Scream and Scream Again Bite Sceen
"That bloody chicken wasn't killed, it died of old age."
What a bizarre movie! Scream and Scream Again is all over the place. It's a combination horror/sci-fi/mystery/espionage/thriller with sort of a James Bond twist. And it's a lot of fun.
To be honest, at the beginning of the film, I was lost. There are about four different plot lines that don't seem to have anything to do with each other. (1) There is a runner who collapses. Every time we see him after the collapse, he's in a hospital losing his limbs one at a time. (2) There is a vampire killer on the prowl in London. He attacks young women and drains them of their blood. (3) There are scenes of some fascist regime in some unknown country. The leaders of the regime are being killed one at a time. Also, people are being tortured for no apparent reason. (4) There are discussions going on in the uppermost levels of the British government that appear to have nothing to do with anything else. But, by the end of the film, most everything fits together quite nicely as a story about creating a master race.
Scream and Scream Again 'stars' Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, and Peter Cushing. I say 'stars' because Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing are barely in the movie. In fact, Cushing has all of about 5 minutes of screen time. Alfred Marks as Supt.Bellaver is actually the star. He's a no nonsense policeman investigating the string of murders in London. In the end though, Price takes over and is wonderful. His mad doctor routine is terrific to watch.
There are some excellent moments in the film worth mentioning. The chase scene is one of the longest I've ever seen, ending with the killer losing a hand after being handcuffed to the front of a car. Another is the fight scene at the end between Vincent Price and leader of the fascists. There are also moments of tension as when the young doctor is snooping around Vincent Price's house.
This is a movie that you have to be patient with. Trust me, it all makes sense in the end.
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Weird, uneven, bizarre, but never boring
Gordon Hessler was not all that great a director. He wasn't particularly good at setting up interesting shots or getting good performances out of his actors, but occasionally he managed by default to create a movie that was so completely off-the-wall and bizarre that those shortcomings could be forgotten.
SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN is a good example of that. It is by no means a good movie; in fact, it's really pretty bad. But you literally have no idea where it's headed, and by the time you get there, even though it's a tad underwhelming, it's still just oddball enough to keep you hooked.
Basically, it's the story of a serial killer who preys on bar-hopping women, and who, incidentally, seems to have superpowers of some sort. Or, maybe it's the story of a military conspiracy of some sort? Or is it the story of some kind of body parts black market? Believe it or not, all these seemingly unrelated plotlines eventually come together, and it's a wacky ride all the way.
The biggest disappointment for me, is the scarce screen time of headliners Vincent Price, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. They literally have less than twenty minutes of screen time combined, and only Lee and Price even appear together, in one very brief scene. The main characters seem to be a disgruntled Scotland Yard detective, and a younger, less cynical police officer.
I recommend this movie to any fan of AIP or any of the three horror stars, but most people will not have the patience to sit through it. Fans will enjoy it, if only for it's sheer weirdness.
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SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN (Gordon Hessler, 1970) ***
I had missed a viewing of SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN (the title itself is fairly ludicrous, I must say) when I was a kid, shown on Italian TV as part of a one-night Vincent Price marathon. Having now watched the four AIP films made by director Gordon Hessler, I think that this is probably his best work.
It has a rather audacious non-linear narrative for a 'mainstream' horror film, though it all comes together neatly in the end. It is also the only one of the four films to take place in 'our' times - despite the old-fashioned trappings of the plot (taking in espionage in the form of dictatorial regimes with their Nazi-like villains, as well as the obligatory mad scientist and his vampiric 'creations'), the modern-day setting is indeed very appropriate and John Coquillon's typically elegant cinematography captures its essence quite well.
SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN is virtually a black comedy which, mercifully, does not descend into camp: it is quite convoluted, relatively protracted (maybe this was because I watched it back to back with THE OBLONG BOX {1969}!), but wholly likable for all that. David Whitaker's 'unusual' pop score is another major asset.
Like the earlier film, SCREAM does not take advantage of having three great horror stars together for the first time. Peter Cushing, graceful as always, does not share any scenes with Vincent Price or Christopher Lee, and indeed appears all too briefly. Price is effective as the mad scientist, even if the material itself didn't seem to inspire him all that much (he later admitted to not 'getting' it!). Lee, perhaps the most progressive-thinking horror star (let's not forget he appeared in Jess Franco's EUGENIETHE STORY OF HER JOURNEY INTO PERVERSION that same year!), is perfectly authoritative as the true villain of the piece.
We also get an exciting if over-extended chase sequence in which Michael Gothard finds new (and highly impractical!) means of eluding the Police - in the shape of sarcastic Superintendent Bellaver who, as played with a rather heavy British accent by Alfred Marks, manages any number of amusing scenes (designed, perhaps, to relieve the audience's frustration at the many - and apparently disjointed - strands of plot going on all at once)!
The end result is patchy overall - certainly not everything in this pot-pourri of ideas works to our general satisfaction (particularly Marshall Jones' overbearing characterization of Konratz) - but the film is often ingenious and weird enough to keep one's interest at all times. In retrospect, the great Fritz Lang's (reported) appreciation of SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN is actually not very hard to understand, as the material is indeed well up his street!
