Customer Reviews

The Oblong Box / Scream and Scream Again

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Just as Karloff, Lugosi and Chaney were the horror actors of the 1930s and 1940s, the 1960s belonged to the trinity of Vincent Price, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. While Lee and Cushing worked together often, collaborations with Price were much less frequent. This DVD offers two such rare collaborations.

Scream and Scream Again is definitely the better of the two movies. It has its flaws: the plot is overly complicated and certain plot lines don't tie together for a long time, if truly ever. The story has something to do with a mad scientist (Price) who is performing mysterious experiments and a serial killer who frequents discos and is seemingly unkillable. Add to all this some intrigue with a East German-country, and you have a mess, but somehow a fun one.

Although billed as starring all three actors, this is misleading. Cushing is in the movie for all of five minutes, Lee not much longer. Only Price has a significant role, and even he's got a relatively small part. On the other hand, both Lee and Price have significant roles in the Oblong Box.

Unfortunately, this movie is pretty weak. Price plays a wealthy gentleman who has just returned from his African plantation, where his brother was hideously deformed as part of a native ritual. The brother, confined to Price's house, fakes his death and is buried alive, only to wind up in the custody of some grave robbers, who sell him to Lee, a doctor who hides him. The brother's quest for revenge occupies the rest of the movie.
The Oblong Box is pretty slow-moving and suspenseless, and even the big payoff, seeing the deformed brother's face at long last, is a disappointment: he's hardly scary or even grotesque.

At best, these are minor horror movies; for big fans of the genre, especially from the 1960s and 1970s, it may be worth watching. Others should find their thrills elsewhere

There are serveral good reviews of this DVD and I'll not go over ground that's been extensively covered. However, there are a couple of things not mentioned that should be. First, Scream and Scream Again, when it appeared in theaters, was spooky as hell. At least I thought so as a 13 year old. Second, the thread mentioned by several reviews of the runner who wakes up missing parts actually is not a separate thread at all, but background to the main story. You see, Price is making people out of spare parts and well . . . you have to get them from somewhere, don't you? Third, the movie is an adaptation of a book by the same title, written by Peter Saxon--a well respected English writer of gothic horror and mysteries.

The book's better, by the way.

The Oblong Box is sloooooooow. Not terribly interesting and the end of the film is telegraphed well in advance. Price isn't at his best and I had the feeling this was one film he wasn't terribly interested in, himself. If you like Price, though, it's worth watching.

Closed Captioning on the DVD is available, though the CC'ing on The Oblong Box is slightly late some of the time. You find yourself looking at someone talking, get about 2 seconds of CC'ing and then the scene will shift to another view, often of someone else and you're still reading the CC'ing. Annoying.

this DVD combines two of Vincent's under-rated horror films from this era. "Scream and Scream Again" is a great movie...but the people at AIP ruined the film's legacy by giving Vincent top billing. the reason? Vincent is only in maybe 20 minutes of the movie...and this isn't an uninterrupted 20 minutes either. his big scene is in the lab at the end of the film as he kills one of his own robots that have gone corrupt, only to be confronted by Christopher Lee's character in an eerie scene. Peter Cushing's role is two scenes, and he's killed by the main robot or "composite" as Vincent calls them. However, these three horror legends have no scenes together and each one has nearly a minute or two of on-screen time sandwiched between other scenes with the London police and the scientist/coroner on the case. this is a good movie...but beware that the three horror legends that get top billing ARE NOT the stars of the film! the other film, "The Oblong Box", IS a Vincent Price starring film. He plays the brother of a man who was mutated in Africa by a bunch of witch-doctors for a crime he didn't do. Price's character {Julian Markham} had killed a child {the victim of a horse trampling} but the natives grabbed the brother by mistake! forced to wear a crimson mask because of his scars, the brother {named Edward Markham} plots revenge on everybody. Christopher Lee plays a doctor named Neuhart who can't help the brother but nevertheless the brother demands satisfaction. later, when the insecure Edward {played by Alister Williamson} feels that the doctor is double-crossing him, a swift slice of the neck with a blade does the trick and Lee meets his demise midway through the film. Lee is wearing a grey wig for some reason!? it's rather funny seeing him in it and deliver his lines in that voice we all know and love! "The Oblong Box" is a mixture of voo-doo, cult, and African cultures very different from typical Price horror movies of the previous years by Roger Corman and William Castle. "Scream and Scream Again" is a good movie for what it deals with {1970, release} and "The Oblong Box" is also good {1969, release}.

