Scream Bloody Murder (1973)

I wanted to but couldn't!

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

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.

Matthew's quite the disturbed individual. Not only does he run over his dad with a combine harvester as a kid (also resulting in the loss of his hand), he can't stand the thought of anyone touching his mother, even when she's dead! In fact, he's so obsessed by this that he sees his mother's face on any woman he meets. It doesn't help that he kills just about everyone he meets, and has a hook for a hand.So begins Scream Bloody Murder, a nasty little film which could have only been made in the seventies. Instead of the usual slasher routine, we follow Matthew as he goes on the run, inevitably running afoul of his own insanity. Redemption shows up in the form of Vera (or Daisy, as he insists on calling her), a prostitute that he becomes quite taken with…as long as nobody touches her. The film switches gears upon meeting Vera, as we see Matthew trying to woo her with money, car and houses (I'll leave it up to you to find out how he gets these things), leading to scenes of Matthew trying to lead a happy domestic life with someone held against their will. The scenes between Matthew and Vera are very well acted, and you can actually feel the anxiety there, from Vera, who's basically captive to a madman, and Matthew, who is completely off his trolley. It's not overly gory, but moves along nicely from the killing spree in the first half to the cat and mouse games of the second half, leading to a bizarre finally in a church. Angus Scrimm of Phantasm turns up for a brief cameo as a doctor too, which adds to the cheese factor. This one is in the public domain and very easy to find. Definitely one for slasher fans looking to see how these kind of films worked before the old Halloween/Friday 13th template came into play.

Well I must say that "Scream Bloody Murder" came to my attention one day when I was at my local video shop, because of it's rather eye catching title and cover, and when I put this movie into the DVD player I found that this is a real nasty piece of 1970's exploitation, that almost doesn't come up for air. The murder spree begins almost straight away and okay this is obviously low budget and the fact that it's the 70's that the gore effects are rather tame, and the acting is rather shaky, and this movie doesn't create any tension at all but rather go all out for a complete slaugherfest, which eventually gets too ridiculous for it's own good, but sadly it is let down by a rather weak ending.So all in all, not a bad time waster, there are better examples of the 70's horror, but if you rather all out slaughterfest than tension or mood, well then go for this.

Half crazy, this guy takes it all the way! I am working my way through the Chilling Classics 50 Movie Pack Collection and SCREAM BLOODY MURDER is the fifth movie in the set.Matthew, a young boy, accidentally kills his father and is subsequently sent to a mental hospital. There he remains for many years. Upon his release, he returns home to discover his mother has just remarried – the very day of his release. Disliking his step-father, Mack Parsons, he murders the man. Then in a fit of rage, reminiscent of Oedipus, he kills his own mother! Well that's the first 13 minutes, so now mayhem ensues… Weeping tears of blood, the crazed young man now turns his murderous intentions upon others. Much like the Trinity Killer, in Showtime's "Dexter," Matthew recreates his murders over-and-over again, to preserve the memories of his one true love.The print was poor, the score didn't do much to keep the movie moving along; but, at least it wasn't intrusive. The acting was b-grade, for sure. And, the plot was very simplistic and straightforward.If you are a phan, you will be as pleased as I was to see Angus Scrimm as Dr. Epstein. He is credited as Rory Guy in the credits.The film really comes off the rails during the last half-hour; and, the struggle between Vera and Matthew heighten the tension. The end is shocking enough, to make it worth sitting through the movie. Released in 1975, SCREAM BLOODY MURDER is just my kind of old-fashioned, B-grade horror movie!