This little farm boy kills his dad by running him over with a tractor then the stupid shit falls and manages to run over one of his own hands. This is all before the excellent title shows up. From there on out we get a tale of a whack-job with a hook for a hand and a Norman Bates-like obsession with his mommy that goes about offing anyone who mildly displeases his worldview. Strangely most of these murders don't employ the use of his pirate hand but luckily for us there is some axe and meat-cleaver swinging to make up for that. The first half of this flick plays like a 70's version of a slasher movie and then things shift when our protagonist kidnaps a hooker and it becomes a hostage movie for the second half. Angus Scrimm from PHANTASM shows up here as a nosy doctor in a small bit part and he's the only face I recognized in this whole thing. Things finally culminate in a crazy freak-out of an ending where some ghostly apparitions that look like they popped out of EVIL DEAD show up.
This is worth checking out if you dig proto-slasher flicks or just bloody off-kilter tales of murder and mayhem even if the movie is fairly simplistic and meanders here and there. It's available on a few of those cheap-ass multi-pack horror DVD sets so it's real easy to find. AKA CLAW OF TERROR & MATTHEW
Also re-released a year later as THE CAPTIVE FEMALE playing up the hostage angle: '
At the bottom of a double-bill with this Paul Naschy flick(aka THE HANGING WOMAN):
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