Reading about the film on the Net, I came across a rather disconcerting post over at Mobius where it was stated that the print utilized for the DVD was cut. Here is the relevant quote in full:
'On SCREAM I am convinced there was extra footage in the UK theatrical release (which I saw) that has now vanished and was not restored in the MGM DVD. This consists of (a) Alfred Marks bringing down Michael Gothard in the quarry by throwing a stone that hits him on the head, which is the reason he falls down (b) at the climax, there was originally more footage and some more dialogue between Lee and Price - there is a fairly obvious music track change on the DVD where this should be.'
Is anybody here able to confirm this, or at least shed some more light on the matter?
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Despite Top Billing, Not Much Price To Offer
A killer who has a literal thirst for blood is prowling the nightclubs for fresh young victims. The police decide to set a trap to catch this man. A young policewoman poses as his new victim while wearing a wire. The killer meets the young policewoman and takes her with him to a secluded spot where he proceeds to drink her blood...
Vincent Price in interviews a number of years after the film was made, said he never understood the script at all. Not surprising, as the novel featured aliens and the film changed them to Communists (or something like that). And that is probably the least of the problems...
I mean, the choking of women and the pointless blood sucking? A jogger who is getting his legs removed? Yellow acid for some sort of research? It does not really all add up. Really sweet cars, though.
Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee appear, though not much. Heck, even Vincent Price does not really show up until the second half. But if you like these guys, do not mind waiting, and are okay with not really understanding what you are watching, check this one out.
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Great atmosphere, great plot, fair otherwise
'Scream and Scream Again' is one of my favorites, even though it is ratherly poorly put together. The director tried to make the movie mysterious -- and succeeded too well, making it nearly incomprehensible. However, if you have patience, the final explanation at the end will tie enough of the film together to make rewarding sense.
The main attraction for this movie is its subtle atmosphere of horror. The movie mainly consists of fragmented images that come to gether to paint a darker picture than just what the movie shows. A good example of the texture and flavor of the film is the scene which, to my disappointment, was removed from the version I rented (I originally saw the film in a college Halloween movie festival). A coroner while alone investigating the death of a lovely women begins to move forward as if to kiss the corpse but is interrupted by the inspector entering the room. The surprised coroner quickly straightens up and tries to look very official and busy, but obviously is upset at having almost been caught being amorous to the corpse. No further reference was made to the scene.
This is an example of the extremely dark and upsetting images that lie just beneath the surface of the film. It is unfortunate that the director's attempt to involve the audience by making them work hard to piece together fragments of action into something comprehensible was mostly unsuccessful. Still, I think the film is worth the patience. My rating: 8 of 10.
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An enjoyable but disorientating pulp cocktail
Warning: Spoilers
POSSIBLE SPOILERS
A British government sponsored scientific clinic run by Vincent Price is secretly producing a race of superhuman cyborgs assembled from stolen human body-parts. The cyborgs are taking over key positions of power throughout the world with a view to total domination. The superhumans' plans are threatened with exposure when one of their number flees Price's clinic and goes on a psychopathic killing spree. More mayhem ensues when a cyborg hit-man is dispatched to England from a fascistic eastern European country to eliminate all witnesses to the murders, including his former co-conspirator, Price.
If writer Chris Wicking had streamlined the above storyline, Scream And Scream Again might be regarded today as a lean, mean minor classic. Instead, the film's reputation has suffered because of a partial failure to resolve the screenplay's many intrigues; spy-planes, government cover-ups, police investigations, car chases, swinging London, transplant surgery, eugenics, and vampirism. Wicking obviously wanted to portray the intangibility and inter-connectedness of evil, but ninety minutes is scarcely time to tie all of these elements together and accommodate character development. Unfortunately, Wicking sticks rather too closely to the original book's choppy narrative (itself a result of multiple writers hacking away to produce a pulpy, patchwork, dime-store novel), and doesn't quite make it gel. Nice try though.
Christopher Matthews plays the young, inquisitive police pathologist and is the movie's nominal hero. But his character exists only to bear witness to the very small piece of the puzzle that he is a part of. He is what film critics used to call a cipher. Indeed, all of the characters are ciphers. They don't exist as properly motivated people in themselves, but rather as conduits disseminating the story's fertile ideas. It's possible to make an interesting movie in this way, but Scream And Scream Again is first and foremost a schlock exploitation film. It says "American International" on the tin, so you aren't going to get Antonioni here.
So, high art apart, is the movie any good as schlock entertainment? Sure! It possesses a fair dollop of pulp-trash energy, and its willingness to flit recklessly between locations, time-frames, and plot-points lends it a certain charm.
The casting is astute. The late Michael Gothard makes a good, eerie cyborg psychopath as he prowls groovy London discotheques in search of party-girls whom just assume he's a good-looking guy with a fast car and an Austin Powers shirt. Of course, the reality is more gruesome, and he is soon savagely murdering them and sucking their blood - although why he has vampiric tendencies is, typically, never explained. With his turns in that other super-trash magnum opus, Lifeforce, and Ken Russell's brilliant The Devils, I'm surprised Gothard doesn't have more of a cult following.
Elsewhere, Alfred Marks pretty much steals the show as the curmudgeonly cop in charge of the murder investigation. He has some nice throwaway lines (the only real character-based dialogue in the movie) that he delivers with mordant relish. Think of a British version of Walther Matthau in The Taking Of Pelham 123. Marks was a well known light-comedy actor in Britain, and appears here in one of his few film roles.
