Year released: 1973
THE CHARGE: Noise pollution. The bloody murder I can take, but enough with the screaming already!
THE EVIDENCE: The 70s were a classic era of cinema, providing countless gems like Jaws, A Clockwork Orange, Rocky, Star Wars, The Godfather, Chinatown, The Exorcist... the list can go on and on. But it was also the era that gave us films like Night of the Lepus, Satan's Cheerleaders, The Blood Waters of Dr. Z and Exorcist II: The Heretic. I'll bet you can guess which side of the fence Scream Bloody Murder impales itself on.
One day, little Matthew decides to run over his daddy with a tractor, demonstrating how important it is to find hobbies for your kids to take up their time. In the process, Matthew somehow manages to run over his own hand, which is replaced by a hook while he's committed to the local mental hospital.
Years later, Matthew returns home to surprise his mother but gets a surprise of his own when he finds that mom has remarried. It seems that Matthew has mommy issues that make the tragic Greek character Oedipus look well-adjusted by comparison. Before the day is over, Matthew chops up his new daddy and inadvertently kills mommy as well. If only Pokemon Go! was around in 1973, the slain couple might still be alive while Matthew kept busy leveling up his Bulbasaur. That's not intended to be a sexual euphemism, but I think I may have just invented one.
Matthew runs away but everywhere he goes, he sees visions of his departed mom taunting him until he befriends Vera, a budding artist who also happens to be a prostitute. The lucky girl finds herself the new target of Matthew's affection, and he tries to win her over by convincing her that he's rich. He does so by taking her on a tour of his luxurious house - a house he now lives in because he killed its elderly owner.
I hear you offer military discounts. Giggity.
The heart-of-gold hooker soon finds herself trapped in the house. Matthew keeps her tied up while he goes out robbing stores and stealing purses for money in order to buy food and art supplies for his captive. Rather than, you know, just stealing food and art supplies. That Matthew... always doing things the hard way.
As I watched Scream Bloody Murder, it occurred to me that if you were to film a shot-for-shot remake starring b-list comedians, it would fit right in with the bizarre dry comedies sometimes shown on Adult Swim in the wee hours of the morning. The tone of the whole movie is so over-the-top lurid that it becomes comical. The performance by lead actor Fred Holbert, portraying Matthew as a whiny sociopath, is especially horrid. It came as no surprise to me when I learned this is his only credited film role.
Vera started having second thoughts about online dating sites.
But director Marc B. Ray has to take an equal share of the blame. The film is incohesive, more like a series of vigniettes than a fleshed-out story. And he tries so hard to pervade every frame of the film with angst, using tools like a harsh soundtrack, psychedelic camerawork and freeze frames. But it's not angsty, it's anxious, like the high-pitched bark of a chihuahua right before it piddles on your carpet. Again, it was no surprise to find out that Ray only has three directing credits under his belt, and the only one after this movie came about ten years later when he directed an aerobics workout video featuring actress Sandahl Bergman (best known as Valeria from Conan the Barbarian).
When reviewing older films like this, I usually try to consider when they were made and what may have been considered shocking at the time. But by the time this movie was released, b-movie auteurs like H.G. Lewis and Roger Corman, and even classic directors like Hitchcock were pushing the boundaries of on-screen violence. So even by the standards of the time, Scream Bloody Murder is weak sauce.
THE VERDICT: Scream Bloody Murder is GUILTY of trying way too hard to be edgy, and only succeeding at becoming a parody of itself.
