Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic

Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Abegail Noëlle While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

loomis78-815-989034 Coed Scotty (Balding) is in desperate need of housing before the semester starts. She eventually settles on a room at a seaside estate with some other students. She is creeped out by the house owner Mrs. Engles (Yvonne De Carlo) and her nerdy son Mason (Rearden) but is attracted to fellow border Jack (Doubet). After a night out drinking the borders go to the adjoining beach to party when Peter (John Widelock) is left behind and is brutally stabbed by an unseen assailant with a large knife. Lt. Sandy McGiver (Cameron Mitchell) is called in to investigate. He soon finds out that the Engles oldest daughter Victoria (Steele) spent time in a mental hospital due to stabbing someone and an attempted suicide. Someone is indeed lurking in the attic of the house as the family's well-kept secret is slowly revealed. Director Denny Harris uses good atmosphere and a few memorable shots (like the hands coming through the cob-webbed slats in the walls) to distract you that not much happens in this movie until its later reels. A slasher film at heart, the film is low on gore and body count but genre favorite Barbara Steele as crazed Victoria is certainly a highlight. Her off balanced take on Victoria is simply chilling and gives this good looking movie its chills. The Police in this movie are silly and come straight out of 1970 TV cop shows. The movie goes all in on the slow reveal of who is doing the creepy stalking and killing, but it could have used some more punch in earlier scenes. See it for Barbara Steele's great performance.

AaronCapenBanner Some college students(including "The Boogens" star Rebecca Balding) look for rooms to rent in a sea-side mansion owned by a mysterious landlady and her peculiar son, only to regret it later when a series of murders breaks out, and the secrets of the house and its inhabitants are revealed...Ostensibly a slasher picture, though not that violent, is still pretty flat and dull, with a fairly obvious plot and characters going through the motions. The type of film where the trailer shows all the effective material, and as a consequence, is the best thing about it! For some unknown reason, this was successful at the box office!

haildevilman This film was made twice when everyone was brought back to re do scenes. It didn't help much.A few college types decide to rent a huge castle/mansion near the ocean when the dorm housing gets full. Except there's an evil presence hiding there.It seemed to capitalize on the sudden attacks so "no one had time to scream." But the build up was so bad it almost wasn't worth it. Seeing Barbara Steele and Yvonne (Lily Munster) DeCarlo was nice. And the Cameron Mitchell-Avery Schreiber cop team was worth a look for the weirdness alone. But these names basically showed up for a few days and did their scenes before going back to their bigger jobs. Most of the other actors were newbies trying to earn their stripes. They gave their all. And if you look....you'll catch Schreiber reading his lines off his notepad.Strangely enough....despite the ravaging this took from the critics....and the fact that it really hasn't aged well...it did gross between 10 and 15 million. But the 80's video boom and the distance horror has come since probably made it valuable only to collectors or vintage 70's film buffs.

Scarecrow-88 I wonder if Ti West watched "Silent Scream" as inspiration for his cult hit, "The House of the Devil". "Silent Scream" is one of those "spooky house with sinister secrets and creepy denizens" kinds of horror movies. The setting is a giant house on the hill overlooking an ocean and beach with deliberate camera work taking us into the hidden portion of a cob-webbed basement where someone obviously dangerous is buried away, seemingly locked in a room for a reason yet understood. Young tenants preparing for another semester of college are unaware of what lies ahead for them..certain peril.This early slasher resembles the movies that would arrive not long after. College kids falling victim to a knife-wielding maniac, except the backdrop isn't a campus or camp, but an eerie boardinghouse with suspicious owners. I believe the house itself might give this little known slasher movie some credo.A strike against it might be the span of time between knife murders. Like the aforementioned "House of the Devil", "Silent Scream" takes it's time establishing the quiet menace that is palpable within the boardinghouse..I mean the lead heroine, Scotty(Rebecca Balding) her new boyfriend, Jack(Steve Doubet;also a boarder in the house)and traumatized fellow boarder, Doris(she was with the first victim just prior to his sadistic demise, having left his drunk ass lying on the beach after growing frustrated with his active hands trying to fondle her)all seem to find their current residence rather uneasy, attempting to adapt accordingly, despite the fact that someone they had just recently met suffered such a grisly fate.Barbara Steele fans, stay faithful because even though you have to wait about an hour to see her, it's certainly worth it because she has a knack for depicting madness effectively. I know I keep bringing it up, but "Silent Scream" even favors "House of the Devil" and other films of it's ilk, in how the heroine investigates throughout the house, planted in our minds is the question on where evil dwells. The "house of crazies" theme I must admit feeling partial to..I enjoy movies featuring lunatics gathered together as a family, especially with so many rooms echoing quite a history to the viewer. The only one oblivious to the strange atmosphere of the place is Jack.Poor Rebecca Balding is tied to a coat rack as a gun is going off shortly after we are privy to family revelations. The finale is more than a bit chaotic, but I guess such events were bound to erupt eventually when you have such a dysfunctional family as the Engles. Seeing a loony Steele coming at you with a long, sharp, glimmering butcher knife is quite the image a slasher fan can appreciate more than the casual horror fan.Cameron Mitchell and Avery Schreiber have thankless parts as police detectives on the case of the murdered rich kid, Peter(John Widelock) feeling the pressure to find some sort of lead, clue, or evidence that can help them solve the mystery behind his savage death. Balding is a doll in the lead, a cute girl who makes an attractive couple with Doubet who searches for her when she's held hostage by Mama Engles,(Yvonne De Carlo), mop-haired son Mason(Brad Reardon, quite good as the polite, but weird and anti-social, misfit, his mania bubbling underneath the surface), and Steele whose lobotomy while in the mental institution has left her with little more than the mind of a child(that is until violent impulses take over). Juli Andelman has a nice supporting part as Balding's quirky pal, Doris, who never is able to recover from Peter's murder.