1795: Sir Charles Fengriffin (Ian Oglivy) brings his young bride Catherine (Stephanie Beacham) home to his estate and she falls victim to a curse upon his family. Some 50 years ago, Sir Charles's grandfather Sir Henry (Herbert Lom) raped woodcutter Silas's wife in front of his very eyes on their wedding night. When he resisted Sir Henry cut off his hand with an axe. Silas vowed that the next virgin bride who came to the Fengriffin estate would be violated just as his wife was and if anybody tried to prevent it they would die. In consequence, Catherine suffers from a series of gruesome apparitions including a severed hand appearing and disappearing at will (on one occasion punching its way through the canvas of a painting of Sir Henry) and a mouldering corpse with a bloodied severed hand. After the family solicitor Maitland (Guy Rolfe) and the housekeeper Mrs Luke (Rosalie Crutchley) die in horrible circumstances, Catherine falls pregnant and the child is born with a hand missing and an identical birth mark to that of Silas and his son (Geoffrey Whitehead) who lives on the estate and taunts the family . Sir Charles calls in the psychiatrist Dr Pope (Peter Cushing) to investigate the affair...
A pretty standard haunted house ghost yarn that sometimes borders on the absurd - do they really expect us to believe that a woman can give birth to a child who was fathered by a ghost? No, I don't think so. Nevertheless, apart from that and the odd moments of crudity and unpleasantness, there is still much to watch here. Director Roy Ward Baker's direction is imaginative featuring some spectacular camerawork and some impressive special effects, which deliver some jumpy and well timed shocks. The film's attention to period detail is superb thanks to the subdued and atmospheric lighting of Denys Coop and Tony Curtis' art direction. It also depicts the brutality and corruption of the aristocracy of the period in which the story is set. For instance, Sir Henry Fengriffin's (played with a convincingly sinister edge by Herbert Lom) country estate and the debauched crowd he fills it with has connotations of the Hellfire Club and his treatment of his servant, the woodcutter Silas (Geoffrey Whitehead who offers the best performance in the movie as the ill-fated Silas and his vengeful son giving the part a genuinely frightening authenticity) shows how the wealthier and powerful classes could exploit the poor and the powerless with impunity. The film's most powerful scene is when Catherine's baby is born and Dr Pope lifts it out of its cot and gives it to her to hold and we are moved and kept on the edge of our seat wondering if she will reject him or accept him as her son. Oglivy and Beacham give only serviceable performances while Cushing offers the right amount of authority as the London doctor brought in to solve the mystery, but he has very little to do here and it certainly does not rank among his greatest performances.
Overall, And Now The Screaming Starts is a very worthy genre piece from Amicus (Hammer's main rival throughout the 60's and 70's and best known for their portmanteau horror pictures) that may be routine in terms of its storyline, but a combination of some good performances, rich period detail and clever direction ensure that it is unmissable for fans of classic British horror films.
A pretty standard haunted house ghost yarn that sometimes borders on the absurd - do they really expect us to believe that a woman can give birth to a child who was fathered by a ghost? No, I don't think so. Nevertheless, apart from that and the odd moments of crudity and unpleasantness, there is still much to watch here. Director Roy Ward Baker's direction is imaginative featuring some spectacular camerawork and some impressive special effects, which deliver some jumpy and well timed shocks. The film's attention to period detail is superb thanks to the subdued and atmospheric lighting of Denys Coop and Tony Curtis' art direction. It also depicts the brutality and corruption of the aristocracy of the period in which the story is set. For instance, Sir Henry Fengriffin's (played with a convincingly sinister edge by Herbert Lom) country estate and the debauched crowd he fills it with has connotations of the Hellfire Club and his treatment of his servant, the woodcutter Silas (Geoffrey Whitehead who offers the best performance in the movie as the ill-fated Silas and his vengeful son giving the part a genuinely frightening authenticity) shows how the wealthier and powerful classes could exploit the poor and the powerless with impunity. The film's most powerful scene is when Catherine's baby is born and Dr Pope lifts it out of its cot and gives it to her to hold and we are moved and kept on the edge of our seat wondering if she will reject him or accept him as her son. Oglivy and Beacham give only serviceable performances while Cushing offers the right amount of authority as the London doctor brought in to solve the mystery, but he has very little to do here and it certainly does not rank among his greatest performances.
Overall, And Now The Screaming Starts is a very worthy genre piece from Amicus (Hammer's main rival throughout the 60's and 70's and best known for their portmanteau horror pictures) that may be routine in terms of its storyline, but a combination of some good performances, rich period detail and clever direction ensure that it is unmissable for fans of classic British horror films.