Scream and Scream Again.

Review #1129: Scream and Scream Again.

Cast: 
Vincent Price (Dr. Browning), Christopher Lee (Fremont), Peter Cushing (Major Heinrich Benedek), Judy Huxtable (Sylvia), Alfred Marks (Detective Superintendent Bellaver), Michael Gothard (Keith), Marshall Jones (Konratz), Uta Levka (Jane), Christopher Matthews (Dr. David Sorel), Anthony Newlands (Ludwig), Peter Sallis (Schweitz), Judy Bloom (Helen Bradford), and Clifford Earl (Detective Sergeant Jimmy Joyce) Directed by Gordon Hessler.

Review: 
Editor's note: Movie Night will likely have delays with release of certain reviews in part due to my obligations with my new job - in other words, when I have time to write and post, I'll try to get it done, preferably with at least one or two reviews a week. I honestly did not intend to write over a thousand words for this review, yet here we are. I hope you enjoy this review in any case.

The movie is adapted from a novel called The Disorientated Man by Peter Saxon. Peter Saxon was a house pseudonym used by various authors of pulp fiction during the 1960s and 1970s, such as W. Howard Baker, Stephen Frances and others. In the book, aliens tried to colonize the Earth through making synthetic creatures made from people abducted and murdered by the group. The events depicted are done as a series of events that seem unrelated at first - such as people's limbs being taken away from them, investigation of a "vampire murderer", and a brutal foreign country dealing with diplomacy, for example. It generally is considered to be a science fiction conspiracy thriller, with bits of horror. With billing that promotes Price, Lee and Cushing all-together in one film, the expectation (at least for someone like me, anyways) is that there is a product that gives them something interesting to do. Perhaps it is that billing (or a title that invites horror connotations like this does) that makes the eventual result a disappointment. The real focus of actors involves not so much Price or Lee, but people such as Huxtable, Marks, Gothard, and Matthews, with Price only getting real substantial screen-time near the climax. The screenplay was done by Christopher Wicking, who had contributed additional dialogue for The Oblong Box (1969), which shared the same director while starring Lee and Price and having cinematography by John Coquillon (known for cinematography of films such as Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid).

The collage of plot threads would be interesting if things didn't go in such a boring manner as if to produce frustration. For the most part, the film's focus is on its crime thriller angle, with occasional bits of horror before playing sci-fi late in the game. It's like they couldn't figure out whether to be a paranoia-conspiracy thriller or a mad scientist film, so they just threw things in a blender and hoped that people wouldn't care about it making not much sense because it was so "entertaining" - or something like that. Price is the highlight, taking things in stride with a calm and collected manner that nearly makes having to sit through an hour to get more Price involvement. Lee is in the film for probably less than ten minutes (for a movie that runs at 95 minutes), having minimal presence until its climax. He says his lines without too much semblance of emotion, but no one in this film seems to show any particularly interesting emotional responses. Cushing was added in at the last minute to help with box office appeal, having just one scene. With three minutes of screen presence, it is sometimes easy to forget why he can be enjoyable to watch. Then I realize it is the fact that he brings a certain legitimacy and entertainment value to whatever role he brings, and I was thinking of that quite clearly when watching his scene because it reminds me that there isn't quite enough entertainment value from many of the cast-mates, including Jones, the one who nerve pinches Cushing to death. Huxtable doesn't make too much of an impression in a film that likes to talk and show imagery but not go anywhere with it. Gothard, the first adversary for the film (amusingly dubbed a "vampire killer" at one point), can't really make much of an impression aside from a bit of a frenzied face and a ruffled shirt, and the chase sequence is a doozy of amusement. It goes from a car chase to a chase in a quarry to one that ends back at a house where the killer just jumps in a pool of acid. In a better film, maybe it would've felt more interesting and exciting, but it's more of an amusing thing to look at, particularly their attempts to try and chase him down on foot.

Marks plays his police role with a dryness that invites a cursory watch but doesn't give off anything too charismatic. He does get some occasional offbeat lines, such as when being asked about murder: "Is it murder? Don't be so bloody stupid!" Matthews isn't too much better as the second figure to follow, but he plays things off okay at least. Jones plays a somewhat towering adversary that can't inspire much menace besides a mild unintentional chuckle. The other actors aren't too particularly memorable. By the time the film gets somewhere with its climax involving Price, it gets particularly amusing. A movie that likes to confound and confuse decides to shift into a quasi-Frankenstein film. Then again, the Hammer Frankenstein films were actually more interesting to look at and even more amusing to think about. The ideas presented involving creating some sort of composite people is far more interesting than anything the film tried to do for its first half. But truly, nothing can top a fight sequence involving an acid bath between Price and Lee, where they share the screen for a minute before Lee forces Price into the bath not by pushing him, but by...staring and towering over him, I guess. The sight of Price's face as he accepts his fate is particularly amusing, as if someone was dangling rotted cheese behind him. Reportedly, Price and Lee couldn't take the scene seriously, with Lee struggling to keep a straight face at the idea of Price (who didn't use a stunt double for the scene) sinking into some yellowy acid, which apparently affected Price due to the stuff affecting his nose that gave him nasal sinus for years afterwards. By the time the film ends, the idea of pondering what its final moments entail seem like a fruitless challenge, since expressing frustration at the junk produced on screen seems more appropriate. On the whole, this is an amusing misfire that knows to confuse its audiences with a barrage of images and junk without having an entertaining or even intriguing plot to go with it, with Price being the only real saving grace. The only real shock the film has is how much of a mess it is.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.