Judy Huxtable plays one of Gothard's victims in a brief and suitably unpleasant scene. A little later, Huxtable's became famous for being Peter Cook's second wife.
The movie's big selling point is the casting of Price, Cushing and Lee. All but Price have little more than extended cameos, but it's always good to see them. Some have praised Price's "serious" performance, but, to me, he is his usual quite wonderfully camp self.
My personal favourite piece of characterization is that of Konratz, the sadistic cyborg hit-man/superfascist, icily portrayed by Marshall Jones. I don't know what became of Jones, but his stint here, conveyed with minimal dialogue, is impressively charismatic and convincingly evil. His preferred method of murder is noteworthy; a lethal version of Leonard Nimoy's vulcan nerve pinch, which, in this case, seems to induce an immediate cerebral hemorrhage. In one bravura sequence, Konratz calmly waltzes into a busy police station, kills one of the major characters in a startling and gory close-up, steals some files and waltzes out again without missing a beat. A very scary fellow.
The movie's technical credits are fine. Gordon Hessler directs efficiently, indeed some of his set-ups are inspired - fairly ambitious tracking shots and some energetic hand-held shots from the POVs of killers and victims etc). Elsewhere, it's a case of point-and-shoot, probably a result of time/budget constraints. John Coquillon's cinematography takes a similar path, doing well enough with limited resources. He was to do more interesting work on Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs a few years later.
David Whittaker's riotously jazzy score seems initially to be outrageously inappropriate, then, as the narrative silliness progresses, you realise it is COMPLETELY appropriate. It's that kind of a movie. When it was re-released on video in the mid 80s, the movie had a new electronic score composed for it by Kendall Schmidt perhaps to avoid Musicians Union re-use fees. While I'm fond of Schmidt's effort, I prefer Whittaker's original. The score actually takes a more serious tone towards the denouement when Whittaker underscores the true horror of Price's laboratory with an eerie saxophone mysterioso and dissonant brass. The film might have benefited from more of that kind of scoring.
Finally, with its wild fusion of elements, Scream And Scream Again is an enjoyable gallop through late sixties paranoia. If nothing else it highlights that era's creeping fear of medical progress. This was a time when the latest advances in transplant surgery were making global news. The latent horror of these techniques, echoing Frankenstein, were to inspire other productions such as O Lucky Man, Coma, and Gerry Anderson's UFO with its organ stealing aliens. But at least Scream And Scream Again got there first.
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Has its moments, but never seems to come together
Vincent Price, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, three major genre icons, were what drew me into seeing Scream and Scream Again. But I was left feeling disappointed at the end result. By all means it is not a terrible film but it never seems to really come together. It is not without its good points though, the film does look good and the score is jazzy and doesn't intrude with the atmosphere too much. The ending is also intriguing and actually makes sense, which unfortunately is more than I can say for the rest of the movie.
The three stars themselves don't disappoint, though they deserved much more screen-time than they did(as well as he played it you do question the point of Peter Cushing's character) and the fact that they are barely together- apart from Price and Lee briefly- is something that fans will consider a cheat. Christopher Lee is fine in his role, his voice not as distinctive as usual but he does very well in a role quite different to the other ones he's done in his long career. The best of the three though is Vincent Price, while in more straightforward role he still manages to bring a great deal of dignity and class to the film.
Alfred Marks though was just alright, for me this said alright is not enough to carry a movie, particularly how he and his character were so abruptly written out. And sadly, I can't praise Scream and Scream Again any further. Gordon Hessler directs in a rather routine fashion, while the characters are not written or developed enough to really shine or make us care for them. The gore to me looked very tacky and cheap, and while with the ending the high points of the story the chase and fight sequences could also be seen as on the cartoonish and artificial side. The script is also a bunch of nonsense, with some of the more humorous parts jarring with the tone.
Where Scream and Scream Again is particularly hurt is in its story, an example of an intriguing idea executed poorly. The constant jumping around from one genre theme to another and the numerous plot strands that are all over the place make it structurally incomprehensible with the sense that it doesn't know what kind of film it wants to be. I'll give you this much and say that the film is never dull. Overall, redeemed by Price and Lee(Cushing is good as well but his character is pretty useless) as well as the look of the film, score and ending, but because of the nonsensical script and unfocused story Scream and Scream Again never really came together for me.
4/10 Bethany Cox
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Price, and Cushing and Lee, oh my!
Starring three of horror cinema's greatest icons - Vincent Price, Peter Cushing, and Christopher Lee - this rather atypical American International Pictures release consists of several seemingly disparate plot threads that director Gordon Hessler attempts to pull together in the final act, with little success, the ending almost as confusing as everything that precedes it.
The film opens with a jogger collapsing and waking up in a hospital bed where he finds that he is missing a leg! The action then cuts to an unspecified Eastern European country where Konratz (Marshall Jones) is killing his dictatorial superiors in a bid to seize power. Meanwhile, a murder investigation leads London police detective Supt. Bellaver (Alfred Marks) to the home of Dr. Browning (Vincent Price). Christopher Lee appears as Fremont, a government official who is trying to secure the release of a spy, and Cushing, in what amounts to little more than a brief cameo, plays one of those who stands in the way of Konratz's climb to the top.
