Nonureva
Really Surprised!
LouHomey
From my favorite movies..
Mathilde the Guild
Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.
loomis78-815-989034
Coed Scotty (Balding) is in desperate need of housing before the semester starts. She eventually settles on a room at a seaside estate with some other students. She is creeped out by the house owner Mrs. Engles (Yvonne De Carlo) and her nerdy son Mason (Rearden) but is attracted to fellow border Jack (Doubet). After a night out drinking the borders go to the adjoining beach to party when Peter (John Widelock) is left behind and is brutally stabbed by an unseen assailant with a large knife. Lt. Sandy McGiver (Cameron Mitchell) is called in to investigate. He soon finds out that the Engles oldest daughter Victoria (Steele) spent time in a mental hospital due to stabbing someone and an attempted suicide. Someone is indeed lurking in the attic of the house as the family's well-kept secret is slowly revealed. Director Denny Harris uses good atmosphere and a few memorable shots (like the hands coming through the cob-webbed slats in the walls) to distract you that not much happens in this movie until its later reels. A slasher film at heart, the film is low on gore and body count but genre favorite Barbara Steele as crazed Victoria is certainly a highlight. Her off balanced take on Victoria is simply chilling and gives this good looking movie its chills. The Police in this movie are silly and come straight out of 1970 TV cop shows. The movie goes all in on the slow reveal of who is doing the creepy stalking and killing, but it could have used some more punch in earlier scenes. See it for Barbara Steele's great performance.
AaronCapenBanner
Some college students(including "The Boogens" star Rebecca Balding) look for rooms to rent in a sea-side mansion owned by a mysterious landlady and her peculiar son, only to regret it later when a series of murders breaks out, and the secrets of the house and its inhabitants are revealed...Ostensibly a slasher picture, though not that violent, is still pretty flat and dull, with a fairly obvious plot and characters going through the motions. The type of film where the trailer shows all the effective material, and as a consequence, is the best thing about it! For some unknown reason, this was successful at the box office!
acidburn-10
This is another one of those 80's slashers that came out during the golden age, but has long been forgotten about despite the fact that it was a smash hit when it came out grossing $15 million at the box office, so I asked myself if this was so big then why isn't it more remembered, I mean this made more money than such other slasher gems such as (My Bloody Valentine, Happy Birthday To Me & House On Sorority Row).Then I finally got round to seeing this and okay it's not quite up there with the other gems, but it's still worth checking out. The beginning is quite interesting and sets the tone for whats to come, like teens staying in an old Gothic mansion then getting picked off one by one by a murderous presence hiding in the attic. The performances also makes this movie work especially from genre stars Babara Steele and Yvonne De Carlo. And the gloomy atmosphere but Unfortunately it is this over-reliance on the past that proves to be the films' ultimate downfall as it gets boring very fast and This movie is nothing special. There's barely any blood or gore and the story tends to drag on at times, especially since the deaths take too long to happen and are too quick when they do.All in all Silent Scream does set the creepy and Gothic tone well, but it does boring and far paced but overall the film works simply down the good turns from the cast.
Woodyanders
Spunky college student Scotty Parker (winningly played with disarming sweetness and vitality by cute and appealing brunette Rebecca Balding) rents a room at an old house located down by the shore. Scotty and her three fellow boarders discover that the ramshackle abode harbors a very dark and deadly secret deep within its grimy cobweb-strewn walls. Director Denny Harris, working from a smart and absorbing script by Jim Wheat, Ken Wheat, and Wallace C. Bennet, relates the simple and involving story at a gradual, yet steady pace, does an expert job of creating and sustaining a mysteriously creepy atmosphere, and pulls out all the stops for the picture's rousing and hair-raising conclusion. The able cast of genre veterans helps a lot: Yvonne De Carlo does well as the stern and remote Mrs. Engels, Cameron Mitchell as the weary Lt. Sandy McGiver and Avery Schreiber as his jolly partner Sgt. Manny Ruggin are likewise excellent, and 60's Gothic fright feature goddess Barbara Steele delivers a remarkably intense and frightening tour-de-force mute pantomime performance as the deranged and dangerous Victoria Engels. Better still, the youthful protagonists are well-drawn and genuinely engaging: Balding shines in the perky lead, with fine support from Steve Doubet as charming hunk Jack Towne, Juli Anderlman as the chipper Doris Prichart, and John Widerlock as the amiable Peter Ransom. Brad Rearden is also solid and credible as weird and neurotic bespectacled nerd Mason Engels. Roger Kellaway's elegantly eerie orchestral score does the blood-chilling trick. The stylish cinematography by Michael D. Murphy and David Shore gives the movie an attractive polished look. The spooky seaside house evokes a powerfully unsettling sense of vulnerability and isolation. Moreover, the plot offers some nice tweaking of the standard slice'n'dice conventions: the killer turns out to be a woman with a tragic and poignant back story, the heroine saves herself at the end, and the murder set pieces are effectively brutal and shocking without ever becoming too gory or disgusting. Highly recommended for 80's low-budget indie horror fans.
