The Silent Scream (1979) User Reviews

Nicely done mystery with slasher styled murders.

[Hey_Sweden · 7/10 · 7 August 2013]

A better than average cast helps to make this horror film a decent watch, along with a reasonably good script (written by brothers Jim & Ken Wheat and Wallace C. Bennett) that has some memorable twists. It's graphically bloody at times but also has fine atmosphere, and a healthy nod to "Psycho" in its use of an imposing beach side house.

College student Scotty (Rebecca Balding) is in desperate need of a place to live and ends up at this house, owned by a weird family, the Engels. Unfortunately, Scotty and her fellow roommates won't know just *how* creepy this family is until it's almost too late. When one of the kids is murdered, a subplot develops with two detectives (Cameron Mitchell, Avery Schreiber) investigating the case.

The cute Balding is an appealing lead in this story, given effective theatrical treatment by commercial veteran Denny Harris (in his only feature credit). Helping a great deal is a grandiose music score by the under-rated Roger Kellaway, who also composes a period style song for the show. There is some good suspense and many ominous shots of the house and its interiors. The shocks are well realized, as well.

Yvonne De Carlo is also among the familiar faces appearing. Mitchell and an effectively serious Schreiber are fine as the detectives. In addition to Balding, Steve Doubet and Juli Andelman are similarly likable. Brad Rearden is great in the role of the nerdy Mason Engels, the films' one true tragic character. And horror genre icon Barbara Steele is a treat to watch in a non-speaking role.

Lovers of the horror films from this period should find a fair deal to enjoy here. "The Silent Scream" is enjoyable stuff that deserves a viewing from them.

Seven out of 10.

Downbeat spawn of "Psycho"

[fertilecelluloid · 6/10 · 6 January 2006]

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.

Pretty decent slasher/mystery film.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 7/10 · 8 November 2002]

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.

Creepy and nostalgic

[plumberguy66 · 18 April 2002]

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.

See it for Barbara Steele's PERFORMANCE

[loomis78-815-989034 · 6/10 · 24 May 2014]

Coed Scotty (Balding) is in desperate need of housing before the semester starts. She eventually settles on a room at a seaside estate with some other students. She is creeped out by the house owner Mrs. Engles (Yvonne De Carlo) and her nerdy son Mason (Rearden) but is attracted to fellow border Jack (Doubet). After a night out drinking the borders go to the adjoining beach to party when Peter (John Widelock) is left behind and is brutally stabbed by an unseen assailant with a large knife. Lt. Sandy McGiver (Cameron Mitchell) is called in to investigate. He soon finds out that the Engles oldest daughter Victoria (Steele) spent time in a mental hospital due to stabbing someone and an attempted suicide. Someone is indeed lurking in the attic of the house as the family's well-kept secret is slowly revealed. Director Denny Harris uses good atmosphere and a few memorable shots (like the hands coming through the cob-webbed slats in the walls) to distract you that not much happens in this movie until its later reels. A slasher film at heart, the film is low on gore and body count but genre favorite Barbara Steele as crazed Victoria is certainly a highlight. Her off balanced take on Victoria is simply chilling and gives this good looking movie its chills. The Police in this movie are silly and come straight out of 1970 TV cop shows. The movie goes all in on the slow reveal of who is doing the creepy stalking and killing, but it could have used some more punch in earlier scenes. See it for Barbara Steele's great performance.

Tame early slasher

[FilmFatale · 7/10 · 9 November 2012]

Scotty, Jack, Peter and Doris are all students who move into a gorgeous seaside mansion/boarding house run by Mrs. Engels and her son Mason. At first, the students love their new digs, but when one of them turns up dead, things get weird and the Engels family secrets begin to come out.

I remember always wanting to watch this movie when it was on HBO before we had cable, so it had taken on an almost mythic importance in my mind. I don't know why I never rented it during the VHS boom, but I finally tried to watch it earlier this year but couldn't get into it. I'm glad I gave it another chance, because I actually found it quite enjoyable. Sure, it's pretty tame compared to other 80s slashers, but there's a grimness to the murders through the sound or the blood spatter or other visual/auditory tricks that really make them effective, even though we don't see anything. The young actors playing the college students are mostly likable and not cartoonish, so I could imagine them all being friends. Overall, I'd recommend this one, especially to someone just starting to explore the slasher genre.

"Any idea what kind of knife?"..."Yeah, real big and real sharp" Dull horror film.

