Scream, Pretty Peggy

Scream, Pretty Peggy is a 1973 American made-for-television horror film directed by Gordon Hessler and starring Bette Davis, Ted Bessell, and Sian Barbara Allen.

Its plot follows a young college student who is given a job by a sculptor housekeeping at a mysterious mansion where his sister and their elderly mother reside.

Meanwhile, college student and aspiring artist Peggy Johns visits the Elliott mansion after finding a job advertisement on campus.

Later that night, Peggy goes to meet Jeffrey in his artist's loft, and is met by a blonde woman in a flowing white gown, whom she believes to be Jennifer.

After an audible scuffle, Jeffrey emerges from the apartment, covered in blood, rambling about how Jennifer fell onto a knife and was killed during the confrontation.

Mrs. Elliott proceeds to explain to Peggy that Jeffrey was obsessed with his sister, and that he murdered her years prior before encasing her corpse in one of his grandiose sculptures.

Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times deemed the film a "routine shocker," noting that "writers Jimmy Sangster and Arthur Hoffe have come up with such silly, trite dialog and situations that it's too bad that director Gordon Hessler...  didn't play their script for laughs.