Scream Bloody Murder

Scream Bloody Murder (also known as Matthew, Claw of Terror and The Captive Female) is a 1973 American slasher film written, directed, and produced by Marc B. Ray, and co-written by Larry Alexander.

Plot

As his father works on a tractor, young Matthew turns it on and kills him with it, damaging his own left hand in the process. Matthew is subsequently placed in a psychiatric hospital, and his mangled limb is replaced with a hook. At the age of eighteen, Matthew is released from the asylum, and returns home, discovering that in his absence his mother has married a neighbor named Mack Parsons. Matthew, who harbors incestuous feelings for his mother despite his aversion to sex, dislikes Parsons, and one night he murders him with an axe. Matthew's mother discovers what her son has done, and when an argument breaks out between them, Matthew knocks her to the ground, and she dies due to hitting her head on a rock.

In the morning, a distraught Matthew hitches a ride with a young couple, whom he also kills, beating in the man's head with a rock and drowning the woman in a roadside stream. Matthew eventually reaches a town, where he makes the acquaintance of a painter and prostitute named Vera, who reminds Matthew of his mother. Matthew becomes obsessed with Vera, to the point of slitting the throat of one of her clients, a drunken sailor, in a jealous rage. Wanting to impress Vera and give her a better life, Matthew bluffs his way into a mansion, where he smothers the owner with a pillow, hacks the maid to death with a cleaver, and beheads the pet dog.