"Scream and Scream Again" [1970] Movie Review

 

"Scream and Scream Again" is a British movie release in 1970, though the genre for this one is hard. It starts off like some sort of Gothic Horror Crime Drama, but ends up taking another direction, then makes a right turn, then a left, and overall, leaves the viewer confused. 

 There are 3 main ideas in this movie, and they are barely tied together by the end of the movie. First, is a so called "vampire killer", where a man was targeting women, killing them, and seen sucking their blood (at least with one woman). Second, is a military initiative that very clearly resembles the Nazis. While it doesn't show any swastikas, the outfits and color schemes are the same. Why this was there, and what they were hoping to achieve, is never really explained. Some sort of "master race", but not in the Hitler way. Even still, why the movie was trying to emulate this, was never explained. 

The third plot point to the movie was a strange experiment of sorts, where a man who was seen running at the beginning of the movie, would be periodically shown with less and less limbs. 

The movie advertised big names such as Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, and Peter Cushing...though the three are never in a scene altogether. Peter Cushing is seen the least, literally only in one scene, where is killed off. Christopher Lee gets a little more screen time, and Price gets the most, but even he isn't seen that much. I don't consider this to be a Vincent Price movie, just one that he happened to be in. Halfway through the movie, I realized they probably couldn't afford to have all three in the movie, which is likely why they were barely in it at all. 

The movie runs too long, and should have definitely been cut in multiple areas. One of the biggest scenes is this police car chase, where the vampire murderer dude is wanted by the police. It's so time consuming, and acts like it's building up to his arrest, only to take a turn and have him get away. While it was interesting to see how the chase ended, with the unusual death, it was still very anti-climatic. The movie as a whole acts like it's building up to something, yet there is never really a pay off. 

The end of the movie is the most interesting, where of course, Vincent Price is revealed to be a bad guy. There is this Frankenstein element to his character, where he was having people murdered and brought to his lab to be experimented on. He was creating special human creatures that were constructed out of other peoples' elements, like the brain and limbs. Price and Lee's characters are revealed to also be of this created human type, though it's revealed only at the end. Price is killed off by being submerged in the same bath of acid (acid bath?) that the others were put in. 

One of the other characters asks Christopher Lee if it was finally over, and he, so cliched, says "No, it's just beginning.".  Then the movie ends. It was like as if they might have made a sequel, but thankfully, this never happened. 

Overall, the movie was very hard to follow, and rather boring. Lee and Price's acting was great, which is such a shame for how bad the movie is. It's cheesy, hard to follow, and pretty dorky. It's not scary or Gothic at all. The chase scene could have been 5 minutes, tops. The evil regime didn't need to be there at all. There was just too much going on, and by the end of it all, I asked myself, "What just happened?". 

 The movie could have been good if they focused more on the science fiction element. If they looked more at the human experiments going on, and maybe had more scenes of people being used for them, I would have found the movie more interesting. But it's hard to be taken seriously at all. 

Looking at some of the lore online, it appears that even Vincent Price was confused by the script. Very little of the writing makes sense at all. This is one of those movies were bad writing really broke the film.  

 I'm not sure if I would rewatch this movie. It's not horrible, but boring. It's not creepy, or gothic, or scary...it's just sort of there. 

 

I could not find any reviews for the movie when I looked for it on the newspaper archives. 

2/5 slimes 

Madhouse [1974] Movie Review

 

"Madhouse" is a movie that was released in 1974 and stars Vincent Price. There are also multiple notable actors, names, and scenes to other movies in this one which seems to be a huge homage to the Horror movie genre up to that point. 

The premise to movie is that Vincent Price's character, Paul Toombes, is an actor most famously known for the character "Dr. Death". His character and Peter Cushing's, Herbert Flay, created the character together. Toombes acted as the character, while Flay wrote it. Paul gets into a fight with his fiancee in the beginning of the film, because it turned out that she started out her acting career in adult films. Paul misinterprets this as her just using him to boost her career, though she seemed to not actually be doing this. Not long after, she goes to her room, and is murdered, seemingly by Paul. 

Paul went to trial and was acquitted of the murder, and spent about 12 years in a mental institution. He didn't plan on going back to his role as "Dr. Death", but Herbert Flay tricks him into doing so, but inviting him to his house for what was originally believed to be a different project. 

