Film legend Joan Crawford gives a terrific performance in this chiller from pioneer horror movie producer William Castle.Crawford plays Lucy Harbin, a woman who goes berserk when she finds her husband in bed with another woman. With her three-year-old daughter accidently witnessing the grisly act, Lucy axes the couple to death. She spends twenty years in a mental institution for the double murder.

After she is released, she moves in with her brother, Bill (Leif Erickson), his wife, Emily (Rochelle Hudson) and Carol (Diane Baker), her own daughter who is now twenty-three. Her nightmare is over ... or is it? When a spate of ax murders syart occurring suddenly in the neighborhood, police think Lucy has reverted to her old ways. The truth is finally revealed in a rousing, blood-chilling finale.