[poolandrews · 3/10 · 19 April 2005]

Silent Scream starts with one of the most annoying opening sequences I've seen in a while. An entire scene involving police pulling up outside, going into, searching & making a gruesome discovery in the attic of a large Mansion is shown in highly irritating slow-motion & seems to go on forever. Not a good start, only a few minutes in & Silent Scream has already got on my nerves! Silent Scream then goes into flashback as the story which leads to this event is told. Student Scotty Parker (Rebecca Balding) has transfered to Santa Rey College at very short notice & once enrolled she sets about finding a room to stay in. After no luck searching Scotty comes across an old Victorian Mansion situated high on some cliffs above the sea & beach whose owners, Mrs. Engels (Yvonne De Carlo) & her geeky weird son Mason (Brad Rearden) rent their spare rooms out to students just like Scotty. Already living there are two more students named Doris Prichart (Juli Andelman) & Jack Towne (Steve Doubet). Scotty accepts one of two available rooms, the other is taken by another student named Peter Ransom (John Widelock) at the same time. That night the four new friends decide to go out to dinner. On their way back home a drunk Peter, after being a jerk, gets left behind & is murdered. His body is discovered the next morning, Lieutenant Sandy McGiver (Cameron Mitchell) & his partner Sergeant Manny Ruggin (Avery Schreiber) are on the case. They question Scotty, Doris & Jack but get nowhere, they then decide to investigate the Engels family to see if they can dig something up on them. Eventually they do but are they in time to save the students from a dark secret that has been hidden for years!

Executive produced, co-written & directed by Denny Harris I thought Silent Scream was a waste of time & throughly unimpressive. The script by Harris, Wallace C.Bennett, Jim Wheat & Ken Wheat is extremely slow, nothing significant happens for long stretches. It's over half an hour of tedium, poor character development & scene setting before anything that even resembles horror takes place. The body count is extremely low with just one death for over an hour! The ending was also a big disappointment with a dull so-called shocking revelation that really isn't anything like being shocking, surprising or interesting. In fact Silent Scream ends as you would expect it to, I honestly thought the filmmakers would have tried to come up with a twist ending & catch potential viewers out but no such luck unfortunately. Forget about any blood or gore, just a few red splashes on curtains, clothes & walls & while watching the end credits I noticed there wasn't any special effects credit listed which tells you everything you need to know! There is a sex scene but no explicit nudity. Technically Silent Scream isn't too bad, the house & locations used look OK even if the talentless Harris can't evoke any kind of atmosphere from them & generally speaking it's adequately made throughout although it ain't going to exactly knock your socks off. Acting is alright, there are some genre veterans in here including Yvonne De Carlo, Cameron Mitchell & Barbara Steele. Overall Silent Scream at best is merely watchable as there is nothing really wrong with it I suppose, but at worst it sucks because it's far too slow, uneventful & nothing of interest really happens for most of it's running time. Unfortunately for both me & Silent Scream the negative aspects of the film easily outweighed the positive, better luck next time chaps. The more I think about it the more I think Silent Scream would have worked a lot better as a half an hour Tales from the Crypt (1989 - 1996) episode. There are much better horror films available, watch one of those instead.

Do not underrate Barbara Steele

[poch1-1 · 7/10 · 29 March 2006]

This mix of Gothic and Slasher film is lifted from forgettable to must see status by the iconic Barbara Steele. There is a nice setting of mood as the fine Rebecca Balding moves from the typical world of early 80's college setting so typical of slasher films into a more traditional Gothic setting. The music also quickly evolves from incidental to symphonic, again surprising for a horror film of 1980. Soon we are introduced to a still lovely Yvonne Decarlo who has a BIG SECRET! At long last we meet Barbara Steele. It might take a little time and patience to get to Ms. Steele but she dominates the last half hour with a committed artful performance and a beauty that cannot be dimmed with age. Stay with this one. The ending is terrific where most of the 80's films fall apart.

if you can't scream anything nice...

[FieCrier · 4/10 · 3 June 2002]

Pretty dull. Some somewhat Argentoesque aspects, like the opening, which seems like a flashback (it's not) and a long tracking shot. Psycho hangs over this film more obviously, though, with a sinister mother character, a wimpy young man, voyeurism - and a psychoesque murder, as well as music clearly stolen from Psycho's shower scene.

