For those looking for a film that harks back to the politically incorrect days of the sick sick seventies, this one will fit the bill quite nicely.

Donald (Grimaldi) is a seriously bent individual. He comes home from work one day to find his domineering mother has died. The voices in his held tell him he is now free, and to celebrate his liberation Donald jumps up and down on the furniture and plays disco music at a high volume. He then takes his newfound freedom to the next logical step by bringing a woman home, tying her up naked, dousing her with gasoline, and setting her on fire with a flame thrower. This is an extremely distressing scene, and the camera doesn't flinch for a second. The special effect that is used to set this woman aflame is cheap looking yet manages to be disturbingly effective.

It seems Donald's mother used to burn him when he was bad, so now he's got this fire thing to work out. He continues bringing women home, torching them, and keeping their charred corpses around the house. As the film goes on Donald's psyche begins to deteriorate. He dreams of his burned and blackened victims attacking him and dragging him into a grave. Soon his delusions start leaking into the waking world, and he hallucinates that the women's corpses are moving about the house on their own. Or IS he hallucinating?

Crazed killers with mother fixations are an old tradition in horror films, thanks toPsycho. Director Ellison gives Hitchcock's film a further nod by staging a stairway murder similar to Martin Balsam's death scene in Psycho. Donald, of course, substitutes the butcher knife for his trusty flamethrower. He may be sick, but at least he's got style.

None of the characters is even remotely likeable, and the film gets even sleazier when Ellison tries to get the viewer to sympathize with Donald. This is reprehensible trash at its best. I recommend it for its unadulterated shock value, utter tastelessness, and the fact that the Legion of Decency would have a collective embolism if they knew this was in the video stores of America.