Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, guys, I'm gonna be covering a British horror movie from 1973. That movie is called "And Now The Screaming Starts!".
I hate this title, guys. And it's not because it's too long or it has a very generic name to it, no, it's more so of how it's grammatically titled. I've seen plenty of movie titles that either sound really cool or stupid, but I have *never* seen a title start with the word "and" at it's beginning. I'm trying to think of at least one movie I have either seen or saw it beforehand starting with "and", but I really can't think of a single movie title that does this sort of thing. And that's why I had a bit of a difficult time in trying to type out how I usually do with every movie I cover because it just sounded incredibly weird. So I added "called" just to make it sound a little more proper, I guess. Either way, I still hate that title for that reason alone.
But setting aside the awkwardly named title, I don't really know very much about this movie. The only thing I do know is that it is a British horror movie and, strangely enough, I don't cover a whole lot of those that aren't from the U.S. So at least it'll be something slightly different. Other than that, I don't know anything about the plot to this thing, which is good, because I want to go into it as blind as possible. And I hope it's pretty good. I don't know if it will be, but there's only one way for me to find out. And that's for me to shut up so I can push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "And Now The Screaming Starts!".
7 minutes later
So there's a severed hand just crawling from near the portrait of Sir Henry. Now is this hand real? Or was this just another figment of this woman's imagination from earlier? I'm a little curious right now, because the camera really seems to want you to focus on Sir Henry's portrait this early a lot. Either way, I'm still really curious.
5 minutes later
Wait, so when Catherine's husband goes down the stairs and sees the maid, he tells her that it was in her imagination. The maid then asks "why that?". And for whatever reason, it just skips to a completely different scene. I felt like there should've been more to that previous scene, because the maid asked a question, and then...nothing. Just skip over to the next scene, I guess. Very odd.
14 minutes later
OK, so the guy who Charles was looking for is now dead. I kinda wish we would've seen his kill done on camera, but at least we got to see his bloodied face, so at least it's something.
9 minutes later
So...the maid dies after being force choked by the hand of what I'm going to assume is suppose to be Henry. And then she falls sorta awkwardly down the stairs, leading to her death. And I say sorta awkwardly, because I swear that it looked like a stunt double doing the falling down. I could be wrong on that, but I would still be surprised if it was an actual stunt double.
11 minutes later
All right, I have a question here. How long has the woodsman been there until he saved Catherine from that dog that attacked her? The guy seemed to be crouching until she started screaming for help, and I'm curious to know how long he was like that until he came in to rescue her? Again, I'm just really curious here.
15 minutes later
So, guys, we're finally getting to learn this "legend" that has been mentioned at least a few different times throughout the entire movie. But wouldn't that mean that Charles is about to face his death next? Because anyone who has either tried to tell or show Catherine the truth about what's been happening, they all die mysterious deaths. So I'm assuming Charles will be next, right? Unless if he somehow survives this during or after he tells the story to Dr. Pope, then I don't think Charles is gonna have a future with his wife or child. Just saying.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "And Now The Screaming Starts!". Let me shut the movie off here...OK. So, what to say about this film...? Well, I will say this much about the movie. It really isn't all that bad, but it's not all that great either. It's sort of in the middle of it being average. Mind you, it's still more than what I can say about a lot of other terrible horror movies I've seen before. Which might not be saying much, granted, but I can still say that the film is okay by it's own standards.
Let's just dive right into this one here and talk about it some more. Let's start with writing. Now, being that this is a horror movie from the 70's, I may as well answer this much: How "scary" is it really? Well, to call it scary or frightening would be an overstatement. This film is not really scary at all. In fact, I would say it's a little bit corny more than anything else. But then again, I'm also someone who doesn't really get scared very much by horror movies anyway, because I'd say about 93% of the horror films I've seen aren't very scary at all. Now who knows, if I were someone who grew up during that time when this film came out, I maybe would've had a different viewpoint on it's scare factor. However, since the 70's is far before my time, I can't exactly judge on how scary it might've actually been when it was released in theaters. I'm just viewing it as my own opinion on how it stands or falls by it's own standards. Which again, it's sort of a middle of the road approach.
Why don't I talk about that legend that none of the friends or family members of the Fengriffen's can't talk about. And seeing as how the film is well over 50 years old at this point, I don't think any limitation or fear of spoilers is going to affect you guys all that much. But if it does, well, sorry, I'm going to do it anyways. So, Charles father, Henry, ended up raping the woman of Sila's father. In case you're wondering who Silas is, that's the mysterious woodsman you see throughout the entire film. And his father tried to stop Henry before his men held him back while Henry did his sick thing. And afterwards, he punishes Sila's father by cutting his hand off with an ax, which is basically the reason why you see the severed hand throughout the entire movie. And it ends up with Sila's father basically proclaiming that when the next virgin bride enters the Fengriffen household, they would be tainted and raped, much how like his girl was, and that anyone who tried to warn her about it would be killed as well. Which is basically the reason why no one would tell Catherine about why she keeps seeing these visions that no one else can see. Now if you're gonna ask me how Sila's father has this sort of power to do all this, I'm not gonna have an answer for you. He can just proclaim it and gets his wish. It makes very little sense, but I'm not gonna harp on that issue too much.