Some memorable images, but an unmemorable film unworthy of a second viewing.

My reasoning for seeing it was a bit odd. I recall having seen in the late 1970s or early 1980s an advertisement/public service announcement, promo, or trailer of some kind on TV. This would almost certainly have been network TV, since we didn't have cable. Camera was zooming in going up a narrow white staircase, I believe there was a heartbeat on the soundtrack, and the camera might have zoomed in on a vent on one of the walls in the staircase. I believe there was a voice-over saying something about a "silent scream." Visually, that's all it was - camera zooming up a staircase.

I thought it was possible, and it was also suggested to me on either IMDb's I Need to Know or Horror message boards, that this was a trailer for Silent Scream (1980). However, there was not a staircase like that in the movie, and unfortunately no trailer was included on the video. For some reason, I also wonder if it could have been a fire safety promo, or an antiabortion ad.

So, even though I'm not keen to watch the movie again, I would like to see the TV trailers for it!

Entertaining gem but forgettable

[rivertam26 · 7/10 · 21 April 2020]

I've never really heard of thos movie but I picked it up at a horror con with 2 others that were 3 for $50. I'm always a sucker for a good deal and always looking out for hidden gems I may have missed. Well unlike most times I actually found one. Silent scream is a tense little slasher about college kids being offed one by one in brutal fashion after moving into suggested student housing. The movie is fun in that retro way and the story and twists are surprisingly good. That being said I can understand why it's not referred to that much. Although entertaining it's just not all that memorable. Still in the history of slashers it's a classier one that's well made with a great performance by scream queen Barbara Steele.

Box Office$ 8m

3.5/5

Tedious and uninvolving

[Groverdox · 5/10 · 23 August 2018]

"The Silent Scream" is an ineffective chiller with a number of feeble loose ends it never ties together.

A co-ed finds a sea-side rental house with some secretive types. She is warned to keep quiet around one of the rooms, inhabited by the house-owner, played by Barbara Steele, star of '60s horror flicks like "Black Sunday", but curiously underused here.

Inevitably, some people start getting sliced up (in fairly non-violent scenes), and Cameron Mitchell comes to investigate. He was the only other actor I recognized.

Obviously the finger seems to point to the old lady. More people die, and the characters don't seem that concerned about it. They go for a walk on the beach one day after someone was murdered there. Shouldn't there be some yellow tape trying to keep people out, and chalk marks on the ground?

I guess there were some twists and turns, but nothing that took me by surprise at all. I didn't care about any of it. None of the actors make any impression. There is a complete lack of human detail to the characterizations that would have provided an entry point for the film. You end up just waiting for the movie to end.

Nice homage to Psycho.

[FrightMeter · 8/10 · 30 August 2010]

College student Scotty Parker waits too long to apply for on campus housing and as a result must rent a room at a spooky seaside mansion owned by the equally spooky Engels family. Soon, one of the other college student renters is brutally murdered and Scotty unknowingly begins to unravel the secrets of the Engels family and the murders.

The creepy, atmospheric little gem is a homage to Psycho through and through. Though it is a slow-burner, there is always an uneasiness present as the viewer is made aware through minor clues that something is not right with the Engels family. There is little to no gore; instead the focus on on building tension leading into the frantic and frenzied climax. Barbara Steele steals the film without saying a word and her performance will certainly give you chills. Highly underrated and one of the better entries into the early 80's slasher genre, though today's audience may be turned off by the slow pace.

FrightMeter Grade: B

Lesser known, but not as bad as some of the eighties slasher output!

[The_Void · 6/10 · 29 January 2007]

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.

If only the first hour could have been like the last half hour

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 14 June 2021]

THE SILENT SCREAM (1979) is a low budget murder mystery/horror/slasher shot in California with a few recognisable faces in the cast. A young girl moves into a boarding house on the beach along with some fellow students from a local college. The owner seems to be a recluse although her geeky son seems friendly enough, but before long one of the students is murdered and the local police force put their best man on the job (an aged Cameron Mitchell). For the first hour, nothing much happens here apart from a PSYCHO-influenced murder or two, but around the hour mark it changes tack, there's a big twist and it gets a lot more fun. It's a basic film through-and-through, the usual cheapie spoilt by too much padding and too little atmosphere, and the young leads are quite dull, but it's a lot of fun to see both Yvonne De Carlo (THE MUNSTERS) and '60s scream queen Barbara Steele in the cast, and Steele in particular is the best thing in this; she really shines and makes the most of her small role.

