And Now the Screaming Starts Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.0

And Now the Screaming Starts Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 8, 2018

Note: This film is available both as a standalone product and also as part of the box set The Amicus Collection.

The recently reviewed Hammer Horror: The Warner Bros. Years makes an interesting point in passing that, as iconic as Hammer Films’ horror outings undeniably were, there were other studios pumping out product whose features were at least occasionally mistaken for being Hammer productions, when in fact they weren’t. Probably prime among these examples would be Amicus Productions, a British institution that was nonetheless founded by two Americans, Max Rosenberg and Milton Subotsky. Rosenberg and Subotsky themselves had a somewhat infamous Hammer Films connection, having (according to Rosenberg, anyway) come up with the project that ultimately became The Curse of Frankenstein, a 1957 opus that was Hammer’s first horror outing in color, Hammer’s first “reboot” of a venerable horror character, and arguably the film that set the tone for what became a decade or more of Hammer’s preeminence in the horror genre. Subotsky and Rosenberg were kind of pushed to the sidelines on the project, receiving no credit, and (again according to Rosenberg) even handing over their meager $5000 payday to Ray Stark in exchange for a promised partnership which never manifested. There was obviously some kind of discord associated with this film, at least from the perspective of Rosenberg (who’s on hand in some archival interviews in this set, disparaging both Hammer in general and Eliot Hyman in particular), something that may have led to Rosenberg and Subotsky deciding to set out on their own when they could hopefully be captains of their own fate.

Kind of interestingly, then, while Subotsky and Rosenberg had gotten into the horror game before the creation of Amicus with the 1960 film The City of the Dead (note that the link points to a British release), their first two outings in their guise as Amicus Productions were quasi-musicals designed to appeal to the teen set, It's Trad, Dad! (directed by none other than Richard Lester) and Just for Fun. While Amicus occasionally varied outside of its largely self imposed horror limits, including with a couple of Doctor Who related feature films, Dr. Who and the Daleks and Daleks — Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D., the studio is arguably best remembered today for its so-called portmanteau features, films which typically included four or five at least tangentially linked stories into one film. The first of these portmanteau efforts was 1965’s Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (note that the link points to a German release, though it’s region free and I personally found the technical merits better than the domestic release from Olive). That film set the portmanteau template for Amicus, where typically some kind of framing story would link the “episodes” contained within the film, and that’s pretty much exactly what one of the films in this new Amicus set (Asylum) does. Kind of interestingly, though, the two other feature films in the Amicus Collection are the somewhat rarer outings from Amicus that offer only one narrative thread for the entire film. Of those other features, one (And Now the Screaming Starts) is the really rare Amicus offering that traffics in what had been Hammer's stock in trade, Gothic horror.

And Now the Screaming Starts is kind of an outlier in the Amicus canon since it, as is mentioned above, is the rare Amicus outing that traffics in what was Hammer’s stock in trade, period pieces laced with horror. In this case, 18th century newlyweds Catherine (Stephanie Beacham) and Charles Fengriffin (Ian Ogilvy) move into Charles’ family mansion, a home which has a few skeletons (and/or dismembered hands) in its closet. The film is a rather odd combination of some traditional Gothic elements and certain plot mechanics that play suspiciously close to some elements in Rosemary's Baby.

According to one of the supplements on this release, And Now the Screaming Starts was one of the, if not the, most expensive films in Amicus’ history, and there is a certain luxe atmosphere to the expansive sets and outdoor location footage shot at the famed Oakley Court (see the supplements section below for more information on this iconic locale). But kind of weirdly, it’s all largely for naught, with a story that just kind of plops Catherine down in a strangely chaste marriage that sees her repeatedly attacked when her husband is doing something elsewhere. Beacham gets to look extremely worried a lot, and to even emit a blood curdling scream now and again, but the character of Catherine is so shallowly written that she just basically snaps back to happy housewife after any number of her supernatural experiences.

The credits give Peter Cushing and Herbert Lom billing over Beacham and Ogilvy, but the Cushing and Lom characters are not only relatively tangential, they both show up rather late in the film, and then for what might almost be termed glorified cameos. There are arguably a few too many “villains” in this piece, including a woodsman with a facial deformity (among other “issues”) that plays into the plot proceedings, though this particular character turns out to be at least slightly sympathetic in the same way that another guy with a problematic face (who figured out a mask can come in handy) was (namely The Phantom of the Opera).. And Now the Screaming Starts does in fact offer a fair amount of noise, hysterical or otherwise, but its story is both chaotic and ultimately not very frightening.

And Now the Screaming Starts Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

And Now the Screaming Starts is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Severin Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. The back cover of this release states that And Now the Screaming Starts has been "remastered in 4K with all of its violence and nudity fully restored." To my eyes, this is easily the best looking of the three feature films in the Amicus box set, but that "4K" attribution may give some fans unrealistic expectations. While clarity and especially saturation are decidedly better than the other two feature films in this set, there are still variances on display, and there are some deficits in detail levels throughout the presentation, especially in some of the more dimly lit interior scenes. The palette looks largely accurate, though as with The Beast Must Die (though not to the level seen in that transfer), some of the blacks assume a just slightly bluish quality at times. Grain looks natural and encounters no real resolution issues.

And Now the Screaming Starts Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

And Now the Screaming Starts features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono mix which offers capable support for the film's sometimes turgid dialogue as well as Douglas Gamley's rather sumptuous score. Fidelity is fine, even if the track is understandably narrow sounding and only occasionally delivers some forceful bombast. There are no issues with dropouts or other damage.

And Now the Screaming Starts Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Haunted History of Oakley Court (1080p; 15:13) is a fun tour of sorts of the iconic location which has been used in countless films and television series (several of which are identified in passing, along with brief clips as examples). Featuring Allan Bryce and David Flint, this is kind of curiously similar to "location nerds" scouting out Hammer Films filming sites in Hammer Horror: The Warner Bros. Years.


• Audio Commentaries

  Director Roy Ward Baker and Actress Stephanie Beacham are reunited for the first time since the production of the film, with moderation by Marcus Hearn.

  
  

  Actor Ian Ogilvy discusses the film with moderator Darren Gross.

• Archive Audio Interview with Actor Peter Cushing by Denis Meikle (1080p; 12:06) plays to a series of stills of Cushing and others whom Cushing mentions.


• Horror Journalist Denis Meikle Recalls And Now the Screaming Starts (1080p; 4:25)


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 00:58)


• Radio Spot (1080p; 00:54) plays to key art from the film.

And Now the Screaming Starts Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

And Now the Screaming Starts is a rare example of Amicus going the period horror route that was more closely associated with Hammer Films. It's an interesting experiment, but it sadly kind of falls flat, despite a handsome physical production and a cast that tries hard. This has the best technical merits of the three feature films in the Amicus Collection, and it also has some extremely appealing supplements.