Sombra no Escuro

This is another one of those 80's slashers that came out during the golden age, but has long been forgotten about despite the fact that it was a smash hit when it came out grossing $15 million at the box office, so I asked myself if this was so big then why isn't it more remembered, I mean this made more money than such other slasher gems such as (My Bloody Valentine, Happy Birthday To Me & House On Sorority Row).

Then I finally got round to seeing this and okay it's not quite up there with the other gems, but it's still worth checking out. The beginning is quite interesting and sets the tone for whats to come, like teens staying in an old Gothic mansion then getting picked off one by one by a murderous presence hiding in the attic. The performances also makes this movie work especially from genre stars Babara Steele and Yvonne De Carlo. And the gloomy atmosphere but Unfortunately it is this over-reliance on the past that proves to be the films' ultimate downfall as it gets boring very fast and This movie is nothing special. There's barely any blood or gore and the story tends to drag on at times, especially since the deaths take too long to happen and are too quick when they do.

All in all Silent Scream does set the creepy and Gothic tone well, but it does boring and far paced but overall the film works simply down the good turns from the cast.

The slasher film was one of the more popular eighties horror sub-genres, and as a result; a lot of truly awful slashers were made. This one isn't particularly brilliant, but it's more than decent and has more going for it than the vast majority of similar films from the same period. Most of the eighties output was directly influenced by John Carpenter's overrated Halloween, but this film appears to take more from the original slasher - Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece Psycho - than the aforementioned modern slasher, which is definitely to the film's credit. The film puts it's focus on just one location; that being a boarding house near to a beach. The house is run by Mrs. Engels, who leaves her son Mason in charge as she prefers to stay locked in her upstairs room. Scotty Parker arrives at the house after searching all over town for a room. She gets a room there and pretty soon she is introduced to the other three house mates and mingles with them well. However, it soon becomes clear that there's a member of the household that she hasn't been introduced to, and it's not long before one of her new-found friends turns up dead.

I have to be honest and say that I probably wouldn't have bothered tracking this one down if it wasn't for the fact that it features the great Barbara Steele. Steele doesn't get the lead role, but she is by far the most memorable thing about the film with her deliciously insane character. The plot plays out very directly, and there is little or no attempt to be clever at all. This certainly isn't a bad thing, however, as it means that writer-director Denny Harris (with his only film) is able to put the focus on the popular slasher elements such as murder and atmosphere. The film isn't very bloody compared to its counterparts; films such as Friday the 13th, but there's a few brutal murder sequences contained within the film, and this is sure to please slasher fans. The foreboding and tense atmosphere is a result of the focus on the central location, and the old house at the centre of the film gives it a nice feel throughout, which is also one of the film's main assets. The conclusion is somewhat predictable; but you can't expect much else from this sort of film, and while Silent Scream isn't massively impressive, it's better than a lot of slashers and comes recommended to fans of the sub-genre.

When Scotty Parker and three other students move into Mrs Engels' boarding house on the coast,they soon begin to suspect that something strange is happening.Landlady Mrs Engels hides away in her attic room and her son Mason is a creepy character who likes to watch brutal TV shows.Then the students start to disappear..."Silent Scream" is pretty good.It's true that some of its elements are stolen from Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho"(check out the shower scene!),but still the film manages to be quite creepy.The characters are reasonably appealing-a horror queen Barbara Steele is another reason to see "Silent Scream".Overall I enjoyed this little suspense horror.Check it out.8 out of 10.

A cloying atmosphere. A large, wooden mansion close to the beach. A camera prowling the hallways. An arm grabbed in a crawlspace. Barbara Steele. The strange, bespecled son who puts on an old army uniform and stays in his room. The mother we rarely see. The grim tone.

I recall these fleeting aspects of "Silent Scream" and I recall the trailer featuring the arm grabbed.

The film is not very bloody and not a lot happens, but director Denny Harris chooses to focus on the dysfunctional family who rent rooms to college students. One of them, Rebecca Balding, a strong, no-nonsense actress, cottons on to what's happening and starts to investigate.

Although the film was inspired by Halloween, it plays more like "Psycho" or "Terror House" and benefits from its downbeat look and score.

This movie scared the bejezzus out of me when I was a kid. I think I was scarred for life. I haven't seen the movie since I was a kid, but at that age I went to see a movie more than once so I still recall the movie pretty well. Silent Scream was one of the first ‘psycho killer on a rampage' kinds of horror movies I had ever seen. Most of my childhood movie experiences were supernatural gore fests. I had gone through life blissfully believing that all things horrific where relegated to the realm of the supernatural, where they couldn't hurt me. That ended for me in the summer of 1980: the year Silent Scream and Friday the 13th came out. I was glued to my seat, eyes like saucers, watching some wacked-out person hacking people up with a butcher knife or trying to pull them through a hole in the attic wall so they could hack them up. It was pure magic for an adolescent boy. It didn't matter that there was no mystery to figure out. All that mattered was that I was getting the you-know-what scared out of me and loving it. I look back now and think of how truly silly those kinds of movies were but, hey, they were great summer entertainment for a junior high school kid. I still have a soft place in my heart for all of those mindless slasher movies. I would recommend Silent Scream for anyone who loves classic ‘80's horror (the best decade for horror in my opinion). Here are some other recommendations for horror/thriller from my childhood (I'll try to stick to the less well known ones): Humanoids from the Deep, The Boogens, The Boogeyman, Sleepaway Camp, Dead of Winter,Evil Speak, Scanners (well known but a must), Mausoleum, Motel Hell, Blood Beach, Happy Birthday to Me, April Fools Day, Sole Survivor, Galaxy of Terror. There is also from the seventies: Suspiria, Alice Sweet Alice, The Other, Burnt Offerings, Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things, Piranha and Giant Spider Invasion: most of which I saw in the eighties. There are a lot more that don't come to mind right away but suffice to say that I made it my goal to see all the horror movies I could when I was young and there were a ton of them. I'm sure I loved them all. Please feel free to contact me for any recommendations to give or receive.