I Watch 'Em So You Don't Have To

Great Actors, Terrible Movies

Scream And Scream Again (1970) British

When you watch a movie, you are perfectly aware who's in it. It's one of the main reasons you see it. With this movie we have Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Vincent Price. How could such a movie possibly fail? Well, miserably. This old junker of a movie tries too hard with combining horror with sci fi  AND political intrigue and never quite succeeds at any of it. I think the problem was continuity errors, script inconsistencies, scenes that are never quite explained, and just a horrid mish mash of bad acting combined with bad special effects. It's too bad - in the right hands this could have been a killer of a movie (sorry). You have the right people, the right kind of thinking, just horrid execution. It is based on the novel The Disorientated Man by Peter Saxon. I highly recommend reading it, I plan to try and find it, because as I said there was great potential here that was never realized on screen. For some reason Orion bought this movie, but it also carries the AIC logo, and ends with the MGM screen so... so what?

This is very important. I think.

The story starts split - that's a big part of the problem, you don't know exactly what you're watching. We get that part of it is in England and the other part, we are led to think anyway although it is never said, must be Russia, although all their military personnel had a bizarre symbol I've never seen in any country and could only find a picture on this t-shirt, sorry. I tried to look up what it possibly could mean. I really have no idea. And it's not explained,  not in the movie and not in wiki. Maybe Saxon's book has some insight on it. But that's just one of many, many problems with this very difficult to follow and frustrating movie.

I have one line in this movie and I'm not wasting it on you.

We start in England seeing a runner going across a park (he runs so much like a girl I got the giggles). It is implied, not shown, that he suffers a heart attack and wakes in a hospital bed. A nurse comes in without a sound, puts a metal tube in his mouth connected to some sort of... liquid which he spits out as soon as she leaves. He lifts the covers and screams - one of his legs is gone. This is a brief running gag in the movie. Each time we see this guy (and we have no idea where he really is) the nurse comes in, puts the tube in his mouth and leaves, he lifts the covers... well, he only actually does that three time. One for each leg and one for an arm. With the other arm gone he can't really lift anything, can he? My hubby says it's a real knee slapper, that is if he had one and a hand to slap it with. His sense of humor is kind of warped like mine. He also kept calling the guy 'Lieutenant Dan'. If you don't get it...

I get paid by the minute so...

We then get into the (Russian?) part of it - a military enforcer is being 'punished' for being particularly cruel to prisoners. They're trying to keep peace, he's trying to torture as many people as he can get his hands on. When he's 'fired', he uses his Vulcan nerve pinch (c'mon Gene, where were you - you should've sued their asses) and kills his superior and basically anybody who pisses him off with it. Ooh, Spock was much kinder with his grip.

If I can't rape and murder I might as well dip myself in acid!

Now we bounce back to England (I'm getting dizzy by this point and wondering what the hell this movie is about) where a nasty killer of women, the kind who likes to bash, rape and then kill them is roaming about, picking women up at clubs (Where they play that awful title to the movie Scream And Scream Again by The Amen Corner. Never heard of them? There's a good reason for that.). Finally a policeman's girlfriend who's also a police officer (In 1970? Wow, go affirmative action.) is used as bait, and movie logic says her first time out she finds him within five minutes and takes off with him. There's some kind of tracking device in her shoe, and a bug in her purse so they can hear everything and know exactly where he's going (They don't even have that now, do they?). Immediately they go out for a drive in his sleek little convertible, and end up on a dirt road (Now this is a nightclub so it's getting dark, right? Remember that detail). The police listen in as they think the couple is kissing, the boyfriend getting pissed about that. But it continues, and they hear sucking noises. What has been happening is he strangled the girl, and is sucking the blood from her wrist. 

I don't even know what I'm supposed to do here.

She is rescued at the nick of time and six policemen move in to arrest him. This is England, so not a one of them has a gun. He overpowers all of them, killing one, and we get a prolonged car chase (but at least these guys know how to drive) as we go from city to neighborhoods to highway to neighborhoods to city.... you get the idea. Continuity flies right out the window as each scene of the chase is obviously taking place during a different time of day - sometimes it's dusk, sometimes high noon, and so on. This is a looong car chase but guess what? He doesn't crash and neither do they. He ends up at the place of a Dr. Browning (Vincent Price), who had already been questioned about the murders as the first victim had worked for him.

The man, who had (not in order) climbed bare knuckled up a rock wall, run around a quarry, fallen a fatal distance but not died, and when they handcuffed his wrist to a car bumper, merely ripped his hand off and ran away, kept them going round and round in what is I guess some sort of barn until he comes to a pit of liquid. Seeing there is no escape, he dives in. The detective tells an underling to fetch him out (nice guy, do it yourself next time jerk) and the man gets a withered arm for his troubles. It is a pit of acid. The vampire/stunt driver/murderer has liquefied himself. They talk to the doctor but he's stumped (sorry, the hubby comes up with some of these jokes). The good doctor claims he's working on germ experiments for cancer research and needs the acid for 'samples gone bad'.... ewww. Trying to get more info, they are told by a representative of their government (Christopher Lee) to leave him alone, and he confiscates every piece of evidence they have.

The reason? He's in cahoots with Mr. Vulcan nerve pinch who's killed everyone in his way (including Peter Cushing who had a total of maybe three minutes on screen) and says he'll tell all about what they're doing unless all evidence is given to him. For reasons only the movie knows (and I'm sure the book explains much, MUCH better) a young morgue attendant can't leave well enough alone and soon finds out the horrifying (read boring) truth.

Just tell me... when is this movie going to end?

People on both sides, England and I guess what's supposed to be Russia are in cahoots to make better humans. As Dr. Browning explains, "Man is God and always was." Whatever you say doctor, just make this quicker, okay? He has been able to make superhumans, using synthetic combined with natural materials (I guess that's where the runner's limbs went) and by implanting a regular human brain in a 'composite' he's able to make these super strong, super human beings. It's funny to watch as an assistant brings out a 'blank' woman to put a new brain in - she has no hair, but lots of makeup, and her hands discreetly cover her lower area, although she is not yet alive. Pffft.

Ahhh sweet oblivion... now to collect my check.

Okay down to the dirty and stupid end.... the morgue dude and his girlfriend are taken by Dr. Browning who is himself a composite (Who made him? Who made who? Who are you? Oops, sorry, we've already got one song here). He makes the dude watch as his girlfriend is about to be relieved of her little brain and go in the very modest 'composite'. But the, uh, Russian 'composite' comes knocking. He's got all the evidence, but says all this stuff has to stay in his country (carefully not saying which one that is) and so everything must go. Into the acid. Which the good doc has conveniently moved into the house, in the very room they're in. In goes one after the other and now we have two 'composites' tussling. Christopher Lee shows up, makes the victor of the fight (Price, believe it or not) get into the vat of acid with his, uh, gaze of death I guess, and makes the two young people leave. As they leave the young man asks Christopher Lee if it's all over. He says ominously, "It's only just beginning." Oh no. But take heart, no sequel was in the works. Phew.