Review of Scream and Scream Again (1970) by Bog Man , — 19 Oct 2005

Scream and Scream Again.

Starring: Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Marshall Jones, Peter Cushing, and Christopher Matthews.

Director: Gordon Hessler.

One day, during the Swingin' Sixties, a clerk at a British movie studio dropped the scripts for three separate movies and the pages got all jumbled up. One was a supernatural/political thriller set within a fictitious East bloc country, the other was a modern-day psycho-vampire flick set in London, and the third was a mad doctor/Frankenstein flick. She tried to sort the pages out correctly, but didn?t manage to do so. One of the mish-mashes of random pages was given project approval by an indifferent executive. A shooting script was approved by a drunk producer. Directors went about finding actors, and soon principle photography on ?Scream and Scream Again? was underway.

I really don?t know if that story accurately describes how ?Scream and Scream Again? came to be produced, but it?s a more generous explanation than one that assumes this incoherent and disjointed movie was written to be this way.

For more than 3/4ths of the picture there is barely a connection between the various plots, except for a single actor who crosses over between the two. And when they do come together, it?s only barely and it?s not in any way that seems terribly well thought out. (A sign of the complete confusion that reins in this film is even evident in the theatrical preview included on the video tape; the actor who is identified as Peter Cushing is actually Marshall Jones.).

The story, such as it is, starts with a series of ?vampire murders? in London. It turns out that these are being perpetrated by the creation of a mad scientist (Vincent Price) who is working as part of a global secret scientific society to create a superior human race through surgery. When the police refuse to investigate due to political pressure a young coroner (Christopher Matthews) starts doing his own investigation. He is soon in over his head and that?s when things get really stupid.

Although Cushing, Lee, and Price get top billing, Cushing is only in one scene (and it?s a pointless one at that) and Lee?s presence isn?t much more than Cushing?s. Price?s role is larger and very important to the story, but his screen time is still very limited and he doesn?t have much to do. His presence is almost as big a waste as that of Cushing and Lee.

And the score, the easy-listening rock/jazz fusion score, is almost too painful for words!

All in all, this film should go on the ?must-miss? list, except for those who might be looking for the worst ?day-for-night? shots since Ed Wood stopped making Z-grade thrillers and turned to Z-grade pornos. It makes the worst of the Hammer Film efforts look like the work of Orson Wells. What?s even more embarrassing for this film is that it looks like it probably had a bigger budget than several Hammer Films combined, based on the number of locations and aerial shots featured.