Scream and Scream Again

Odd and bewildering mixed-genre flick with Price, Lee & Cushing at least entertains

A so-called “vampire serial killer” is on the loose in London (Michael Gothard) and a loose connection is made to the mysterious clinic of Dr. Browning (Vincent Price). A curious young doctor eventually pursues this lead for answers (Christopher Matthews). The impressive cast also includes the likes of Christopher Lee, Marshall Jones, Alfred Marks and Peter Cushing in a glorified cameo.

“Scream and Scream Again” (1970) is a London-based crime/drama and political thriller with a bit o’ sci-fi/horror. It meshes superhuman vampiric killers with Nazi-like militarists and Frankenstein-ian doctors. It’s a mix of the contemporaneous “The Tormentors” (with a WAY bigger budget) and the later “The Formula” (1980) with the Frankenstein element of “The X-Files: I Want to Believe” (2008). (I realize the latter two came much later; I’m just giving potential viewers an idea of what to expect with this oddity).

The female cast is decent with Judy Huxtable (Sylvia), Judy Bloom (cop), Yutte Stensgaard (Erika) and Uta Levka (nurse).

Christopher Wicking’s script eliminates a key revelation of Peter Saxon’s book (“The Disorientated Man”), which makes the story more mundane and political, which I favor. But the conflicting subplot involving the fictional Eastern European Communistic country could’ve easily been removed altogether, making the story less confusing and more streamlined. It’s like trying to cram a war story into a crime thriller/horror flick.

The movie runs 1 hour, 35 minutes, and was shot in London and Surrey County, which is just south of the city.

GRADE: B-/C+

I initially thought that this might be a sequel to a "Scream and Scream" but no - this is just quite a messy production that doesn't really make very good use of the three more genre-established actors at it's disposal. It all follows the investigations of "Insp. Bellaver" (Alfred Marks) who is on the trail of an exsanguinator terrorising London's women. After an entrapment effort that does distinctly awry, that trail leads the police to the home of "Browning" (Vincent Price) whose scientific experiments involve a great vat of acid. Meantime, there is a parallel story going on somewhere in totalitarian Eastern Europe surrounding the activities of the ambitious "Konratz" (Marshall Jones) who is quite successfully murdering his way up the greasy pole - and that's where Peter Cushing (briefly) and Christopher Lee ("Fremont") make their appearances in this meandering and frankly disappointing film. There are a few moments to liven it up: you can rarely go wrong with a decent car chase, but the stars I tuned in to watch feature all to intermittently, and those that do have little to bring to a story that could easily have been condensed into a forty five minute "Tales of the Unexpected". Sorry, but not much to see here.