first-run screenings of The House on Haunted Hill (1958, see entry), and for theater seats to vibrate at showings of The Tingler (1959, see entry). For Homicidal, the gimmick turned out to be a sixty-second “fright break” five minutes before the film’s end, in which moviegoers were offered the chance to leave the theater and get full refunds if they were too scared to watch the conclusion. The 15 Jun 1961 DV noted that the gimmick backfired when some audience members connived to sit through two showings, asking for their money back at the second fright break. Henceforth, the picture’s “money back coupons” were numbered to avoid such fraud. The 3 Aug 1961 DV stated that the gimmick was “working ‘great’” according to Castle, who said theaters were taking in an average of $20,000 weekly, and only paying out $100 in refunds.
       Actress Joan Marshall, who played both a female and a male in the dual role of “Emily/Warren,” was credited under the pseudonym “Jean Arless.”