While there are some decent scenes along the way, including a perilous car chase, and a killer ripping off his own hand to escape from the police, the choppy nature of the narrative and the disappointing ending make Scream and Scream Again a far from essential 70s horror, despite its trio of genre greats.
If you want to see Price, Cushing and Lee together in a good film, I recommend The House Of The Long Shadows: it's much more fun, and you get John Carradine thrown in for good measure.
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Bizarre Horror/Sci-Fi Hybrid That Lacks Cohesion
Warning: Spoilers
A jogger goes for his daily run , suffers chest pains and is rushed to hospital only to find that his leg has been amputated
The above sequence takes up the title sequence and is a good opening hook . Alas however it seems mainly to function only as a hook to draw the audience in because we never find out the name of the jogger . The scenario also collapses when it's given any thought such as how lucky it is for the villains ( Or how unlucky it is for the victim ) that someone conveniently falls unconscious and needs hospital treatment in order for the plot to progress
As the story continues the more ideas are thrown in to the plot and unfortunately there's far too much plotting going on . We find ourselves in a totalitarian regime where a militarist is eliminating party rivals who stand in his way and it's never actually revealed as to whether it's a communist or fascist dictatorship . It's left ambiguous but is also unconvincing and whilst all this taking place there's a series of murders taking place in England which the press have dubbed " The vampire killings "
By the end of the movie you can just about get your head around the ideas being explored - one of a new breed of humans being created but the experiment is too premature hence replicant humans running amok but the plotting is never cohesive enough to make the premise convincing in any way . The film also suffers from scenes that are completely disposable and a lack of internal continuity . For example when a nameless character such as the jogger from the opening scene is at the mercy of the villains he is operated on without any explanation where as when it's the girlfriend of the hero the operation is delayed so the villain can explain his plan and motives to the hero T
There is an element of cheating where the marketing is concerned . You can understand that this was hyped at the time as " the movie starring Vincent Price , Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing - three legends of horror coming together in one movie " The reality is however that Cushing appears in one very short scene while Price and Lee are sidelined for most of the movie . Instead it's Alfred Marks police detective who carries the first half of the movie only for him to abruptly be written out and replaced by his sidekick
SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN isn't nearly as impressive as the sizable minority view paints it as . It's a film that does have some good ideas but unfortunately it has too many ideas none of which are meshed in to a great plot and all of them are woefully underdeveloped
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Lee, Cushing, and Price, Oh My!!
This film was released before I was born, so I don't know anything about its ad campaign, but I imagine it went something like, "Lee, Cushing, and Price: Together at Last!!" This is true: they all are in this movie, but what we have here is a movie about a bunch of pseudo-Nazis (complete with knockoff uniforms) trying to create the master race by assembling people from assorted "perfect" body parts. Price has a substantial supporting role, but Cushing and Lee have basically cameos, and none of them share any meaningful screen time. So, basically, they are together in the credits only.
Now for the movie. Yes, it has a solid plot, but the movie doesn't follow it. It mostly has to do with the police tracking one of "composite" superhumans as he goes on a rape and murder spree. This does make for two of the best moments of the movie: when the killer, handcuffed to a car bumper, tears off not only his hand to escape, but a third of his forearm. The other is when a killer falls off a mountain and barely gets a scratch.
The real highlight is the final 20 minutes, when Price explains, in classic Bad Guy fashion, the entire master race thing to the hero. Price is a great actor, but he's a terrible doctor, because 1) he puts on his own surgical gloves, and 2) contaminates them 10 seconds later. A fight ensues between Price and the head of the fake Gestapo, and that's it. I don't know if I can recommend this movie to anyone, because fans of the three horror institutions in this film will be disappointed, as will genre fans. Watch it if you're bored, or for the goofy dialogue.
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Cryptic, disjointed horror-thriller triptych
A runner keeps waking up in a hospital bed to a new horror, an unnatural serial killer with an appetite for blood murders women in London, and apparatchik in an unnamed fascist/communist state covers up research into übermensch with a deadly 'Vulcan neck pinch' - three parallel stories that are (vaguely) tied together in the final reel. Also in triplicate, iconic horror stars Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Vincent Price, who unfortunately do not add much to the film beyond marquee-value (Cushing is in little more than an extended cameo). Much of the film is a lengthy car/foot chase as the strangely unarmed (even by British standards) police pursue the vampiric serial-killer. The film has some good moments (the hospital-bed scenes, which are all I remembered from a decades-past viewing, are a nosocomephobic's nightmare), but the intriguing tripartite build-up is let down by a flat and unsatisfying ending. Not great but different and watchable for fans of 'body-horror'.
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You will scream again and again!
This has got to be the wildest Price film ever. I saw this film for the first time recently and I was just blown.
This film tells the intricate story of an organization that's trying to take over the world by way of a superhuman race of people that are literally created. Think "Frankenstein". If I could rename this film, I'd call it "Frankenstein Meets James Bond". As a matter fact, that's the best way to describe the plot.
When you see this film, don't turn away from it because you will find yourself missing a lot. There are several plots going on simultaneously (I kid you not!). You have the crazed serial killer will a thirst for blood, the runner who keeps losing limbs and the secret organization that's afoot.