Another excellent release from the Midnight Movie series of double features gives us the first and second collaborations of director Gordon Hessler & screenwriter Christopher Wicking. The first is `The Oblong Box'. Replacing the tragic Michael Reeves as director and getting Wicking to rewrite Laurence Huntingdon's script, Hessler's first AIP horror film isn't by any means a bad effort, beautifully shot and with some nice performances by Price and AIP's then-current scream queen Hilary Dwyer.
Of course, it's the second film, `Scream & Scream Again', that we have all been waiting for. Subject of one of Tim Lucas' very first Video Watchdog columns before he made it into a magazine, this has until now only been available on home video with a different music score composed by Kendall Schmidt, replacing the original music composed by David Whitaker. Well, the Whitaker score is now back, and its interesting to watch the film having got so used to Schmidt's electronic doodlings, which it turns out actually weren't that bad. In fact sometimes his score is better than Whitaker's own jazz-inspired music, which in places is quite inappropriate to the action taking place on screen.
Some of the reviews on this site have criticized the plotting. Certainly Hessler & Wicking have always maintained that the fragmentary disjointed nature of the story was always intentional. Anyone who has read the original novel `The Disorientated Man' by "Peter Saxon" (a pseudonym for any number of writers working at that particular publishing house at that time) will know that the novel is constructed like that anyway, possibly because multiple writers may have contributed to it. `We took out the blobs from space' said Wicking in an interview, but to be honest they don't seem to have done much else. On the other hand, the original screenplay was written by Milton Subotsky who put everything into logical order, so maybe Hessler and Wicking deserve praise simply for going with a different kind of narrative style. Certainly `Scream & Scream Again' has often been beloved of `art-house horror' critics who have praised its paranoid conspiracy plotline. At least now we get to see it in 1:1.85 and with the original music as intended

Vincent Price and American International Pictures were at a lull in their respective careers - the Dr. Phibes films and Theater of Blood, which revived them both, were just around the corner - when these two were churned out. Neither film is that good, though Scream and Scream Again was quite successful, both critically and commercially, at the time - which is ironic, since it's the weaker of the two.

Scream and Scream Again is a weak updated Frankenstein ripoff, with Price - in virtually nothing more than a cameo role - utilizing a synthetic process to graft and reanimate dead tissues into superhuman pseudo-living "proto-people." The plot sounds better than the movie is. Director Gordon Hessler put plenty of gruesome gore effects and gallons of blood into the mix, but missed the boat (along with screenwriter Christopher Wicking) on plot development - the movie is disjointed and often incomprehensible. I've seen it a couple of times, once even not that long ago, and really couldn't tell you precisely what happens. Except for the occasional splashes of gore, it just isn't really that memorable.

The Oblong Box, directed the preceding year by Hessler, is the better of the two, but still nothing worth writing home about. Price sells out his brother for fame and fortune while the two are on expedition in Africa, grotesquely disfiguring him and burying him alive. The brother manages to escape and pursue Price back to England, there to work out his own bit of personal revenge. The plot and makeup effects are pretty good, but the script is on the plodding side.

Christopher Lee is on hand in both films - he and Price met, making them - but has little more to do than Price in the first. They both get more action in The Oblong Box. And Peter Cushing has a role as an ex-Nazi, in Scream and Scream Again.

These films are for serious collectors who want a complete - or at least representative - collection of AIP's or Vincent Price's (or Christopher Lee's, for that matter) output. The idly curious will be disappointed.

The Oblong Box - Not a bad movie...deals with voodoo and revenge. Vincent Price plays Sir Julian Markham, an aristocrat, charged with the care of his brother, Edward, who was horribly disfigured in a voodoo ritual as punishment for some apparent crime he committed against the native tribe. Edward's face is messed up, along with his mind, and creates a devious plan to escape from his brother, who keeps him locked away in the attic. Well, the best-laid plans and such...something goes wrong, and Edward gets buried alive, but manages to escape and plots revenge. Christopher Lee has a bit part as an unscrupulous surgeon who performs experiments on freshly dead and buried bodies. The movie seems a little long-winded, and I felt about ten or fifteen minutes could have been shaved off, but no matter. The movie was passable, even though I saw the surprise ending coming a mile away.

The second feature was much more difficult to watch. Scream and Scream Again was a big mess of a movie. The first hour of the movie jumps between three different plot threads, and finally gets around to trying to tying them together late into the movie. The first thread involves a man who wakes up in a hospital room and only to find a limb missing. He wakes up at some later point, another limb is missing, and so on...the second thread involves Vincent Price as a doctor and a serial killer...the third involves a plot within a military state (the solders look Nazi in the way they dress, but the insignia is different). I ultimately think this movie was about the creation of a super race of human beings, but the scope of the story was too wide to convey this accurately. As I said, it's difficult to follow this movie until about an hour in, when they start to try and tie the loose plot threads together, but not very successfully. Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing make appearances, for like five minutes each, and Vincent price shows up early for a short bit and then at the end for like 15 minutes.

