Customer Reviews

Silent Scream

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I have been waiting ages for this horror flick to be released on DVD. At last, the moment has arrived! This 1980 film has all the elements of a good horror movie: suspense, creepy characters and settings, and chilling music. It even has a few lines of cheesy dialogue (something no horror flick should be without! LOL). The plot is interesting and has a number of twists - including the revelation of a family secret, which leads to grave consequences.

College student Scotty Parker (Rebecca Balding) is unable to find on-campus housing. As a result, she rents a room at the Engels seaside mansion, which has been turned into a boarding house. Three other students also rent rooms there. When one of them is found murdered on the nearby beach, the police begin an investigation - with a special focus on the Engels family - but can they solve the mystery before the other students meet the same grisly fate?

Barbara Steele delivers a terrifying, outstanding performance as the mute and disturbed Victoria Engels. Her eyes alone are enough to frighten you. Yvonne De Carlo, in her 50s at the time, plays her mother and also delivers a credible, albeit brief, performance. The pair is perfectly cast, due to both their talent and very noticeable resemblance.

Special features include the following:

* Mastered in HiDef from the Original InterPositive
* Brand New 5.1 Surround Sound
* Audio commentary with Writer/Producers Ken and Jim Wheat, and star Rebecca Balding
* Three all-new Featurettes: "Scream of Success: 30 Years Later," "Silent Scream: The Original Script," and "The Wheat Bros: A Look Back"
* Director Denny Harris' Final Audio Interview
* Theatrical Trailer
* TV Spot

I am definitely looking forward to owning this movie on DVD ... finally.

Many thanks to those who made it happen!

They just don't make them like this antmore! The 80's was a FANTASTIC decade for horror films. I can think of a dozen that will make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and then make you SCREAM! This film is done very well! It really makes you feel as though YOU are the one being stalked by the homicidal maniac! GREAT characters and dialogue. I would reccomend this movie to any TRUE HORROR FAN! Watch it with your girlfriend...she'll NEED your comforting touch :-)

I agree with some previous reviewers in that Psycho is probably a major source of inspiration to this movie. However, that's not a unique sin to this one: many horror movies from 1980s and later have used the original Psycho plan. Despite that, the movie has a pretty descent script and acting if you take into account the standard for horror movies in the 1980s (e.g., Friday the 13th). Despite very few "fatal errors" that come with horror movies (e.g., the killer keeps coming back after being shot or heavy wounded), the movie has a good pace and is entertaining. I recommend it. Good DVD transfer and remastered sound. No subtitles are provided.

Although this is obviously a low-budget film, it is far better than most of its more expensive brethren. It is suspenseful, almost frightening in places, and with an interesting twist at the end. Although looking somewhat chunky, Yvonne DeCarlo turns in a credible performance as the proprietress of a rooming house which is also inhabited by her insane daughter. Comedian Avery Schreiber, in the role of a detective, is also rather good. In all, it is a very entertaining little horror film, recommended for late-night viewing. Get it - you'll like it!

This review contains a spoiler so don't read it if you haven't seen the movie already and don't want to know a plot twist.

Silent Scream came out fairly early in the slasher craze, it was being made right after the original Halloween and had many scenes added and/or reshot over the next year. Amazingly, the film didn't end up a disjointed mess, but is a reasonably stylish, though slow moving, trip into the early days of the genre, before excessive blood and guts took over post-Friday the 13th. Rebecca Balding (The Boogens and t.v.'s Soap) is an engaging and cute lead, and unlike many of these types of actresses, she can act. Some of the supporting cast is not as good, but the worst offenders are killed by the 2/3 mark. Barbara Steele and Yvonne DeCarlo don't have big parts, but make the most of their screen time.


*** Spoiler ahead ***
Barbara manages to be quite scary in her part as a mute and very crazy daughter/mother/sister. The scene where she attacks Rebecca is really unnerving.
*** End of Spoiler ***

The print on the DVD is very good as is the sound for a low budget flick over 30 years old. The extras are great, especially the informative and amusing discussion with Rebecca and the Wheat brothers, who stepped in and re-wrote the script to make it salable. They went on to write Pitch Black and Nightmare on Elm Street 4 among others and they have funny anecdotes about this film and some of their others.

Though not in the same league as Halloween, the film is entertaining if you don't go in expecting excessive gore and a high body count, though the end turns deadly.

Silent scream is a movie that was a slasher film made in a time in the early 80s where everyone wanted to "cash" in on slasher films. While this film is not an academy award winning film, it was scary for its time. This is another one of my picks for people who collect vintage 80s slasher films. Most younger people will probably laugh at most of it, some of the hard-core collectors will find it a gem. The film has never been on DVD until now, so I'm sure all the people out there can maybe actually put that vhs player away.

