SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN (1970)

 

(Director: Gordon Hessler. Screenwriter: Christopher Wicking.)

Review

This American International Pictures [AIP] movie is based on a 1967 novel (THE DISORIENTATED MAN) by Peter Saxon, a pseudonym used by various authors between the late 1950s and the 1970s. According to Wikipedia, Stephen Frances wrote most of DISORIENTATED, with W. Howard Baker editing. The novel was later republished as SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN, a title it shares with its resulting flick.

In SCREAM, a vampire-like killer runs wild in London. While the police try to track the blood-obsessed murderer down, an offbeat scientist gets caught between them.

The film is a non-gory, fragmented science fiction-conspiracy-thriller work starring three top horror stars. Vincent Price (THE RAVEN, 1963), played Dr. Browning, an experimental scientist and head of a lab compound trying to create a humanoid master race who wear SS-like uniforms. Peter Cushing (MADHOUSE, 1974) cameoed as Major Benedek, an officer in an unnamed eastern European intelligence service. Christopher Lee (HOWLING II: YOUR SISTER IS A WEREWOLF, 1985) played Fremont, a high-ranking officer in an unnamed British intelligence agency. Price and Lee share a scene near the end of the film. 

Meanwhile, a serial killer with vampiric tendencies targets young women in London clubs, tragedies that, in choppy fashion, draw attention to Browning’s medical-military compound.

If viewed as an oddball, triple-segment and solid conspiracy thriller with horror actors and a horror title, SCREAM may prove to be a fun cinematic outing for you. If watched as a traditional horror film─it has touches of horror, e.g., Browning’s under-the-floor acid vat beneath his operating theater─it might not be choice entertainment for you.

Deep(er) filmic dive

SCREAM’s “Michael Gothard versus police chase” [IMDb] scene was partly shot on the Alpine Circuit at Milbrook test track—also used in TALES FROM THE CRYPT (1972, “Wish You Were Here” segment).