The film follows a college student who finds rooming in a hilltop boarding house where a homicidal killer is on the loose.

She is directed to a boarding house run by the standoffish Mrs. Engels; a Victorian mansion on a cliffside overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Mrs. Engels lives in the house along with her teenage son, Mason, and several other college students, including Doris, Peter, and Jack.

The woman flees through the secret door, which opens to a hidden staircase that travels along the house's air ducts, eventually leading to a room located off the main attic space.

Mrs. Engels then reveals to Mason that Victoria is in fact his mother: After a suicide attempt, she gave birth to him, but was left mute and homicidal after undergoing a botched lobotomy at a psychiatric hospital.

Rusin uncovers a file on Victoria's past and determines she has been living in the Engels home after being taken out of the psychiatric hospital; he and Lt. McGiver promptly leave to go to the boarding house.

[9] Diane McBain recalled that she was cast as a police detective in September 1977 when the film began shooting in the Smith Estate, Highland Park, Los Angeles, Eagle Rock, Los Angeles and Occidental College with the film written and directed by Denny Harris.

In early 1978 a new series of actors including Yvonne De Carlo, Barbara Steele and Cameron Mitchell were brought in for new shooting.

Tom Buckley of The New York Times panned the film, writing: "The only frightening thing about Silent Scream is that there are people who will pay $5 to see it... Everything about the production is repulsively amateurish, and it is saddening to see performers like Yvonne De Carlo and Cameron Mitchell reduced to appearing in it.

"[15] Robert Masulo, a critic for The Sacramento Bee, praised the film's cinematography, but felt the performances were "without inspiration," and the screenplay "overflowing with clichés.

"[16] Linda Gross of the Los Angeles Times was more favorable in her assessment, writing that "despite indulgences in improbable plotting and predictable gore, The Silent Scream is a scary, stylish Grand Guignol horror movie," adding that director Harris "rarely miscalculates his shocks, and his quiet moments are even better.

In the episode, Roger Ebert narrates the footage thusly: "This aggressive woman gets a room alright, but she also gets beaten, gagged, tied up in a closet and attacked with a knife."

He used this as an example of how "the moment that a woman starts making decisions for herself in these movies, you can almost bet she's going to end up paying with her life, and horribly."