For those of you that are looking for action & horror in a fast-pace setting, you got it!
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Scream "I am confused!" Again
Warning: Spoilers
I saw this in 1970 at the age of 11 and was very confused. Having just rewatched it 49 years later, I'm still confused. But amused.
SPOILERS. !!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!
SSA is just as weird as I remembered. Milton Subotsky produced. It feels like a major section was just lifted out for the sake of trimming the running time, but it left the plot almost incomprehensible.
Soooo.... an unnamed European country has become a fascist state. Most of the inhabitants sound German but Cushing plays the Chancellor. He has a brief, meaningless scene of exposition about torture going too far.
England is secretly making Frankenstein-ish super beings -- called "Composites" -- with American Price as the master surgeon, out in a country mansion painted Pepto Bismol pink on the inside.
Lee is some kind of civil servant who knows about the plan, and has an uneasy alliance with the fascists. He spends a lot of time on the phone.
When one of the Composites gets loose in England, it goes on a rape and murder spree. But first he spends a lot of time checking out babes in swinging night clubs. Every Composite needs a hobby, I guess. ;) There is a "Scream & Scream Again" rock theme song played at the club.
Most of the film is devoted to local police superintendent and a doctor from the city morgue who are trying to piece the puzzle together. Mostly, they yell at each other.
There's a long car chase around 30 minutes in that eats up a lot of screen time buy never pays off.
Price turns out to not only be a mad scientist, but also one of the Composites. (How he performed an operation on himself is left unexplored.) Lee shows up at the country lab. With almost Dracula like powers, he stares Price down -- into a vat of acid. The end. Actually "it's just the beginning," Lee intones.
Scream is sort of like an Avengers episode, though not nearly as stylish. Had Robert Feust had directed, maybe Scream would be a bizarre masterpiece like Phibes. But it's just bizarre.
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Scream and Scream Again
The hunt is on for the Vampire Killer who is draining blood from his victims - but all is not as it seems.
Incomprehensible nonsense which takes an age to bring its various story strands together, each of which seems to have been perpetrated by different directors who clearly want to include all sorts of cinema tropes. Marks is fun as the grumpy cop and indeed having Price, Lee and Cushing, the latter very, very briefly, is it's single asset, which is really wasted.
All this cobbled together with a typically crass sixties soundtrack which seems to have no obvious connection to the subject it is covering.
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Dated Mess
In London, a serial-killer drains the blood of females and the Detective Superintendent Bellaver (Alfred Marks) and his team are hunting down the so-called Vampire Killer. Meanwhile in an undefined country that lives a military dictatorship, the cruel Konratz (Marshall Jones) is climbing positions killing The Power that Be. When the Vampire Killer flees from the police, he seeks refugee at the real estate of scientist Dr. Browning (Vincent Price) and jumps into a tank of acid. Dr. David Sorel (Christopher Matthews) is intrigued with the powerful acid and decides to get a sample. He finds the truth about the research of Dr. Browning.
Many years ago, during the Cold War, the dictatorships in South America, James Bond, Flint and The Man from U.N.C.L.E., "Scream and Scream Again" was a cult movie supported by the names of Vincent Price, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. The story entwines mad scientist with vampire, dictatorship and spy ring with a terrible music score. However, in the present days it is a dated mess despite the great cast. My vote is three.
Title (Brazil): "Grite, Grite Outra Vez!" ("Scream, Scream Again")
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It Was OK
This is entertaining, but it suffers from the silly "mod" world of the late sixties and early seventies. It has a series of plots that are intertwined concerning the development of a master race. I did enjoy the ridiculous efforts to capture one of the androids which takes about a third of the movie. I did really enjoy Vincent Price's mugging as only he can do best.
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The Curse of Ambition
Scream and Scream Again seems to want to be a very deep and complicated film. After all, it starts out by presenting three different, and apparently unrelated, plot lines, introduces new characters seemingly at the writers whim through the run time, and seems to pride itself on a grim and "realistic" portrayal of violence and death (while still allowing itself plenty of latitude for shock sequences and super-powered antagonists). Does it all work? Well, not entirely, but I have to give it some credit for trying.
Let's start with the biggest problem I have with this film, the bait-and-switch billing. Price, Lee, and Cushing sit majestically at the top of the credits, yet get precious little screen time, virtually none of it shared. Price is a doctor/mad scientist introduced early on, and then forgotten until the film starts winding down, Cushing has one scene and then dies, and Lee isn't even introduced until late in the film, where he serves as a plot device to tie everything together and wrap up.
Then there's the whole three-plot lines thing. The bulk of the film follows a police inspector on the trail of a psychotic, blood drinking, super-strong serial killer. (Gee, could he be a vampire? Ummmm... well, no.) Alongside that we have the story of a spy for some unnamed, oppressive regime. The over-the-top tone of these scenes clashes with the more mannered presentation of the inspector's story. The costumes and sets suggest a combination of Stalinist Russia, Nazi Germany, and rampant Satanism. (Sure, the symbol displayed on armbands, banners, windows, and any other available surface is probably supposed to evoke the bundled arrows of fascism, but it looks more like the head of a demonic pitchfork to me.) Then we have a series of scenes about a man who collapses while out jogging, and finds himself in a hospital room, where he is kept sedated most of the time while his limbs are gradually stolen in off-camera surgeries. None of this seems connected in any way until the end, when the true plot is revealed, and turns out to be something not particularly suggested by anything in the film up to that point.