Now I did bring up the possibility that when Charles told this legend to Dr. Pope, Charles would be the next one to die. Well, surprisingly, he doesn't die. Instead, when he sees the baby for the first time after Catherine gave birth to it, he grabs his pistols and goes over to Sila's house near the woods and kills him. And I should mention that the face he makes when he dies is in the same way his father did. And then afterwards, Charles goes to the graveyard and tries to smash the coffin lid open to desecrate either the skeletal corpse of his father or Sila's father. It's not quite clear on who it was that Charles was after, but basically, Charles goes nuts at the end and you never see him again after that scene. By the way, just in case I didn't leave any sort of loose ends, the baby that Charles saw that made him go mad has the exact same birthmark as Silas and his father did. Yeah, it's not really a scar or anything, it's just a birthmark. Now I don't know how exactly one gets a birthmark like that, but then again, I'm not an expert on the field of genetics, I'm just going to assume that it naturally happens in some way.
So now that I've kinda gone over the ending to you guys, let's talk about the characters next. And I'm gonna say most of the characters here aren't that interesting. Most of them are just being secretive about what's going on at the Fengriffen estate, and because of which, most of them don't have any real development. As I've already mentioned with Charles, he's also very secretive about the whole thing and doesn't really believe in this legend to begin with. At least, until Dr. Pope enters the picture and kinda spills the beans afterwards. Speaking of, Dr. Pope is honestly one of the only interesting characters in this entire film. Even though he's a doctor, he kinda plays up more like a discount version of Sherlock Holmes. And I'm not saying that as a bad thing, mind you, he actually is a rather intelligent fellow as he tries to get any sort of information from anyone about what the hell's going on at this estate. And as for Catherine, well, it's about her descent into madness the more that she gets these visions of whoever is after her. And it's kind of a boring one at that because she doesn't have much of a character outside of being a troubled woman who's going through her own sanity. Which probably would've been fine if she had more to her character, but since that's all she has to go with, it's not gonna be much for you to care about.
So, writing in this movie is sorta flawed, but I still can't say it's all that bad either. As a drama, I do think it's pretty decent. And as a horror movie, well, even though I don't really think it's all that scary, I can say that some of the imagery is pretty decent, too. However, I'll get into all that later when I cover special effects. Now as for the acting, it's actually really good. Every single actor in this movie turns in a really awesome showing. Even for characters who don't have much going on other than being secretive, they also turn in really good showings. Which, you know what, that's great. Even though I think some of the story could've used a little more polish, I can't fault any of the actors here for turning a performance that, on any other given day, I could've pointed out at least a couple of actors who might've phoned it in, but not here. Because the actors turned in a great showing and I give my commends for all of them here.
Special effects are also pretty good, too. Now you have to understand that this film came out in 1973, so obviously, CG is not going to play a factor here at all. Which I'm all for anyways, because I prefer practical effects over CG anyways. And as for the practical effects here, they're all really good. The blood effects, while sorta minimal here, are very well done. The most notable ones you'll see involve the first victim and the ghost of Sila's father, who you see those soulless black eyes and blood surrounding his eyelids. Although now that I'm thinking about it, it's also possible that they just used a cheap-looking mask to make it look like that. I don't know if that's the case or not, but even, it is supposedly a really cool-looking mask. Costuming here is also really good, as this movie is suppose to take place around or near the 1800's, and I'd say the costuming is pretty accurate for the time period. So yeah, I can say the special effects are really solid.
Camerawork here is really good. Lighting is also lit very well, even in dark areas where there's just enough to light to see what's going on during some darkly lit scenes. Sound-mixing here is also good. The score is also pretty good, too. It's not amazing, mind you, but at least it gets the job done.
So when all is and done, guys, when it comes down to it, am I able to recommend "And Now The Screaming Starts!"? You know what? I'm gonna say yes, if just for a single viewing. Like I said earlier, I'm not exactly the biggest expert when it comes to 1970's horror flicks on how they approach the horror aspect, but I can say that if you're into those sort of horror films, go ahead and check it out somewhere. I don't know if there's a copy of it online somewhere, maybe on YouTube, I don't know. But I can say that if you can find a physical copy of it somewhere like I did, and as long as it's for cheap, go ahead and pick up a copy. Mine was about $8, which isn't too steep in my opinion. But if you can find it for cheaper than that, then go for it, you might actually end up enjoying it a lot more than I did. Now that isn't to say that I didn't enjoy this movie, or that I thought it sucked, far from it. I did enjoy watching this thing myself. But to watch it again however? I'm not sure if it's worth keeping around for my DVD collection. I'll probably end up trading it in at some point, but I still it's worth a single viewing at the very least. So now, I'm gonna go and watch another older horror film. And the first thing that I'm thinking of is "Tales of Terror". I love that film so I'm gonna go and do that next after I get done with this review.
Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.
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