Scream and Scream Again

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?