A 'cut above' the usual slasher.

[verna55 · 4 November 2000]

Four college-bound students arrive too late for on-campus housing and are then forced to rent rooms in the creepy old hilltop mansion inhabited by a weird family hiding a dark and disturbing secret. Yvonne De Carlo is the mysterious matriarch who always stays upstairs and always seems to be guarding the attic, and Brad Rearden is her strange son. Cameron Mitchell and Avery Schreiber are detectives called in to investigate when a brutal murder occurs at the eerie place. There's also a nice role for sixties scream queen Barbara Steele. I"ll admit, before I actually saw the film I thought, considering the release date and R rating, that this was just going to be another one of those bloody teen slasher flicks. I couldn't have been more wrong! There actually is a plot, a surprisingly low body count, and even the few characters that do get knocked off are appealing in their own strange way, so you can't help but care what happens to these people. And above all, there is some terrific suspense sequences. It usually takes alot to get my adrenaline running, but at some points in the film, I literally jumped out of my seat! Any horror movie that can do this for me is truly something special. It appears to have been made on a small budget, but the cast handles it all so professionally that it hardly matters. Indeed, there are some real professionals involved, including horror mavens Barbara Steele and Yvonne DeCarlo. Unfortunately, it's a tough movie to find and not likely to be sitting on the shelf of your local retail/rental store, but it's well worth the extra effort.

Barbara Steele's Every Scene She Is In!

[BaronBl00d · 6/10 · 31 October 2010]

Relatively cheaply-made and not-so-hotly directed by one hit "wonder" Denny Harris, The Silent Scream came out at the beginning of the slasher flicks boom following John Carpenter's Halloween in 1978. This film and Friday the Thirteenth came out in 1980. The Silent Scream seems to have been somewhat lost though it really is way better than the other and its entire franchise. We get a very creepy old house by the sea and a group of college students in need of rooms to rent. Mason Engles, the young nerdy boy of the family handles the business as his mother stays cooped in her room in the attic. Soon young people start getting butchered. First one man by the surf, another in the laundry room - no need for a laundry list here. The murders are not particularly grizzly - certainly not by today's standards, but the acting believe it or not is miles ahead of much of the dreck in films of this ilk since. No wonder as we have Yvonne De Carlo as Mrs. Engles, Barbara Steele in a truly bizarre role of a mentally frustrated psychopath who dresses as an adolescent but is in her forties(and still beautiful I might add), Cameron Mitchell doing a workmanlike job in a small role as a cop along with Doritos pitchman and comedian Avery Scrieber playing it straight as a detective. Rebecca Balding is our heroine and she is refreshing and lovely. The house is very eerie and we get back corridors and all that plus a basement and attic to die for(okay, to die in). The story is trite, hackneyed, predictable, or any word you would like to use that means something we have all seen a hundred times, but the acting and the atmosphere are pretty good. that is quite a complement, because I didn't think much of the direction especially that stupid slow-motion beginning of Mitchell and Scriber coming in the house and seeing the murders. You wonder first if the house has some history of murder, but then just wonder why the director went that route at all. An intriguing film especially in the context of when it was made.

Tame but not bad

[preppy-3 · 7/10 · 4 April 2005]

When this came out originally it looked kind of stupid. I was going to skip it but two things changed my mind--a local Boston newspaper gave it a rave review (this was from a critic who HATED horror films) and it had Barbara Steele in it.

It's about these four college kids sharing this huge mansion with owner (Yvonne De Carlo) and her teenage son. However somebody kills two of them and the two left are fighting for their lives. But who is it...and why?

Pretty mild horror film. The killings are pretty tame as is the one sex scene. The dialogue is terrible and the film looks cheap. It feels like an R rated made for TV film. Also except for De Carlo and Steele (both wasted) the acting is lousy. Still I sort of liked this. It's competently directed and there were a few minor chills here and there. There's also one VERY gruesome scene where a pregnant teenage girl tries to hang herself. That probably earned the film an R rating.

Mild but not bad.

Otherwise stylish film undone by flat script and tedious pace (4 - 10)

[andybob-3 · 4/10 · 19 February 2007]

Four college students rent rooms at an old, creepy looking sea side house, run by an elderly woman and her rather reclusive son. Unbeknownst to them a mysterious stalker hiding somewhere in the house quietly watches and preys upon them one by one in typical slasher fashion.

