DIRECTOR HOUGH CREATES A HAMMER LIKE NO OTHER WITH TERROR TWINS!

BACK IN THE EARLY 1970's mankind made some very interesting and surprising break throughs, technical and domestic... In 1972, interactive games with vastly more primitive graphics only existed in laboratories, until the invention of PONG! Remember that? 1970 brought pocket calculators to students, engineers, and scientists the world over! 1971 brought us something that was huge in terms of its impact, the Intel 4004 Microprocessor! 1973 gave us the first cell phone, the XEROX ALTO, also TCP, Ethernet and fibre optics!

ALL THIS . . but for some reason Hammer films just couldn't NAIL a new and entertaining idea, that worked on the big screen. My opinion, but something I never understood! But that was until... John Hough's 'Twins of Evil' which cast not only Peter Cushing in a new spin on the Vampire Killer, but also someone who wasn't even trying to copy or replace Christopher Lee as a the head and evil 'toothful-one', Damien Thomas made a great Count Karnstein. Denis Price added some casting clout briefly and two sweet, though not innocent Maltese actresses / models Mary and Madeleine Collinson shapely slipped into the shoes of the title twins with ease. It was director John Hough, who brought the whole lot together in a very refreshing way. With Tudor Gates twist on some Sheridan Le Fanu influences, Harry Robertson's outstanding music score and Dick Bush and his beautiful cinematography, Hammer had an original tale that looked great, sounded wonderful and still impresses.

WATCH 'AND NOW, THE SCREAMING STARTS!' #GETTHECUSHIONSUNDAY!

#GETTHECUSHIONITSCUSHINGSUNDAY! INDEED! One of a handful of Cushing frighteners, that passed my dear ol Mum's 'GetTheCushion' test!  . .  she always hid her eyes behind a cushion on sofa, if the tenstion became, TOO MUCH! Yeees, that's where this themed concept comes from ;)

'In 1795, in England, the young woman Catherine moves to the house of her fiancé Charles Fengriffen in the country to get married with him. When she arrives, she feels interest in the portraits of the Fengriffen family, particularly in the one of Charle's grandfather Henry Fengriffen, which seems to have a sort of evil entity possessing it. While admiring Henry's face, a severed hand attacks Catherine through the picture on the wall. Later, she gets married with Charles, beginning her journey of mystery, eerie apparitions, secrets and deaths, and having her days filled with fear and the nights with horrors in a cursed family.'

'AND NOW, THE SCREAMING STARTS' was AMICUS FILMS only production that ventured into the field of 'GOTHIC GHOST STORY'. The Amicus trademark, were films that were set and based in a contemporary setting. Even though a tale like, 'THE DOOR' in 'FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE' (1974) has a toe in the Ghostly World of time past, it confines the setting of the story, to a modern home, with ONE ROOM that appears to be trapped in the 1700's. Maybe it was a question of cost? Films sets for period films, have lots of ZERO'S on the budget sheet, something that would have certainly given producer Milton Subotsky nightmares! With that in mind, don't look too closely at the interior sets of this film, instead admire Cushing calm performance..IGNORE the hairpiece, we've been over it. Beacham is very good, as is Herbert Lom, Magee, and Geoffrey Whitehead. Special mention to a young Ian Ogilvy and director Roy Ward Baker, who both along with Cushing, keep the whole thing, entertaining and moving along nicely....

YOU CAN FIND OUT  MORE ABOUT THIS PRODUCTION, PETER CUSHING'S ROLE AND HIS MANY ROLES WITH OVER THE YEARS IN OUR SERIES ABOVE: LOADS OF RARE PHOTOGRAPHS AND MUCH MORE: CLICK HERE!

MORE ON PETER CUSHING AND THE CAST OF

 'AND NOW, THE SCREAMING STARTS' 

 

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TROY HOWARTH'S 'THE AMICUS FILMS OF PETER CUSHING' : 'WANDERING HANDS AND MANNEQUINS'

For their next collaboration, Cushing and Amicus would once again revisit the anthology format.  Asylum was a jigsaw puzzle of a confection written by Robert Bloch.  Like The House That Dripped Blood, it was structured as a mystery, with the linking segment helping to build the film to a final, shocking reveal.  The four segments were of higher-than-usual caliber: “Frozen Fear” tells of a husband (Richard Todd) who chops his wife (Sylvia Sims) into little pieces and is understandably perplexed when the pieces (neatly wrapped in brown paper) come back to life.