There are sill more vintage 80s slasher films that I wish would be re-released on DVD/BLU RAY titles like "Hell Night". I can only keep crossing my fingers!

It would have been a typical 80's horror flick except the nice camera work and Barbara Steele (famous for her Italian horror films in the 60's) make it all worthwhile! Not overly bloody, some fun characters and a decent plot. Yvonne DeCarlo (Lily Munster) is perfectly cast as Barbara's creepy mother. Check out Barbara Steele in Pit and The Pendulum, Black Sunday, Castle Of Blood if you like 60's horror. Also Shivers and Piranha (70's). Of course her fans loved her in the remake of Dark Shadows in 1990.

Well this is what I call 80's movies. I personally really enjoyed the flick if it were done with 5.1 I would have given it a 5.Flowed nice keeps you guessing.Not for gore fans but if you like 80's this one for you.It is expensive but worth it.

I bought Silent Scream expecting something more of it then what I received. The one thing that stood out in my mind when it came close to the end of the movie was this... Norman Bates with his family helping in his evil deeds. Don't get me wrong, I am not downing Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho film because I loved it. It is a wonderful classic and Hitchcock is one of my favorites. The point I am trying to get across is that this film is too much like a lot of ones before it. The plot is so predictable. I would almost consider this film as a B-rated verison of Hitchcock's A-rated verison film. Like I said it is like Norman Bates with his family helping in his evil deeds. I like a lot of the older horror films but this is one of the lower rating ones. I knew none of the actors except for Yvonne Decarlo and she played such a small part in the film. The 80's films such as Friday The 13th are much better then this film by a long shot. The film is low grade but I do have to give the place that I bought the film from 5-stars because they did give me excellent service and it is not their fault by any means that I did not enjoy the film.

I never saw this movie when it first came out in 1980. I saw the trailer for it on Youtube and it looked great! A lonely girl ascending the stairs cautiously and discovers a secret room and in a split second the unknown attacker pulls the victim inside the room. Wow, that was a scary trailer. The secret passage looked creepy in the trailer. It's a great tool/setting for a horror movie. I'm sure other horror writers wished they thought of it first.
I watched the movie today and it was a boring experience for me to sit through. The good characters were dull and the evil enemies were embarrassing. I'm convinced that Barabara Steele accepted the role for employment only. I'm not convinced that she read the script in awe dying to play the character. The same for Yvonne De Carlo. Maybe it was an attempt by the movie studio to convince the public by having Barbara and Yvonne was a guarantee of a high quality movie. Otherwise, not having the two actress would result in a lower box office performance.
When a movie is not good, generally there's an excuse that it had a small budget, horrendous location, cheap setting, untalented actors, lousy directors, or bad choice of editing. The house was a good idea and the secret passage was a great tool for the movie. The story was a bad idea and it's quite a task to make a script from a useless story. I'm not placing the blame on the actors or the director for me not liking the movie: it's the Wheat brothers fault for the creation of the story. If the story was read as a novel, the pages would stop turning and the landfills would be flooded. After you see this movie, can you stomach listening to it as an audio book? I hope not! If I had a movie company, and the Wheat brothers told me their story from start to finish, I would not finance the movie at all.
The Wheat brothers idea of a scary movie was not clever. Their villains were weirdos that convinced me they could bump off a comatose bedridden patient. It had to be a miserable situation to be an actor or actress trying to be a believable victim throughout the movie. I won't give the plot away on Barbara Steele's character, but her being silent and acting childishly looney made me sad for her role she played: was this the only offer she received from the celluloid world? The suspicious "mother" harboring a dark secret that her career could be over as an actress. The weird boy going crazy and wearing his "father's" military uniform was not a terrifying transoformation, but convincing that it's not going to look good on your resume. In the beginning of the movie, there's a slow motion scene of the police entering inside the house viewing the brutality of the crime scene was supposed to make me feel disturbed of what I'm about to see. It didn't work. I didn't cover my eyes. I didn't hurl. I didn't have nightmares. I felt sleepy staring at dead bodies laying in a position as if they never had a romantic fling in their whole life. Not even a dog would be excited enough to hump their legs. Imagine watching a person in slow motion flashing the middle finger at you. I would imagine the majority of the reaction from the crazy finger incident would be shaking your head in bewilderment, "That was stupid!" It was one of the dullest crime scenes I've ever seen in a movie.
After watching this movie "Silent Scream," no one will ever dress up as any of the characters from the movie for a Halloween party. None of their characters had that impact. A manufacturing company will not waste it's time pursuing a license to make a t-shirt or even publishing a novel from this movie. The plot is miserable and I'm sure someone else could come up with a better story of the house and the secret passage. The best thing to do is enjoy watching the trailer of "Silent Scream" and let your imagination create a better plot than the original movie.