This movie would have been plenty creepy if there was some payoff every so often, but unfortunately it just keeps building up and building up to a climax that is neither particularly scary or surprising. It does have a few good moments here and there, such as a close-up of the unseen killer peering through a vent, or secretly breaking into the cobweb ridden crawlspace, but these moments are ultimately swallowed up by the relentlessly tedious pace. The cast does it's best with the material but there's simply nothing for them to work with. Balding, who shows plenty of charisma in her next film "The Boogens", is completely wasted in a thankless role that gives her little more to do other than stand around looking cute in spite of ridiculous looking clothes.

4 out of 10, despite otherwise creepy direction this film is just too long, tedious and uneventful to hold you interest.

See it for Barbara Steele

[udar55 · 6/10 · 11 May 2007]

University student Scotty (Rebecca Balding) finds campus housing is full so she secures a room in a creepy house overlooking the beach. She makes quick friends with the other three students there but is a bit creeped out by teenager Mason and his mother Mrs. Engels (Yvonne DeCarlo). The night she moves in, one of her newfound friends is murdered on the beach. While the police investigate, Scotty stays in the house to fall in love with Jack, unaware that the killer is lurking between the walls.

For some reason, I never saw this early slasher flick despite a pretty wide video release on the Media label. Checking it out 27 years after its debut, it is a pretty effective little horror film that mixes the old dark house scenario with the popular slasher trend of the time. The first hour or so is pretty standard stuff. It is in the last half hour that the film really makes it point. Once Scotty discovers the hidden path in the walls, it is a pretty good freak out with a deranged family. Best of all, you have a wonderfully deranged (and wordless) performance by Barbara Steele as the psychotic killer Victoria. Despite her character having a lobotomy, she is still hot!

Cameron Mitchell and Avery Schrieber (!) have small supporting roles as the cops investigating the case. Director Denny Harris handles the scares well with the end in the attic being rather suspenseful. Sadly, this is his only feature to date. Composer Roger Kellaway delivers a really nice score as well. Writers/producers/brothers Jim and Ken Wheat went on to direct EWOK: THE BATTLE FOR ENDOR and the horror anthology AFTER MIDNIGHT. They then took sequel writing duty, churning out THE FLY II, parts of ELM STREET 4, THE BIRDS II, THE STEPFORD HUSBANDS and IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE II. They also wrote what eventually became PITCH BLACK.

A micro-movie

[Maciste_Brother · 2/10 · 8 October 2003]

Spoilers

SILENT SCREAM ain't much of a movie. I call it a micro-movie because the cast is populated by a few actors. There's only one setting. It takes place entirely inside a big but cramped house, and a lot of the action during the climax occurs in the attic. And the body count (aside from the killers' deaths) is only 2! Yep, 2. That has got to be the lowest body count for a slasher in horror movie history. To make things even more underwhelming, the murder scenes for those two aren't very good. What's really funny is as low as the body count is, the story boasts not 1, not 2 but 3 psychos/potential killers (the mother, the woman played by Barbara Steele and the "young" nerdy guy). The flashback is confusing and the film starts with, get this, the actual end of the movie, which basically shows us dead people lying on the floor. We don't know who's who on the first viewing but still, what a boring a lazy way to start a horror film. All in all, I have to say that this micro-movie was not worth watching.

Dark and horrifying family secrets come to light in "Slient Scream"

[sol1218 · 6/10 · 25 May 2006]

**SPOILERS** Effective horror/slasher movie that's a lot better than you would have first thought it would be. With 1960's Italian movie Horror Queen Barbara Steele playing Victoria Engels a shut-in and lobotomized psycho. Being kept hidden away in the family mansion by her mother Mrs. Engels, Yvonne De Carlo, and her creepy younger brother Mason, Brad Rearden. Who's in for a big big surprise, towards the end of the movie, that will completely freak him out and make Mason even more wacko then his very unstable big sister Victoria. Who turns out to be; well that's by far the biggest surprise in the movie.

Needing quick and ready cash for the upkeep of the house Mrs. Engles has a number of rooms rented out to collage students which makes her son Mason a bit nervous. Since Victoria is being hidden in the house and the fact that there will be a number of strangers roaming around the halls and stairways may will upset her and drive the deranged and unstable Victoria to break out and attack them. Sadly Mason turned out to be right.

