Benjamin Peterson swears he has a good relationship with his mother, but judging from his 1964 directorial debut Mother May I?, you wouldn’t be wrong in thinking he was lying. The film follows Thomas Cline’s deranged Bruce as he stalks the streets of Los Angeles, strangling and bludgeoning any woman he sees wearing a particular heart-shaped necklace. Cline would later go on to play the hero in the Holiday Horrors trilogy, but here he’s pure evil, scowling and grimacing as he lurches through alleys and sneaks up behind women. As Bruce curls his fingers around their supple necks, he says, “Mother, may I have your necklace?”

Peterson throws a lot of buxom beauties in Bruce’s strangle-happy path, including model Barbara Billingsley and Miranda Thane. Despite their lack of acting experience, they acquit themselves nicely to getting strangled on camera. The police, as per usual in these types of films, are vexed by the murders. The only connection is the heart-shaped necklace the women were wearing at the time of their death.

This key clue is picked up by pugnacious reporter Susan Mills (played with a smart sexiness by Betty Rudolph) and she sets off on her own to track down the killer and scoop the biggest story of her young career. In an expertly-filmed sequence, Susan uses one of her friends as bait and gives her a necklace just like the other murder victims. This scene is atmospheric and moody and it really seems as though Bruce will kill Susan’s friend, but in a thrilling tun, Bruce is captured by the police, who were lying in wait.

At this point, the film switches gears and we move into a long flashback sequence, explaining Bruce’s murderous tendencies and his strained relationship with his mother. The flashbacks are structured differently from the first half of the film, but this is a good thing. Bruce’s mother, played by Fay Thomas, is a cold, calculated woman who wears a stern look on her face throughout her entire time on screen. Her manner and the methodical way she deals with a young Bruce go a long way to explaining why he is the way he is and why he covets her necklace so much. There is one particularly rough scene that almost makes the viewer condone Bruce’s later actions.

After the film’s release, critics blasted it as misogynistic and overly violent. Peterson retaliated and said there was no subtext intended and in fact he had a wonderful relationship with his mother. Screenwriter Christopher Mestone received some flack as well, but he never responded to the critiques, saying only, “It’s the story I wanted to tell, and while I don’t have a good relationship with my mother, this was not written as any slight against her.”

Whatever the reason behind the film’s genesis, audiences are all the better for it. It’s an excellent film with some twisted storytelling and great performances. Whether or not you have a good relationship with your own mother, watch Mother May I? and embrace the dark side of maternal love.