SILENT SCREAM (1980)

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REVIEW / MOVIE\ A MILDLY SCARY SCREAM'\ SILENT SCREAM - DIRECTED BY DENNY HARRIS. WRITTEN BY KEN WHEAT, JIM\ WHEAT AND WALLACE C. BENNETT. STARRING REBECCA BALDING, BARBARA STEELE,\ YVONNE DE CARLO, CAMERON MITCHELL AND\ AVERY SCHREIBER. AT THE SACK SAXON AND SUBURBS. RATED R.

Boston Globe - November 19, 1980

Author: Michael Blowen Globe Correspondent

A strange Victorian house overlooks the Pacific. The lace curtains flutter. The stairs leading to the attic are covered with cobwebs. The doors creak and Yvonne De Carlo is hidden away in an upstairs room.

A conventional setting for an exploitation horror film. In fact, everything about "Silent Scream" is conventional. But, given the avalanche of recent slice-and-dice films, it's not bad. After "Prom Night," "Terror Train," "Fade To Black," and "Motel Hell," "Silent Scream" is a welcome relief.

It's not a masterpiece. The acting is mediocre, the script pedestrian and the direction inconsistent. But it has enough cheap thrills to keep you riveted to your seat for its inconsequential 90 minutes.

Cameron Mitchell of television's "The High Chaparral" and Avery Schreiber, the Frito bandido, are a pair of police detectives trying to solve the bizarre murder of a wealthy, snobbish college student who lived in the house by the sea. The grisly manner of the death (the young man was knifed to death and buried in the sand) leads Mitchell and Schreiber back to the house. By the time these two lame-brained investigators discover the truth, several more gruesome murders occur.

The character actors, dredged up from the past, are fascinating. Yvonne De Carlo plays a puffy matron who spends the entire film in a frumpy housedress. Barbara Steele, once crowned Queen of the Bs for her many roles in serials and Republic features, doesn't have a line, but her performance is invested with chilling terror. Mitchell and Shreiber merely get in and out of a few cars.

Director Denny Harris, like most every other horror exploiter, steals most of his bits from Hitchcock. The sequence of killings looks as if he studied "Psycho" and made carbon copies. But he does show the ability to maintain suspense. In one frightening scene, while a young woman climbs up the attic stairs, Harris maintains tension by altering camera angles and quick cuts. It's frightening.

In spite of its obvious flaws, "Silent Scream" is the best low-budget horror film since " Halloween ." If that sounds like damning with faint praise, so be it.