Review: Scream of Fear

Susan Strasberg stars as a young wheelchair-bound woman to see her estranged father in France. He’s not there but her stepmother (Ann Todd) insists he’ll be back in a few days and she’s welcome to stay. It doesn’t take long at her father’s villa for Strasberg to start experiencing weird, somewhat sinister things that greatly unsettle her – including insisting that she saw her father’s dead body – though no one seems to believe her except rough-hewn chauffeur Ronald Lewis who helps her try to figure out what is going on. Christopher Lee plays a French doctor and friend of the family.

 

Fourth-billed Christopher Lee called this 1961 Seth Holt (“The Nanny”, “Blood From the Mummy’s Tomb”) film one of the best films Hammer Films ever produced. I’m not in agreement with him on that, but there are enough good elements here to give it a (mild) recommendation. Methinks Mr. Lee was just glad he wasn’t playing a literal monster for a change here. Scripted by Hammer veteran Jimmy Sangster (“Curse of Frankenstein”, “The Horror of Dracula”, “The Hellfire Club”, “The Man Who Could Cheat Death”), this is more of a psychological, twisty thriller in the “Gaslight” vein. The highlights are excellent B&W camerawork by Douglas Slocombe (“The Blue Max”, “Raiders of the Lost Ark”) and an absolutely brilliant 11th hour twist that completely floored me. Up until then I was about to write the thing off as good-looking but a bit predictable and rather slow to really get going. It’s a very short film at under 90 minutes so it’s a bit of an issue. One or two of the plot progressions are indeed familiar and obvious, however towards the end…WHAM! Sangster drops an anvil right on your head out of nowhere. It really is such a great twist that I ended up liking it just enough overall despite the flaws.

 

Susan Strasberg makes for an effectively sympathetic heroine, but a faintly disingenuous Ann Todd is even better as the outwardly kind stepmother. The rather troubled Ronald Lewis has an effectively thuggish Robert Shaw vibe to him (if a bit more handsome), and whilst Christopher Lee gets little screen time, he’s effectively cast against type as a sympathetic French physician. It’s a shame that the pacing is so slow, because with the creepy camerawork it’s extremely tense at times. There’s even a good ‘jump’ scene, and we all know how jolly sick of those I tend to be. Sad that the tension isn’t sustained throughout, but if you admire great B&W cinematography like I do, you’ll likely want to give this film a look for that alone. It’s quite stunning.

 

Stick with this one, folks. At first you might feel like you’ve seen this a million times before and it’s extremely slow-moving. However while the film isn’t great, it has a killer finale that you’ll likely never predict. Good performances, absolutely outstanding cinematography (some of Douglas Slocombe’s best work), great twist – you may twiddle your thumbs getting there but it’s worth it in the end. A solid, but lumpy film I guess, it’s probably one of Hammer’s better psycho-thrillers at least (I mean, it’s a million times better than Sangster’s dull “Crescendo” for starters).  

 

Rating: B-

 

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