The quality on both pictures is pretty good and the audio is not too bad, although on Scream and Scream Again, I felt the dialogue got drowned out by the music at some points, causing it to become muddled. A couple of trailers, and that is it for extras. I like how MGM seems to now be releasing their Midnight Movies in a two for one deal, as if I had paid full price for one of these movies, I would have felt ripped off.

The opening premise of THE OBLONG BOX is almost identical to the Peter Davison DOCTOR WHO story, "Black Orchid". A man returns from Africa, cursed by tribal magic, disfigured & insane, and kept a prisoner in his own home by his family. But whereas on the WHO story that was the punch line, here's it's just the springboard. Said victim secretly pays some friends to help him escape his brother-- Vincent Price-- who comes across as much nicer than most of these films, but all the same seems to be hiding something. Via more witch doctor "magic", the man fakes his own death... but then things go astray. SERIOUSLY astray. He's buried alive, then his "body" is stolen by grave-robbers in the employ of an unscrupulous medical adventurer. (One expects Peter Cushing in such a role, but NO! --it's Christopher Lee!) WHY his "friends" failed to follow-thru on their plan is a complete mystery to me-- I blame an unpolished script. It would have been a much more entertaining (and sensible) twist if they'd actually TRIED digging him up only to find the grave-robbers got their FIRST...! But no. The result: in addition to wanting to find out WHY he had a jungle curse put on him, Price's brother now wants REVENGE on everyone involved. Armed with a mask and a VERY sharp knife, his antics in the film's 2nd half make this seem like a Victorian-era installment of the HALLOWEEN series!!!

I understand the late Michael Reeves was scheduled to direct; this may explain why Price, Rupert Davies (DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE) and Hilary Dwyer (CRY OF THE BANSHEE) are all together again following WITCHFINDER GENERAL-- and why there's so much pointless VIOLENCE in the story. While that film disturbed me in the EXTREME each time I sat thru it, OBLONG BOX is a LOT more "fun"-- if you can get past the growing number of bodies, most of which were killed in particularly brutal and senseless fashion. 2 interesting things I noticed about this plot, as it goes on nearly every character seems to be BLACKMAILING somebody (it seems EVERYBODY has some secret they don't want known), and the sympathetic-yet-INSANE victim/SLASHER only seems to kill people who've done wrong. (The sweet, innocent housekeeper gets terrified and dragged thru the woods, but nothing REALLY happens to her!)

Interesting cameos to watch for: Colin Jeavons (Inspector Lestrade on the Jeremy Brett HOLMES series) plays a police inspector, as does Ivor Dean (Inspector Teal on the Roger Moore SAINT series!).

With this film, producer Louis M. Heyward & director Gordon Hessler began a string of collaborations, all of which were somewhat iffy. Like WAR-GODS OF THE DEEP (which Heyward produced) OBLONG BOX feels like the script could have used to fine-tuning. (WHY did Price do what he did before the picture started? HOW was it nobody at his brother's viewing realized the body on display was SOMEBODY ELSE? etc.) All the same, I find it more watchable than most of these.

This is an interesting, entertaining and somewhat disappointing double feature from amazing ghoulish Vincent Price (and Christopher Lee). The former statement might befuddle some readers so please allow me to elaborate on each film.

The first movie is "The Oblong Box", based off a story of Edgar Allan Poe. I am familiar with Poe's work, but not this tale, as strange as that might sound. Nevertheless, Vincent Price plays noble man named Julian who has his brother Edward locked in a room due to some unfortunate event that transpired in Africa. It appears that Edward is under an African voodoo curse and has been left with a disfigured face.

Well to paraphrase, Edward plans an escape which ends up having him being mistaken for dead. Until he is discovered by Dr. Neuhartt (Christopher Lee) who is in the grave robbing business in order to study human anatomy. Edward ends up black mailing Dr. Neuhartt and starts a murderous spree that leaves his brother Julian scratching his head. There is a bit more to it, but this is basically it. The movie is a period piece taking place near the turn of the century. As a matter of fact, it looks a lot like a Hammer Horror movie.

The second movie is "Scream and Scream Again". This movie is a bit more challenging for me to describe. This is due to the fact the multiple storylines never really seem to gel. There is this militant fascist group who is taking various body parts and is creating pseudo people. Meanwhile there is a vampire like killer running around accosting young women. The police are investigating these murders, while a young medical doctor aids in the search, Vincent Price also plays another medical doctor who might be linked to both the killings and "make a person project". Christopher Lee plays a business man and Peter Cushing plays a general.

The major problem I have with "Scream and Scream Again" is the lack of the marquee stars. Vincent Price is in the movie maybe fifteen minutes, Christopher Lee present for six minutes and Peter Cushing is in a scene that lasts maybe two and half minutes, isn't that disgusting? I was also very disappointed with the lack of interaction between the three stars. Price & Lee share a scene; Cushing is on an island alone.

