Scream and Scream Again
Plot:
Well, let’s see. There’s a mad killer-rapist on the loose, and there are some nazis, and a nurse keeps stealing some guy’s limbs. You’d think somewhere along the line there might be a movie here, but you’d be very, very, wrong.
Comments:
Ever get the impression that a film was made for the express purpose of pissing
you off? Not the audience in general, you personally? From the opening
titles, which feature a close-up shot of a middle-aged guy jogging in little red
shorts and a shouting execratory title song, I know that this film and I have
entered into a blood feud. Well bring it on bitch! I will bury you!
Gee! This review’s off to a swell objective start, isn’t it?
Well, I don’t know how else to respond to a movie this painful. I don’t mean that figuratively. This film literally causes physical discomfort in the viewer. Partly to blame is the blaring soundtrack. The music here is an ungodly mesh of groovy jazz disco or whatever the hell it is you call that loud, shallow, late 60’s Beatles knock-off sh*t. Cinematography is jarring and unpleasant to the eyes and brain. The camerawork is jerky and scene transitions are non existent. This when taken in addition to the disjointed nature of the film is likely to induce mental whiplash (if not the genuine article) in the unfortunate audience. Every scene in the film is either over or under lit. The entire production both in terms of visual splendor as well as artistic conception is reminiscent of a sack full of turds or a large piece of lint.
Between the plot, the photography, and the soundtrack, I got the distinct impression that this film did not actually exist; that this whole episode was part of some byzantine conspiracy to give me a tumor.
Putting aside matters of direction and getting to the plot, we find the whole thing even more unsavory. At first, it doesn’t seem as if the film even has a plot. Indeed, it appears as if we are watching randomly edited scenes from three separate films;
*A man (the jogger from the opening) keeps awakening to find parts of his body amputated. This may sound disturbing, but it gets old very quickly as they keep re-playing variation on the same scene over and over again. ( I joked that sooner or later, this guy is just going to be a head in a jar. Turns out I was right. )
*The second vignette concerns nazis and their wacky escapades. We get to witness
murder, torture and rape, because I
guess the filmmakers though we would enjoy
that. Even more confusing is that this segment, like the rest of the film, is
set in the 60’s so the 3rd Reich references don’t even begin to make
sense. (To be fair, these are supposed to be pseudo nazis. Notzis, if you will,
who wear SS uniforms but with a slightly altered swastikas on their arms. Does
it make any sense now? No.)
*The third little pile concerns English detectives trying to solve a series of murders, where women have been raped and then drained of blood. (Why do I have the distinct feeling that the only reason this story was written is that some middle-aged misogynist couldn’t get it up?)
The second act of the film is taken up in its entirety by a lame extended chase scene. The rapist/vampire murderer seems to be some science experiment run amok, I think. I just remember lots of screaming and spitting. (But then again, that may have been coming from me.) At this point (about 1:20 into a 1:48 movie) the actual plot shows up. It turns out that Vincent Price has been cutting up people in order to create a race of supermen that will rule the world. (Or as we Msties refer to it: Bela Lugosi’s Rice o’ pipple.) To Price’s eternal credit, he manages to make this sci-fi boloney seem genuinely threatening.
A mutation of a bad procedural giallo, snuff porn, one of Hammer’s banal Frankenstein re-workings, and an eye exam, it’s hard for me to imagine who this film would appeal to, and why.
It would be imprudent of me, to say nothing of censorious, to claim that such topics such as serial rape and the torturous medical experiments of the holocaust must never be explored in fiction. However, these subjects demand to be handled with maturity and the utmost respect to those who survived such horrors.
And folks, this insipid, exploitive, ingrown toenail of a movie is no such animal.
The cast is completely forgettable, save for the big three names in the production. (Who instead I wish I could forget ever being in this mess.) Peter Cushing plays an oddly conscientious nazi, at least for the whole 30 seconds he’s actually in the film. As mentioned before, Price is good in anything. Christopher Lee’s performance as a government official is as riveting as a brick, but the man has absolutely nothing to work with.
The casting reminds me of Roger Corman’s incorporation of some of the great
figures of horror; these actors are not used to the full of their potential, or
any modicum there of. The director just uses them as set dressing in an attempt
to add a little 
marquee draw to this puddle of puke. (The fact that it probably
helped some very talented people make monthly car payments or shop for groceries
is the only possible positive to be found in this film’s even existing.)
If it were just crap this film might be manageable, but it is so punishingly tedious, so brutally unwatchable, that it is less of a film than it is a blight upon all human endeavor.
Only the presence of such luminaries as Price save this film from earning a rare negative rating. As it is, this mephitic lump of hateful fecal mung gets a perfect…
0.0
Suck it movie. I crap bigger than you.