A creaky tale of revenge and the supernatural, And Now The Screaming Starts! has Amicus Productions attempting to make a gothic horror movie in the same vein as arch-rivals Hammer and being pretty unsuccessful at it.

Set in England, 1795 the movie opens with Catherine (Stephanie Beacham) heading to the looming Fengriffen estate in order to get married to her beau Charles (Ian Oglivy). Upon touring the house, Catherine finds herself oddly drawn to the portrait of Charles' grandfather, which leads to an okay early-on shock moment as a bloody hand bursts forth from the painting to try and grab her.

But that's not all the shock scenes director Roy Ward Baker decides to stage early on to try and grab our attention as we also get quick glimpses of a severed hand crawling along the floor and an eyeless man (who's sockets are dripping blood) peering into the window of Catherine's bedroom. Scenes that are all fine and dandy, but add nothing to the movie, as the script by Roger Marshall (based on a novel by David Case) doesn't bother giving us much of a story build-up or explanations as to why Catherine is having all this horrific events happen to her.

Eventually we learn that Catherine is pregnant and that now husband Charles has called in doctor Pope (Peter Cushing, who doesn't arrive until the half-way point) to try and sort out why it seems his loving wife is going quite nutty. This leads to more haunting and attack sequences as Baker continues to stage a series of, mostly pointless, horrific set pieces and Marshall's script vainly attempts to make woodsman Silas (Geoffrey Whitehead), who is living on the property, into a menacing figure.

Things do actually start to make some sense in the final third (and the movie actually does pick-up) some as we're given flashbacks to a past event involving sleaze ball grandfather Henry (Herbert Lom) and Silas' father that leads to a drunken rape, a hand chopping, and a vow to bring revenge down on the Fengriffen family. By far the best moment in the movie, it's too bad this scene came to late in the game, as it still can't save this from being a dull and poorly played out tale.

And Now The Screaming Starts! certainly isn't one of Amicus' best moments and it marked one of their rare steps away from making anthology flicks. Director Baker does fine with it all bringing the movie a solid, gothic feel to it (apart from the silly moments where the music swells and the camera zooms in to try and build suspense) and Lom gives the best performance in the movie with his limited screen time, but it's defeated by a sloppy script that never manages to engage the viewer and from having a lead actress in Beacham who gets to scream with vigor and overact like mad.

Originally filmed as The Fengriffen Bride, the movie was changed to its current moniker by co-producer Max J. Rosenberg, much to the chagrin of Baker who, to this day, found it to be a terrible title that made it sound like a cheap, exploitive B-movie. (Chris Hartley, 7/24/06)

Directed By: Roy Ward Baker.
Written By: Roger Marshall.

Starring: Peter Cushing, Herbert Lom, Patrick Magee, Stephanie Beacham.

Picture Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: Another fine transfer from Dark Sky, And Now The Screaming Starts! certainly doesn't look over thirty years old here as it's pretty clean and free of print damage and sports nice, solid clarity.

Extras: One of three titles under Dark Sky's "Amicus Collection" banner (the others being Asylum and The Beast Must Die), this disc has a slender, but pleasing, amount of extras.

As is standard on most Dark Sky discs there's a photo gallery that mostly consists of poster/sheet ads, a trailer (plus trailers for the other 2 titles mentioned above), and biographies for cast and crew. Also on hand are two commentary tracks: one a fairly informative track with director Baker and co-star Beacham and the other a breezy and listenable track with co-star Ogilvy.

Visit Dark Sky Films for more info.