Theoretically, this movie could still have worked, and if they had pulled it off, it might have been quite clever. But, even beyond the mismatched feel of the three plot lines, there are other problems which make SaSA feel like several different films forced to share one screen. The inspector becomes irrelevant to his own plot once things get rolling, his leading-man status usurped by the young assistant coroner, who was no more than a minor player for the whole first half of the film. The psycho leaves a nightclub with his latest victim, just in time to go out for "one last drink," and is followed and eventually chased by the police... in broad daylight. Apparently, the bars in England close much earlier than I thought. Add in an unnecessary shock scene or two (like the evil spy's interrogation of a pretty would-be defector, which doesn't seem to have any connection to the rest of the film), and you're starting to make a real mess of things.
Still, the resolution, while coming out of left field, does do a reasonable job of tying things together. But I still cannot recommend this film, mainly because I still feel cheated at the under-utilization of three of the greatest horror actors of all time.
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Stink and Stink Again
What a mess. Confusing horror film from hack director Gordon Hessler that will have you scratching your head wondering what amputees and storm troopers have to do with a vampiric serial killer in swinging London. You won't find out until very late into the picture when, if you're anything like me, you no longer care. Oh but hey there's a trio of horror legends in this, so it can't be all bad. Well...hold up, buttercup. Peter Cushing is in one brief scene. Christopher Lee doesn't fare much better. I think he has three or four scenes total. Vincent Price has an important role but doesn't appear for the longest time and winds up with less screen time than many of the supporting players. Alfred Marks, playing the police inspector on the vampire case, is the real star. The supposed highlight of the movie is a chase scene that goes on for over ten minutes, first by car then on foot. The scenes of the young happenin' nightlife are annoying. Did Hessler get free drinks at these clubs for shooting there? The best part of the movie was the last twenty minutes or so when Price is on screen most and the plot starts to make more sense. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone unless they are a die-hard fan of the three horror vets who will watch anything they're in, regardless of how much screen time they have.
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Nothing to scream about
Warning: Spoilers
As a still humble aficionado of horror/sci-fi films, I have seen some of the worst, cheesiest, cheapest and ill-conceived excuses of movies ever. None of them are quite as consistently terrible as this mess. I am bewildered by how many reviews find things to like in this film. Roger Ebert compares the structure to Godard! The "vampire" of the film is not a vampire at all but a synthetic constructed by Price. Why would a synthetic man need/want to drink blood? The club scenes are so poorly lit, cheap-looking and badly directed they make the "beach" movies from American International look like oscar winners. The sound during these scenes is muffled and the singing from the band unintelligible. Peter Cushing's role is little more than a cameo. The "Eastern European Country" is never explained. Their uniforms look like something from a Saturday morning spoof. The dialogue outside of a few good early lines for the "inspector" is as bad as an Ed Wood offering. The acting is as bad as it gets but it's not their fault as the director often is filming the back of heads. This movie is not scary, interesting, funny or suspenseful. It stinks! The only reason to watch is to marvel at this inept production
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A confusing mess
There is little to recommend this film.
First, even though it is billed as a Vincent Price/Peter Cushing/Christopher Lee film, none of these horror icons appear in the film for more than a few scenes. Personally, I hate it when a name actor puts his name on a film, and only appears in one or two scenes. It elevates a bad film to a higher level than it deserves.
Secondly, the plot is a jumbled mess, with the separate plot lines of British cops trying to catch a serial killer and a sadistic officer in a eastern block country torturing people for fun. These plot threads aren't tied together until the last ten minutes of the film, and not even well then.