With Scotty, Rebbeca Balding, together with fellow collage students Jack Peter & Doris, Steve Doubet John Widelock & Juli Andeiman, renting rooms at the Engels house Victoria is awakened from her fantasy world and goes on a murder spree. Victoria attacks and kills both Jack as he was lying drunk on the beach one morning and then Doris who she attacked and murdered in the basement while she was doing her laundry.

Earlier detectives Sandy McGiver & Manny Ruggin, Cameron Mitchell & Avery Schreiber, were put on the case and pressured by their chief to solve it as soon as possible. With the murdered Jack's father,a big time businessman, wanting results before he come to town, to identify and claim his son's body,from a aborted business trip in Europe.

After Victoria murders Doris both Mrs. Engels and Mason panic hiding her body in the attic. But Mason who worshiped and idolized his dead father, a highly decorated WWII US Army veteran, got the shock of his life when his mother told him the truth about his true blood relationship to his sister! That completely flipped him out and made Mason, if at all possible, even more nuts and homicidal then Victoria.

Now in full military regalia, his father's Army uniform, Mason goes on a shooting spree accidentally killing his mother, who was trying to keep Mason from shooting his sister, only to miss his real mark or intended victim Victoria until he had to reload his gun again. Even then Mason couldn't finish her off so now in total frustration, of him not being able to live up to is father's high standards as a combat vet, puts the gun to is head and blows his brains out.

Scotty who earlier found out the Engel's family secret and was attacked beaten and tied up, by Mason and his mother, tried to free herself. But now has the on-the-loose psycho Victoria to contend with and with the police being alerted about Victoria's whereabouts. It was found out that she was released from a mental institution 13 years ago, after an attempted suicide, into the custody of her mother Mrs. Engels. It soon became apparent that she's the prime suspect in Jack's murder but with time running out would they, the police, be able to prevent Victoria from murdering Scotty and even her boyfriend Peter before detective's McGiver Ruggin & Co. can come to their rescue?

Babara Steele sheds her glamorous image playing a very unappealing and lobotomized psycho and does an excellent job doing it. The movie "Silent Scream" itself is a lot better then your average slasher film with more depth and a much better script to it which more then compensated to it's very low budget and lack of special effects in the blood and gore department.

Sadly only average

[adriangr · 4/10 · 10 May 2015]

Silent Scream had to jostle with hundreds of other "slasher" movies at the start of the 1980's to get into the public consciousness, and it just doesn't make enough of an impression to be remembered. The story, action and characterisation are so ordinary that it never really makes a mark on the viewer.

The plot: Rebecca Balding takes a rented room in a large cliff top mansion along with 3 other students. The house is ominous, the family who own the house are creepy, and one by one, the students start dying. Cue police investigation that turns up nothing, noises in the attic, romantic sub-plot, secret passages, etc, etc.

On the whole, the film just isn't exciting. Although it employs heavy duty "horror music" almost constantly (and loudly) to try and make things seem frightening, the murders are tame and the first hour of the film borders on boring. Things pick up after the big reveal and the plight of the "final girl" takes a satisfying turn for the worse, but this extended climax is diluted by some fairly weak acting from a couple of pivotal characters, and again, the dramatic music is laid of with a trowel in attempt to convince you that something really scary is going on when it's not

So don't expect to be scared. Sadly the gory excesses of other films of the early 1980's make Silent Scream seem very tame. And viewed today, it hasn't really got enough going on to recommend it on any other level either. Shame.

Family comes first.

[lost-in-limbo · 8/10 · 4 March 2008]

Let it begin. Post-Halloween slashers are in force. But this just made it in before the major onslaught, and admirably it's a above par entry. Actually it probably has more common with "Psycho" , and touch of "Black Christmas", than most brain-dead slashers. The one-note story is quite typical and fairly bare on building much in the way of sub-plots, but it's the dreary, underlining atmosphere that smothers the gloomy seaside mansion and invokes a real unsteadiness of slow-burn tension. Even the performances lend well, and the central outlook on a dysfunctional family (who rent out spare rooms in their mansion to students) grows incredibly eerie. A silently steely Barbara Steele is memorably striking in her support role, while Rebecca Balding is competently fine as the main heroine. Cameron Mitchell and Yvonne De Carlo also show up. There's a subtle stylishness to Denny Harris' direction in many effective sequences, where obviously his less concerned about a body count and ghastly shocks. The feel is more like an old-fashioned Gothic-tale, with psychotic-drama currents. A problem though, would that there happened to be many flat (or dead-air) moments. Dead silence, and believable actions aplenty. It's low-budget shows, and minimal scope gives the film a tight, dank and creaky vibe that works. Even the vast, forlorn coastal location choices, and shadowy, cob-web house-bound settings are nailed down to perfection. Roger Kellaway's hysterically sombre music score had that familiar sound to it, but Michael D. Murphy & David Shore's murkily prying cinematography really sneaks up onto the viewer. Even within the empty passages, it still emit's a spine-tingling ambiance and workably solid performances by the cast.

