Scream Bloody Murder (1973)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Matthew (Fred Holbert) is a deranged young man who has a serious mother issue. He kills his father with a tractor but when he goes to get off of it he ends up getting his hand caught in it. Now with a hook on his hand, he gets out of the hospital and is enraged when he learns that mommy has married a new guy. He soon hits the road slashing up various men and women who he feels are bad.
SCREAM BLOODY MURDER isn't a perfect horror film or even a good one but there are certainly enough interesting moments to make it worth watching if you're a fan of the genre. It should go without saying but Matthew here has bigger mommy issues than even Norman Bates and watching his madness was part of the entertaining and especially early on in the picture where this thing is basically a slasher way before that term would become popular.
The first forty-minutes or so basically has Matthew meeting a variety of people and eventually getting upset at them for a variety of reason. This causes him to lash out and kill whoever he is upset with. None of the violence is overly graphic or bloody but the scenes are certainly effective with some clever editing. The second portion of the film has him falling for a prostitute (Leigh Mitchell) who he wants to try and make "good" but when she doesn't want to play that he decides to kidnap her and hold her hostage.
Holbert's performance isn't one that I'd call good but there's a certain rawness to it that makes it work in this low-budget tale. The performance almost seems like a real person and thought the weakness of the performance actually helped a little. Mitchell was good in her role as the prostitute and the two of them worked quite well together. The biggest issue with the film is the entire second half as there's just not enough drama or suspense to make up for the lack of killings. Still, SCREAM BLOODY MURDER is an interesting little gem that is worth watching.
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Matthew (Fred Holbert) is a deranged young man who has a serious mother issue. He kills his father with a tractor but when he goes to get off of it he ends up getting his hand caught in it. Now with a hook on his hand, he gets out of the hospital and is enraged when he learns that mommy has married a new guy. He soon hits the road slashing up various men and women who he feels are bad.
SCREAM BLOODY MURDER isn't a perfect horror film or even a good one but there are certainly enough interesting moments to make it worth watching if you're a fan of the genre. It should go without saying but Matthew here has bigger mommy issues than even Norman Bates and watching his madness was part of the entertaining and especially early on in the picture where this thing is basically a slasher way before that term would become popular.
The first forty-minutes or so basically has Matthew meeting a variety of people and eventually getting upset at them for a variety of reason. This causes him to lash out and kill whoever he is upset with. None of the violence is overly graphic or bloody but the scenes are certainly effective with some clever editing. The second portion of the film has him falling for a prostitute (Leigh Mitchell) who he wants to try and make "good" but when she doesn't want to play that he decides to kidnap her and hold her hostage.
Holbert's performance isn't one that I'd call good but there's a certain rawness to it that makes it work in this low-budget tale. The performance almost seems like a real person and thought the weakness of the performance actually helped a little. Mitchell was good in her role as the prostitute and the two of them worked quite well together. The biggest issue with the film is the entire second half as there's just not enough drama or suspense to make up for the lack of killings. Still, SCREAM BLOODY MURDER is an interesting little gem that is worth watching.