 Various people are murdered in the movie, in similar fashions to what was done in the films from "Dr. Death". Most, if not all, of these clips are from previous films that Vincent Price actually starred in during this career. 

It becomes clear that Paul was being framed, and someone was trying to kill him. At the end, its revealed that it was a combination effort between the producer Quayle, and Herbert Flay.  Herbert signs a new contract to be the "new" Dr. Death, and takes home the final film of Paul Toombes. Only, when he plays it, Paul comes off the screen and into real life, where he asks Herbert why he killed all the people and framed him. They get into a fight, and Herbert reveals that he was jealous of Paul, saying that it should have been him to play Dr. Death. Herbert is eventually killed and falls into the aquarium tank that the spider lady has. Paul is seen putting on his makeup, to become Herbert Flay, implying that indeed...there could only be one Dr. Death. 

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I found the movie instantly entertaining with a great intro. The movie is very captivating and well written. The Vincent Price/Peter Cushing combo is spectacular. I had to remind myself to write the review, because I found it so interesting. 

The movie is very gothic, based off a book released in 1969 called "Devilday" by Angus Hall. The movie has elements that remind me of many Hammer Horror films, and there is a very similar tone between this one and "The House That Dripped Blood".  

Looking at reviews of the movie online, a lot of people don't seem to care for it that much. Strangely, I really liked the film! I love all of the nuances to it, such as the weird spider lady, who was apparently Paul's ex wife. I found the use of clips from old films, giving respect to passed on names such as Boris Karloff really great! 

I think that the film was among the last of its era, mostly. By 1974, Horror films became much more violent, scary, and gruesome. Much, if not all, of this film was recorded in the UK I believe, so the rules there for showing blood have always been different from we see in the US. 

In comparison from that same year, "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" was released, though in October (Madhouse was released in March in the US, and November in the UK). It seems that the 1970's really began the era of scary Horror films, where the 50's and 60's were gothic. I think that people of today might find this film boring because it's not scary. It's much more like an Edgar Allen Poe story brought to life. 

In comparison, "Tombs of The Blind Dead" was released in 1972, and while not super scary, it was freaky with their undead costumes. 

 Then in 1971, "The Other Side of Madness" was released, a movie about the Tate murders. For many people, the Tate-LaBianca murders were still in their minds, and that was a real event which scared many. 

In some ways, I wondered if "Madhouse" and even the book that it was inspired off of was influenced by the Tate murders, as the first few murders in this movie were about murdered actresses. 

And of course, "The Exorcist" came out in 1973, and still scares many to this day. I just think that in comparison to other films from this time period, "Madhouse" was barely scary in comparison. But I don't think that it's bad. 

I don't think that this is the type of movie for someone who doesn't know much about Vincent Price, Peter Cushing, and their era of movies. They became famous during a time period where violence, blood, gore, and even sex were way too taboo to talk about or depict. "Madhouse" would probably be best described as a Drama, if it were released today. 

I think that the movie has great story telling elements to it, believe it or not. But I think that because they didn't want to go overboard for things like the makeup and the deaths, it likely disappointed others. I will admit, I do think that they should have put more effort in making the spider lady, Faye, more "ugly". Faye was a character who "used to be beautiful" but was burned in a car fire. The makeup for her character still made her look slightly pretty, with just a few cuts on her face. I wish that they would have tried to make her look more like a burn victim, instead of leaving as an implication. If the viewer didn't hear her dialogue, you probably wouldn't understand why she was the way she was. 
 

The movie is definitely cheesy, but I like it for that. Vincent Price still showed why he was such a great actor. I think that Horror and Comedy go quite well, and I laughed pretty hard at he close ups of people screaming in the movie. It was just so dorky. 

 

Believe it or not, I gave this a 5/5 on letterboxd. It's more than just a cheesy gothic film, it's an art piece. I really love how it pays homage to Horror of yesteryear. 

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Looking at reviews from the newspaper archives, it seems that most people disliked it because there wasn't enough blood. 

 Other reviews for it were pretty lukewarm

 

There really wasn't much about the movie though otherwise. In the newspaper archives, it almost looks like the movie wasn't advertised that much.

 

Overall, I think that if you like Vincent Price and his movies, you'd probably enjoy this one. Just don't expect to be scared.  

[Watched on Tubi]