However once I got pass the lack of the "big 3" and confusing story, this was one entertaining movie. There was plenty of action and the pathos of the 1970s is extremely apparent, right down to the theme song that shares the name of the film. In other words I never felt like I was bored. There is one scene where a pseudo man ripped his hand off from a hand cuff, interesting stuff. I truly wish that "Scream and Scream Again" didn't even mention that Peter Cushing was in the movie. A surprise cameo would have been cooler, if one can't tell I am a Cushing fan.

I personally felt that "The Oblong Box" is the stronger movie out of the two. The performances are better, the mood is more eerie, and the film is leveled yet not schizophrenic. I didn't find the pace of this movie slow or languid, rather it allowed for quite a nice zenith. Christopher Lee was sporting a gray wig in this movie, great stuff. It was also cool to see Mr. Lee call his housekeeper a slut, priceless. It is unfortunate that Lee and Price only share one small scene. However, in this movie Christopher Lee is listed as a "special guest star" yet has a much larger role than in "Scream and Scream Again".

The DVD is a flipper disc, one movie on each side. As for special features, the movies have options for subtitles and the original trailer/preview is included. One footnote about the trailer for "Scream and Scream Again", when Peter Cushing's name is displayed it is over another actor. Huh? I digress, these movies are presented in letterbox and the picture is very clear. I would say these movies are a nice way to pass a couple of hours. I much rather watch them then mow the lawn.

If one of his films can bring mild discomfort, a Gordon Hessler double bill is enough to drive some people to glue. 'Psychotronic' states, with typical perspicacity, that Hessler has no fans and his movies are worth zip.
Fair enough. I don't agree but have every sympathy. His 'style' divides. He thinks shooting from strange and uncomplimentary angles makes his movies 'edgy' and 'art.' He is probably wrong.
Occasionally, I'm quite fond of his pyrotechnics ~ others are not. Here, his arrangements work quite well on one movie ~ not so well on the other.

'The Oblong Box' is a grim effort; Vincent Price and Christopher Lee are shot from strange angles. No love. Jumbled story: something concerning an African curse and a hideous sadist seeking revenge. The 'Box' itself is smart: all leather and studs. Film: murky.
Not something you'd want to look at after a night at the Rat and Raven.
Better than 'Cry of the Banshee.'

'Scream and Scream Again' is an improvement: Vincent Price, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing are shot from strange angles. No love. Jumbled story: something about brutal vampire murders and a scientifically manufactured super-race. Britain is under unflinching fascist rule (no change there, then..) and Price/Lee/Cushing's combined screen-time is about 2o minutes.
Smart road chase with GORGEOUS 6o's Jaguar cars (drool..). Cool.
Better than 'Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park.'

A Gordon Hessler double-header ~ cold sweats notwithstanding; ~ better than you might expect.

Scream and Scream Again is a rather astounding assemblage of film and sound clips that are fantastic to the trained eye and a bewildering mess to someone expecting a movie of the horror genre. As a film, it's much less than the sum of its parts. I'll avoid addressing the film as the other reviews give it proper treatment and stick to discussing scenes and sound production.

Record collectors and music historians are in for a complete treat. The soundtrack is done by none other than Shel Talmy and its fantastic! Everything he learned making the best music ever recorded by The Who, The Kinks, The Creation and a pubescent David Bowie are brought to bear in this production. Freakbeat fans are in for a real treat with two nightclub numbers by Amen Corner along with dancing crowds dressed in Carnaby Street's finest fashions c. 1968-69. The music is only occasionally in-sync with the plot line and does little to help the story.

Set designers will drool over the above nightclub scenes and many long-panning sequences of swinging London and the English countryside c. 1969 with racing Jaguars, MG's and Bentleys. The purple poofy shirt of the nightclub vampire killer is all you need to start your own mod-psych-pop band. Lee, Cushing and the English cast get to stroll around in fantastic wardrobe. Lee is surprisingly strong and believable as a government heavy even though he's barely got two pages of dialog in the film. Surprisingly, nobody on this thread has mentioned the ~30 second uncredited cameo of Boris Karloff as a forensic pathologist for the government trying to dissect the vampire's hand. A rare easter egg as the role is appropriately played purely for humor. Many of the other sets are elaborate, shot at strange angles, use funky lighting and provide better things to look at than attempting to follow the weak plot. It's even stranger that many of the actors provide excellent work for such an atrocious script. I'll assume most of them read the book beforehand and had definite opinions on how they wanted to play their respective role. Naturally, the film decides to focus on the least interesting actors in this piece. It's easy to see how this film was influenced by The Prisoner and in turn influenced Cronenberg in Videodrome.