A deranged rural farmer becomes a grave robber and murderer after the death of his possessive mother.
Films based on killers can be hit and miss, some can even get lost in time.
Miscellaneous facts about the film:
Harvey Keitel auditioned for the role of Ezra Cobb.
Writer/co-director Alan Ormsby cameos as the picture of Maureen Selby’s late husband.
Producer Tom Karr raised $200,000 budget from the money he earned as a concert promoter for acts such as Led Zeppelin, Three Dog Night, The Temptations and Rod Stewart.
Cosette Lee, who played Roberts Blossom elderly mother in the film, was in actuality only 14 years older than Blossom.
The films theme music is an instrumental version of an old religious hymn called ‘The Old Rugged Cross’.
Tom Savini said in an interview that the corpses in the film were made using plastic skull kits which were glued to bodies built of chicken wire and painted cotton. The faces were created by taking plaster castings of various relatives of the crew, including producer Tom Karr’s wife.
Bob Clark, who previously made Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things (1973) and Dead of Night (1972) with Alan Ormsby and Jeff Gillen, was originally approached to direct this film too. However Clark felt the script was too disturbing for his taste so he opted to produce the film, though he was uncredited.