Le manchot

What surprised me the most about this movie was how gory it was. For 1973 this is a very bloody movie. The plot is simple. The main character is crazy and for reasons in his own deranged mind goes around killing people. It's a B movie, lots of mistakes and plenty of unanswered questions but you have to expect that from a B slasher movie. It's very simple and easy to follow, no in depth characters. There are some pretty disturbing scenes and I do not recommend the squeamish, children, or those prone to nightmares to view this film. If you're a fan of blood and guts B movies here's an early one that you should see. For the mainstream movie viewer, I would advise passing on this one.

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.

F**ked-up farmer's son Matthew only has eyes for his mother, so he hops onto his father's tractor and ploughs down dear old dad, mangling his own hand in the process. After years in an institution, Matthew, now equipped with a hook (who's stupid idea was that?), is finally allowed to go home only to find that his mother has just remarried.

When he sees his new step-dad making moves on his mum, Matthew wigs out and gets chop happy with an axe; unfortunately, mum catches him red-handed (and red-everything else) and also winds up dead. Matthew decides to hit the road, but everyone he meets seems to remind him of the dead couple back home, so he kills them too.

Eventually Matthew arrives in Venice, Los Angeles, where he befriends Vera, a hooker with a heart and a passion for painting. Amazingly, Vera doesn't pick up on the obvious signs that her new pal is a raving nut-job (even when he interprets her art as 'a man being tortured for chopping up the man who took away his mother'), but she sure gets the message when he abducts her, takes her to his mansion (the previous owner's body being stuffed in an upstairs closet, along with the maid), and treats her like his possession.

Scream Bloody Murder is an unjustly ignored, low-rent B-movie that has been been allowed to fall into the public domain—which is great news for fans of grind-house/drive-in sleaze because it allows them to check it out for next to nothing, via the internet.

I chose to watch this title at random from The Internet Archive, and boy am I glad I did, 'cos it has everything I could ever want from a '70s psycho film: a seriously insane killer with a mommy complex; umpteen mean-spirited murders (hell, even a dog gets it!); messed up hallucination sequences; a sexy female tied up and terrorised; and a few seriously tense and harrowing sequences including a doozy of a finale.

Recommended for those who like their entertainment rough 'n' ready and good 'n' bloody.

Even before the opening credits roll "Scream Bloody Murder" lives up to its title.

Little Matthew(Fred Holbert, in his only film performance) decides he digs his father better dead, and apropos of absolutely nothing, runs him over with a tractor. Even more inexplicably, he manages to mangle his own arm in the process.

Sent away to a mental institution for many years he comes home a teenager with a hook for a hand and an axe to grind(literally) with his mother and new stepfather who soon die painfully for having the unmitigated gall to get married and seem happy about it on the very day he came home from the loony bin.

He then goes on an all out run.... away from the mother of all Oedipus complexes, cutting a bloody swath through everyone he meets, from a young couple giving him a ride out of his small town, to whoever happens to stand in his way.

Meeting painter/hooker with a heart of gold Vera(Leigh Matthews, a two film wonder), things look up a touch for our protagonist. He compliments her art, renames her Daisy,brings her flowers, and kills a john for treating her poorly. If that isn't love, he doesn't know what is.

Desperate to impress and to make good on his claims of wealth and success to fulfill his weird white knight fantasy of "saving" Vera/Daisy, he murders the entire residency of the closest fancy house he can find, kidnaps his lady love and steals from locals to provide her with all the creature comforts you could possibly need while tied to the stolen bed of a psychopath. The resulting action/reaction struggle of Vera/Daisy's survival instincts and Matthew's manias eventually lead to a quirky but extremely satisfying bloody climax, proving the old adage of "where ever you go, there you are".

This film is amateurish on near every level (hammy acting, garish color, jerky cinematography, thin as gossamer plot) and the print that has passed into public domain and an epic ton of multi movie DVD sets is blown out and grainy.

However, "Scream Bloody Murder" succeeds almost in spite of itself. It doesn't bother with overambitious story touches it wouldn't have had the budget for, keeps the plot moving quickly, the body count mounting tidily and the dialog simple. Holbert rips through his campy lines with delightful abandon, and Ms. Matthews manages to be appealing enough to root for despite being little more than a cliché archetype. It isn't trying to teach us moral lessons or have pretensions to high art. It's the mania, madness and mayhem fans of the genre want to see....and while it is often goofy, it is never boring.

By going further than is necessary at every possible turn, the creators of "Scream Bloody Murder" managed to polish their turd into an excellent bloody Valentine, and a forgotten little gem of B film.

6.5 stars

This is one demented piece of film making. The oft mentioned pre-credit sequence sets things off just nicely but little did I imagine that this would carry on in much the same manic fashion. Fred Holbert was rather stiff in the title role, and I see he did nothing else. Leigh Mitchell, on the other hand , was excellent as the lady in distress, and I'm surprised she did little else. Well written and decently directed, my public domain copy was a bit faded and jumpy but the passion (or possibly madness!) of the maker shines through. A little repetitive at times, there are nevertheless some super moments. I liked the sailor's arrival at Vera's dwelling. I loved the doctor's arrival and Vera's plucky post bath action. There is also a delicious moment when after a big surprise he casually picks up a limb momentarily so he can close the front door.