I was searching youtube for made-for-TV mysteries one night and came across this little 1970's ABC mystery.It begins innocently; a little girl gets dropped off at her house and wanders inside... and suddenly all hell breaks loose when the girl discovers a ton of blood all over the kitchen. She goes to the neighbors and a police investigation begins to find the girl's mom... but Marian was not the most faithful of wives.Not only was the mystery intriguing but the acting was excellent, especially for a TV movie. I loved the title credits' originality and the soundtrack. Check this underrated little movie out with All the Kind Strangers (1974) and The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976), you won't be disappointed.

I remember seeing this as a child...It would come on TV every now and then. As a little boy, I could never get past the opening scene where Eve Plumb comes home and finds all that blood. I was terrified that it was real. Seeing this 30 years later, it has lost more than a bit of the terror it held over me, but with that said, it is very well acted. The detective story is pretty run of the mill, and not as clever as Columbo, but a notch above Murder She Wrote. The final scenes are pretty powerful and the dialog seems very risqué for the 70s. It is great to see this again; it is very well made for a TV movie and it made me long for the days of 70s TV. Now all we got are Lifetime movies, which are pretty dumb. This movie is not on Netflix, but I was able to order one from www.adifferentcity.com the copy is fine.

I saw the initial telecast of this crime drama on ABC in 1970. The Sunday Night Movie was usually a theatrical film trimmed for broadcast and every so often a made for TV "world premiere" was shown as well. This was one of the best of those in-house TV movies.I was in junior high and it made quite an impression at the time. Well-acted, more sophisticated than many of the procedurals we have on television today. Not gratuitous but pretty graphic for the time on ABC.Christopher George was an under-appreciated actor who was often cast as the heavy. Here he gave a layered, realistic performance as Lt. Dan August.I recently found a DVD-R copy of this title at www.adifferentcity.com. The quality was pretty good and it was great to see the movie after 34 years!

It's good to know that I'm not the only one who was freaked out by those chilling opening scenes! I too was a very young child when I saw this film, so I can scarcely recall any details...only that infamous kitchen footage. The title alone still gives me the creeps! It is definitely a shame that this movie is not shown on TV, and is apparently not available on VHS or DVD. I'd really love to watch it again to see if it holds up to my childhood memories! Sadly, I have a feeling it can't possibly be as frightening as I remember. Years of slasher film viewing have left me quite jaded. Perhaps I'll just read the book instead.