 “The Weird Tailor” tells of a mysterious gentleman (Peter Cushing) who hires a tailor (Barry Morse) to make him a most unusual suit; “When Lucy Comes to Stay” tells of a young woman (Charlotte Rampling) whose friendship with Lucy (Britt Ekland) leads to disastrous consequences; and “Mannikins of Horror” tells of an inventor (Herbert Lom) who creates mechanical homunculi.  The film is capped-off by the surprise reveal of the deranged doctor whom the protagonist (Robert Powell) has been searching for.

Bloch’s inventive screenplay ensures that every piece of the puzzle fits together to create a satisfying whole.  Roy Ward Baker, directing his first film for the company, handles the material with style and flair.  Baker, whose past credits included A Night to Remember and Quatermass and the Pit, never seemed much at home in the horror genre, but Asylum proved to be a notable exception.  Clearly inspired by the witty and suspenseful material, he pulls out all the stops and delivers one of his best films.  The cinematography by Denys Coop is appropriately atmospheric, while Douglas Gamley’s score makes inspired use of barnstorming classical music to set the right Gothic tone.

The stories are very effective on the whole, with “The Weird Tailor” emerging as the weakest of the bunch. Even so, it benefits greatly from the fine performances from Cushing and (especially) Barry Morse.  Cushing’s portrayal of the guilt-ridden “Mr. Smith” again allows him to channel his sense of real-life loss into the role he was playing, but his screen time is limited.  There are also fine performances from Herbert Lom, Patrick Magee, Robert Powell, Richard Todd and Charlotte Rampling. The film proved to be another hit for Amicus, and they were only too anxious to continue their association with Cushing; happily, the feeling was mutual.

David Case’s novel “Fengriffen” was a Gothic mystery in the mold of “The Hound of the Baskervilles.”It caught the eye of Milton Subotsky, a voracious reader, who optioned it for a film adaptation.  Surprisingly, he didn’t elect to pen the screenplay himself. Instead, he entrusted the writing to TV veteran Roger Marshall.  Once the script was in place, Subotsky and Rosenberg assembled a top notch cast and a skilled crew, headed by director Roy Ward Baker. The end result proved more problematic than Baker’s previous sojourn into the world of Amicus horror.

The story tells of a young couple (Ian Ogilvy and Stephanie Beacham) who return to the groom’s ancestral home to start a new life together. On the night of their wedding, the bride is attacked and raped by an unseen presence. She believes the supernatural is at work, but the husband is skeptical. Eventually, the sage Dr. Pope (Peter Cushing, of course) is called in to investigate.

The cast does the best it can under the circumstances, but veteran actors like Cushing, Herbert Lom and Patrick Magee have too little to do.  Cushing plays Dr. Pope like a variation on Sherlock Holmes.  He doesn’t enter into the story until fairly late, however, and he is given little to do beyond fiddling with his props.  Lom makes a strong impression as the debauched nobleman who brings a curse upon his family, but his screen time is limited, while Magee is completely wasted as the family doctor who lives in fear of the curse.  Ian Ogilvy, who had risen to genre stardom as the juvenile lead in Michael Reeves’ three horror films (The She Beast, 1965; The Sorcerers, 1967; Witchfinder General, 1968) is very good as the distraught husband, while Stephanie Beacham (who had recently played Cushing’s granddaughter in Dracula AD 1972) is inclined to overact as the hysterical wife.

And Now The Screaming Starts! comes off like something of an Amicus copy of a Hammer film: the period setting and emphasis on shock effects would not have been out of place in one of their films, the use of Oakley Court for the exteriors is very much a Hammer touch, and the single narrative sets the film apart from Amicus’ usual fare.  If nothing else, it served to show up just how difficult it was for Hammer to do this kind of material as successfully as they did.  Slow, plodding and predictable in the extreme, And Now The Screaming Starts is one of the less successful collaborations between Cushing and Amicus. 

Written By Troy Howarth

Edired and Images By Marcus Brooks