Silence wasn't golden.

[haildevilman · 6/10 · 27 May 2012]

This film was made twice when everyone was brought back to re do scenes. It didn't help much.

A few college types decide to rent a huge castle/mansion near the ocean when the dorm housing gets full. Except there's an evil presence hiding there.

It seemed to capitalize on the sudden attacks so "no one had time to scream." But the build up was so bad it almost wasn't worth it.

Seeing Barbara Steele and Yvonne (Lily Munster) DeCarlo was nice. And the Cameron Mitchell-Avery Schreiber cop team was worth a look for the weirdness alone. But these names basically showed up for a few days and did their scenes before going back to their bigger jobs.

Most of the other actors were newbies trying to earn their stripes. They gave their all. And if you look....you'll catch Schreiber reading his lines off his notepad.

Strangely enough....despite the ravaging this took from the critics....and the fact that it really hasn't aged well...it did gross between 10 and 15 million.

But the 80's video boom and the distance horror has come since probably made it valuable only to collectors or vintage 70's film buffs.

Predictable and forgettable

[mnpollio · 4/10 · 31 January 2019]

Nubile college student Rebecca Balding scrambles to find housing and ends up boarding at the Engels' Gothic seaside home. Fellow boarders include funny girl Juli Andelman, braggart trust fund dude Peter Widelock, and hunky dreamboat Steve Doubet. The house is managed by the nerdy Brad Rearden, whose mother Yvonne DeCarlo rooms in the attic and emerges on occasion to glare mutely at the boarders. A psychopathic killer enters the mix and begins offing the inhabitants, bringing in detectives Cameron Mitchell and Avery Schreiber to investigate.

Most have probably never heard of this film, although it did fairly well in the early dawn of the 80s slasher genre and seems to have a very small cult following who insist it is better than it really is. The sad part about the film is that the bones of something quite good are there, but it simply never catches fire and contains zero surprises.

The fact that the film is painfully predictable is a downfall. The film opens with a flash forward of the police running into the house in irritating slow motion and we get snatches of carnage, so we have a good idea from the first few frames of who ends up six feet under. We also know that Balding and Doubet as the two lookers in the group will automatically fall in love/lust, but it seems to happen even improbably quicker in this film than usual. They get one brief sex scene where Balding bares her boobs, but alas Doubet predictably merely doffs his shirt. Further, with only four potential victims in the house and a healthy running time, there is not much suspense as to who is on the killer's chopping block. There is also no surprise as to the identity of the killer as the film pretty much tells us from the outset.

On a plus side, the film looks great. The house - with its cobwebbed passages and hidden places - is a creepy setting. It is easy to see what truly gifted filmmakers could have done with this scenario (adding a few more students to the mix to keep suspense going would have been nice), but the director here too often settles for the obvious.

Mitchell and Schreiber are wasted as the detectives, whose subplot really does not go anywhere and seems included only to pad the running time. Rearden never really milks the prospect as to whether he may or may not be a Norman Bates-ish character and veteran DeCarlo is never given enough material to really ham it up. Barbara Steele is effective at her menacing best as a mute hidden denizen of the house. The students are all appealing and fairly well played. Andelman seems like that fun best friend everyone wishes they had. Balding and Doubet are credible and sympathetic, and have nice chemistry.

The kill scenes have some minor gore, but they never really have much shock value or scare factor going for them. Again, the fact that we can guess who is a victim and when they will be taken out is disappointing, as is the tiny body count for a slasher film. The climax holds no surprises either and seems more of an anticlimax.

Again, the film is actually OK to watch if expectations are not high, but I would not advise anyone to go out of the way for it either. This is definitely one that would be ripe for a better remake in the hands of someone who could remedy its weaknesses and capitalize on the creepy sets and situations.