Scream Bloody Murder (1973) Timeline Explained – Every Event in Order

Matthew kills Mack Parsons because he is consumed by jealousy and rage over his mother's remarriage. During his 18-year absence in the psychiatric hospital, his mother married their neighbor Mack Parsons. This triggers Matthew's deep-seated, incestuous feelings for his mother and his distorted view of family life. The arrival of this new father figure in his life is something Matthew cannot accept, leading him to attack Parsons with an axe.

Foreshadowing: The timeline notes that Matthew's return unsettles the town and foreshadows the violence to come, with his disturbing feelings for his mother already present.

• mack parsons
• murder
• jealousy
• mother
• remarriage

Matthew becomes obsessed with Vera because she reminds him of his mother - both physically and in the role they play in his disturbed psyche. Vera is described as a painter and prostitute who bears a resemblance to his mother. This triggers his Oedipal complex and his pattern of seeking a maternal figure while simultaneously recoiling from sexual intimacy. Vera becomes the new object onto which he projects his twisted maternal fixation.

Foreshadowing: Earlier, the narrative establishes that Matthew wrestles with disturbing, incestuous feelings toward his mother even as he recoils from sex - this pattern directly transfers to Vera.

• vera
• obsession
• mother
• fixation
• prostitute

After Matthew murders Mack Parsons with an axe, his mother discovers the crime and a heated argument ensues. During the confrontation, Matthew knocks his mother to the ground, and she dies after striking her head on a rock. This parricide - following the earlier patricide via the tractor accident - completes Matthew's destruction of his parental figures and deepens his isolation.

Foreshadowing: Matthew's earlier incestuous feelings and his violent rejection of Mack Parsons as a father figure set the stage for this confrontation.

• mother
• death
• parsons
• argument
• rock

Matthew kills the young couple hitchhiking the morning after murdering Mack Parsons because his violence has escalated beyond control. Having just killed two people (Mack and his mother, though the latter's death was accidental), Matthew is now on a murderous rampage with no moral constraints. He kills the man by beating his head with a rock and drowns the woman in a roadside stream, demonstrating his indiscriminate willingness to kill anyone who crosses his path.

Foreshadowing: The murder of Mack Parsons was his first adult murder and marked his cementing isolation from others - the spree follows naturally.

• couple
• hitchhike
• murder spree
• road
• killing

The hook represents Matthew's permanent transformation from ordinary life into a monster. As a child, his left hand was mangled in the tractor accident that killed his father, and doctors replaced the ruined limb with a hook while he was confined in the psychiatric hospital. This physical disfigurement symbolizes his broken psyche and serves as the instrument of nearly all his murders - from killing Mack Parsons with an axe to ultimately killing himself with his own hook.

Foreshadowing: The timeline explicitly notes that the hook replacement signals a permanent break from ordinary life.

• hook
• hand
• injury
• tractor
• transformation

Matthew kills the sailor, one of Vera's clients, in a fit of jealous rage. Having become obsessed with Vera and viewing her as his maternal possession, Matthew cannot tolerate the idea of other men having sexual relations with her. When he sees the drunken sailor leaving Vera's area, his jealousy ignites and he slits the man's throat, asserting control over Vera and eliminating what he perceives as a betrayal.

Foreshadowing: This directly follows from his fixation on Vera and his earlier pattern of violent jealousy.

• sailor
• jealousy
• kill
• client
• throat

Vera stabs Matthew because she recognizes his deep-seated discomfort with sexuality and uses it as her only weapon to escape. Realizing Matthew is averse to sexual intimacy, Vera attempts to coerce him into a sexual encounter to lower his guard. While Matthew is momentarily distracted, she grabs a loose door hook and stabs him, using the one weapon available to her in her attempt to flee from the mansion where he has imprisoned her.

Foreshadowing: The narrative establishes earlier that Matthew recoils from sex while simultaneously having incestuous fixations - Vera exploits this contradiction.

• vera
• stab
• escape
• hook
• sexuality

Matthew kills the mansion owner and staff to create a space where he can possess Vera and fulfill his delusion of building a new life with her. He bluffs his way into the mansion, smothers the owner with a pillow, hacks the maid to death with a cleaver, and even beheads the pet dog - showing no mercy to anything living. He then brings Vera there as his 'prisoner' in his twisted attempt to establish a new family unit, recreating the family structure he destroyed.

Foreshadowing: This follows his pattern of eliminating anyone who stands between him and his maternal fixation.

• mansion
• owner
• maid
• dog
• murder

Matthew kills Vera when he catches her during her escape attempt after she stabs him. Having imprisoned her in the mansion and attempted to force her into a subservient role, Matthew cannot accept her rejection or defiance. When she attempts to flee, he catches her and rips her throat out with his hook, murdering the final object of his maternal obsession. This act marks the complete collapse of whatever remained of his humanity.

Foreshadowing: Vera's imprisonment and Matthew's violent control over her foreshadow this final confrontation.

• vera
• kill
• escape
• hook
• throat

Matthew kills himself in the church because he has completely lost his grip on reality. After murdering Vera, he runs through the town haunted by visions and phantoms of all his victims - his father, Mack Parsons, the couple, the sailor, the mansion owner, the maid, and Vera. These hallucinations chase him through the streets until he breaks into a church. Overwhelmed by guilt, madness, and the weight of his crimes, he uses his hook to take his own life, ending his descent from a broken psyche.

Foreshadowing: The narrative explicitly notes that with Vera dead, Matthew's grip on reality unravels completely.

• suicide
• church
• hook
• hallucinations
• end

Matthew's violence stems from severe psychological trauma originating in childhood - the accidental patricide via tractor and subsequent loss of his hand. This trauma, combined with his confinement in a psychiatric hospital for 18 years, twisted his development and created an Oedipal complex mixed with sexual disgust. He cannot form healthy relationships, instead seeking maternal figures while violently rejecting sexuality. His murders represent attempts to possess and control these figures, and each killing further detaches him from reality until complete madness takes hold.

Foreshadowing: The opening trauma with the tractor establishes the foundation for all subsequent psychological deterioration.

• trauma
• psychology
• childhood
• obeed
• mental illness