 Slaughter gives a full-throated over-the-top performance in a calculatedly melodramatic style, encouraging the audience to vicariously share in his villainy; this approach became his trademark and gives his films a cult status of their own peculiar kind.William Corder seduces then murders innocent country maiden Maria Marten in the red barn before burying her body beneath the barn floor.She gets murdered because she becomes pregnant and too annoying for William.