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Price, Lee and Cushing endure unexpected twists and turns as numerous as expendable body parts
1969's "Scream and Scream Again" was a unique collaboration between AIP in the US and Amicus in the UK, ensuring the presence of contract star Vincent Price, bolstered by the surprise casting of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing in smaller roles. Since the unexpected death of Michael Reeves, Gordon Hessler had become Price's British director on first "The Oblong Box," and lastly "Cry of the Banshee," but this entry in between seems to have rightly garnered the most attention, something of a major accomplishment on the usual low budget. Christopher Wicking's jigsaw puzzle of a script opens with a marathon runner (Nigel Lambert) collapsing in a field, confined to bed thereafter as every limb is removed piece by piece for some diabolical purpose; then an unnamed foreign nation celebrating five years of military dictatorship finds one of its number (Marshall Jones) systematically executing all of his superiors (by something like Mr. Spock's Vulcan nerve pinch) to gain sole control of an explosive political situation, having captured the pilot of a downed aircraft to use as leverage for blackmail; then Alfred Marks as Det. Superintendent Bellaver investigates a series of sex murders that involve strangulation, throat slashings, and corpses bereft of every ounce of blood. Our introduction of Bellaver on the case finds Hessler at his very best, the body of a dead girl lying on the ground, the camera panning with authorities all the way back to the patrol car, much wry wit heard throughout: "is it murder, don't be so bloody stupid!" A short interview with Vincent Price's Dr. Browning reveals that the victim worked in his laboratory, and back at the station Bellaver is quick to give up on his sandwich: "how long have these been around, they're curling up like Charlie Chaplin's boots!" (the hand held camera technique is happily retained for every scene at headquarters, Alfred Marks allowed to improvise his best lines). A second death finds the same two puncture marks on the wrists, an undercover female officer used as a decoy to entice the killer, a mod youth called Keith (Michael Gothard), caught in the act while drinking from her blood filled wrist. His escape leads to an exciting police chase, not on the same level as Steve McQueen's "Bullitt" but a courageous effort lasting an astonishing 15 minutes, managing to break away from handcuffs by leaving behind his severed hand. The unstoppable maniac heads to Dr. Browning's property to throw himself into a vat of acid, a stunning demise that officially closes the case for Bellaver, soon another victim of Konratz to cover up the 'vampire murders.' Everything is neatly wrapped together in Browning's lab, where Price hugely enjoys showing off to a curious surgeon (Christopher Matthews) who previously imagined what one girl was thinking before she died: "fastest transition in the world, from human being to corpse, it doesn't do to get the two confused or you'll never be successful!" Although mostly confined to the final two reels Price remains the best used of the three horror stars, Peter Cushing only present in a three minute cameo at the 26 minute mark, but a superb one as Major Heinrich Benedek, senior official whose imminent dismissal of the perverted Konratz is curtailed by his sudden demise (expertly using a cigarette to guarantee pregnant pauses for guaranteed suspense). Christopher Lee's limited part is the biggest letdown, a peripheral figure pondering the fate of his government's missing pilot, but unexpectedly showing up at the climax to intercede on an international source of embarrassment. German director Fritz Lang was reportedly a fan of this convoluted yet mesmerizing item with its unfailing kinetic energy, requiring multiple viewings to achieve maximum impact and to dim any lingering disappointment about the waste of three of the genre's superstars.
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Spare Parts
***SPOILERS*** In the movie "Scream and Scream Again" you actually get two bad movies for the price of one. #1. A Vampire-like serial murder Kieth, Michael Gothand, is on the loose in England killing and sucking the blood out of young ladies that he picks up in the local Go-Go nightclubs. #2. A mad scientist Dr. Browning, Vincent Price, working in league with the chief of intelligence of the UK Fremont, Christopher Lee, who's also in some kind of alliance with the head of the secret police Konratz, Marshall Jones, of some unknown Eastern-European communist country.
Kieth is trapped in his murderous actions when the local police have a decoy police woman Sylvia, Judy Huxtable, pose as one of his potential victims. Picking Sylvia up at a local club, that features the live repetitive and monotonous music of a group called The Amen Corner, Kieth and his new girlfriend are followed by the police to this lover lane where he, after giving Sylvia a big smooch, starts to bite into her and starts sucking out her blood.
The police lead by Supt. Bellaver, Alfred Marks, comes to Sylvia's rescue only to have Kieth break away from them and lead them on a long car and foot chase. When Kieth is captured by the cops he hacks off his right hand, that was handcuffed to a police car, to get away and continue his mad dash to what seems like nowhere. Finally trapped at the Dr. Browning estate Kieth jumps into a vat of acid, that just happened to be there in a deserted barn, and kills himself.
Dr. Browning who comes on the scene of this insanity seems to be totally unmoved at all by this bazaar behavior of, what turned out to be, one of his subjects. We now begin to realize what happened to the jogger at the start of the movie who ended up in a hospital, after he suffered what looked like a heart-attack.The jogger then ended up having his legs arms and later even head amputated. Dr. Browning it turns out is constructing a master-race made out of human spare parts that resulted in the somehow murderous and superhuman-like Kieth and that he himself, and those who work for him, are; not really human beings but Frankenstein-like monsters themselves made out of human remains.
Things start to go bad when back in the unnamed Eastern-European country where Konratz, another one of Dr. Brownings creations, starts to get really bad toward the local inhabitants, who are starting to revolt in the streets, with his brutal and sadistic torture of them. Konratz is called into his superior Benedek, Peter Cushing, office and told that he's being canned from his post as head of the country's secret police.
Konratz trying to talk Benedek out of firing him gives him a deadly love-tap on his left shoulder that ends up killing him and thus replace Benedek as chief of the secret police. Later Konratz travels to England to talk turkey with his fellow pieced-together member of Dr. Brownings master race Fremont about this U-2 spy planes English pilot who was shot down over his country. Told that he'll have the pilot released if all the evidence about the vampire-killer, Kieth, is handed over to him. Fremont agrees to have that done but somehow Supt. Bellaver didn't get the news yet and that cost him his life.
Konratz going to Dr. Browning's place to shut down his human spare parts operation, it's starting to get out of hand, has it out with the mad doctor who ends up dumping him in a vat of acid killing him only to have Fremont show up and finish the job that Konratz started. Idiotic movie that is the only film where the top three British horror masters, Vincent Price Christopher Lee & Peter Cushing, were ever in together with Cushing only in the movie for one scene where he immediately killed off.
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Scream if you want to...
Warning: Spoilers
Despite the title and promise of three horror titans teaming up, SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN is a bust. Vincent Price plays a mad scientist working for some vague army of lunatics bent on taking over the world...Christopher Lee is a British government official who may or may not be in on it. Peter Cushing pops up in a (very) brief cameo. Most of the film centers on the police trying to track down a "vampire killer" and as such, it's not too bad, just don't expect Price, Lee and Cushing to be sharing much screen time. Gordon Hessler's direction is alternately clever (he stages a few very good chase scenes) and oddly edited (there are far too many abrupt edits and Price's wrap up of the plot is really silly). There's very little to actually scream at...the film is not scary in the least.
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The Ultimate Film Fraud!
Warning: Spoilers
Rarely have I been as frustrated as I was watching this film. It is as if the producers did everything possible to ruin every last aspect of this cinematic mess. I was utterly astounded by the high praise the film received in the dozen or so IMDb reviews I read before my stomach turned and I was compelled to rebut the praise. It appears that the movie industry has so completely lowered our levels of expectation that this garbage can be praised by so many people...and not only praised, but actually referred to by one reviewer as his favorite 60's horror film?! A most depressing concept to ponder.
This movie is a fraud on all accounts. Let's start with the top of the credits. Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, and Peter Cushing. Price has approximately three scenes in the movie (the bulk of which does not occur until the last 15 minutes), Lee has two full scenes and an appearance at the end of the movie, and Cushing has ONE measly scene in the beginning of the film and is then murdered!! To lead the public to believe that they are getting three titans of horror and then pull the rug out from underneath us is absolute fraud. Not frustrating...infuriating!
Fraud number two is trying to pretend that this is a horror film. There is very little horrific about this film, other than the level of quality. The stuff that is meant to be gruesome, or shocking, is completely undermined by bad directing, bad editing, and the most inappropriate soundtrack ever! The 60's Mod music is fine for the ridiculously over-long scenes in the club (which was pathetic pandering to "fool" young people they were watching a "hip and with-it" horror movie...all it does is come across as desperation by the film makers), but to have the upbeat, swingin' music running throughout the entire film eliminates ALL of the creepy atmosphere this film is so sorely lacking.
Fraud number three is that this is an exciting film, full of action. Nope. The small bits of action neither thrill, nor horrify. There is a painfully long and boring car chase scene in the middle of the film that looks childish, even by 1970 standards...especially since this movie was released well after the gut-wrenching thrill ride in 1968's BULLITT. The other "action" scene is the fight at the end between Price and the main bad guy, which was so completely fake in every regard that it was impossible to take seriously. Even the lame attempt to titillate the audience by showing the nude breasts of a female corpse and a female "creature" came across as cheap attempts to distract from all that was lacking. And the absurd use of the Shoulder Pinch as the means used by the bad guy to kill people was pathetic, and only served to remind the viewers how it had already been done better by Leonard Nimoy...SEVERAL years earlier.
The script is atrocious, the directing idiotic, the pacing erratic, the plot absurdly convoluted for no reason, the structure annoying, and most of the acting dreadful. Lee is okay in his minuscule part, even though he has the most ambiguous, nonsensical line to end the film, which I can only imagine was meant to set up a sequel if this mess had been a success. Price, who is normally one of my favorites, is not at his best here at all. And poor Peter Cushing, who is as brilliant as they come, was the only one in the "Mystery Country" who was speaking with a British accent when the others were speaking with German accents, yet calling each other "Comrade" (?!).
The ONLY bright spot in the film is Alfred Marks, who steals the entire movie (which is quite some feat when you have Price, Lee, and Cushing in the same film!) His portrayal was superb, and the wonderful touches of humor he added to the film were a great relief from the tedium.
I was going to give this film a 1, but have decided to give it a 2 strictly for Marks' performance. There is absolutely nothing else worth recommending about this confused, childish, boring, fraudulent film.
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Enjoyable vehicle for three horror legends that never comes together
"Scream and Scream Again" has three disparate plotlines for three iconic legends of horror cinema, and then fails to bring them together. The experience is fragmented and annoying, lacking any character to fix on or empathise with, jumping around so much it tires us out trying to follow along.
The first story thread, if you can really call it that, features some kind of Nazi-like military force, apparently representing an unnamed European country, who can kill people by putting their hands on the victims' shoulders, making them seize with paralysis, falling slowly backward with blood coming out of their mouths. Peter Cushing has a brief cameo in one of their scenes.
The second plotline features the efforts of police to catch a serial killer, who is played by the guy who went on to appear as the lunatic religious investigator in "The Devils". The police are totally inept and casual about their job, almost leading to the death of a girl when they just chill out waiting for the killer to begin killing, not realising that their radio mic has gone silent because, what do you know... he already has. Christopher Lee features in a couple of these scenes.
The iconic actor who really owns the movie, though only for a few scenes, is Vincent Price, however. He features in the final plotline, which also includes perhaps the movie's only memorable idea: that of a person waking up in a hospital bed repeatedly to find another of their limbs missing each time.
Christopher Lee encounters Price at the end of the movie, which seemed like an attempt to finally explain what these two (or three) plot-threads are doing in the same movie, but I didn't really get it. Apparently the novel the movie was based on was followed closely by the screenwriter, up until the end, where they left bits out. Unfortunately, it shows.
The movie was still pretty enjoyable, though.
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Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064949/reviews
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