And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973)

England, 1795: the young Catherine has just married Charles Fengriffen and moves into his castle. She becomes the victim of an old curse that lays on the family. On her wedding night she is raped by a ghost and gets pregnant.

Director:

Roy Ward Baker

Writers:

Roger Marshall (screenplay by), David Case (novel)

Stars:

Peter Cushing, Herbert Lom, Patrick Magee

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Peter Cushing	...	Dr. Pope
Herbert Lom	...	Henry Fengriffen
Patrick Magee	...	Dr. Whittle
Stephanie Beacham	...	Catherine Fengriffen
Ian Ogilvy	...	Charles Fengriffen
Geoffrey Whitehead	...	Woodsman / Silas
Guy Rolfe	...	Maitland
Rosalie Crutchley	...	Mrs. Luke
Gillian Lind	...	Aunt Edith
Sally Harrison	...	Sarah
Janet Key	...	Bridget
John Sharp	...	Henry's Friend
Norman Mitchell	...	Constable
Lloyd Lamble	...	Sir John Westcliff
Kay Adrian

Storyline

In 1795, in England, the young woman Catherine moves to the house of her fiancé Charles Fengriffen in the country to get married with him. When she arrives, she feels interest in the portraits of the Fengriffen family, particularly in the one of Charle's grandfather Henry Fengriffen, which seems to have a sort of evil entity possessing it. While admiring Henry's face, a severed hand attacks Catherine through the picture on the wall. Later, she gets married with Charles, beginning her journey of mystery, eerie apparitions, secrets and deaths, and having her days filled with fear and the nights with horrors in a cursed family.

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Plot Keywords:

wife raped in front of husband | attacked by a dog | facial birthmark | exclamation point in title | rottweiler | 

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Taglines:

A Technicolor film set in a ghostly gothic manor house, England 1785

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Genres:

Horror

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Certificate:

R

Did You Know?

Trivia

As the project was entitled "Fengriffen" all through the production process, both stars Ian Ogilvy and Stephanie Beacham later claimed having been astonished at the time by the title under which this film finally came out, producer Max Rosenberg having set his mind on an apparently more commercially sounding one.

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Goofs

The ghostly hand is a right hand throughout the film but when it appears to kill Mrs Luke it is suddenly a left hand.

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Quotes

[Charles explains that his family's ancestral manse is haunted]
Charles Fengriffen: Ghosts galore. Headless horsemen, horseless headsmen, everything.

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Alternate Versions

US version is missing two scenes from the original British release: Peter Cushing's discovery of an eyeless corpse and Ian Ogilvy's smashing the skeleton against a gravestone.

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Connections

References Rebecca (1940)

User Reviews

To Be Seen Late at Night

There was something of a vogue for horror films in Britain during the sixties and early seventies, probably because there was a market for material of this nature but censorship meant that it could not be shown on television. Hammer were the best-known film production company of the British horror boom, but they had a number of rivals, and this film was made by one of these, Amicus Productions. Amicus were best known for "portmanteau" films like "Tales from the Crypt", generally with a contemporary rather than a period setting, which meant lower production costs. "And Now the Screaming Starts!" is one of their few attempts to invade the Hammer territory of a single feature-length story set in the past. It even features one of Hammer's best-known stars, Peter Cushing.

Despite the rather jokey title, complete with exclamation mark, this is not a horror spoof along the lines of "Carry On Screaming". Nor, despite the presence of Cushing in the cast, is it a Transylvanian tale of vampires and werewolves. It is rather a Gothic ghost story reminiscent of the work of M R James, although more sexually explicit than anything James would have been allowed to write. The action takes place in the year 1795. A young married couple, Charles and Catherine Fengriffen, move into the stately home of the Fengriffen family. At first the marriage seems a happy one, but soon Catherine is troubled by strange dreams and visions, all of which seem to be connected with Silas, the mysterious and sinister woodcutter who lives in a cottage on the estate, and a portrait of Charles's grandfather, Sir Henry. She comes to believe that the house is haunted and that there is a curse on the Fengriffen family. Several people who try to help her meet mysterious deaths. Eventually Charles admits to Catherine, who is by now pregnant, that there is a legend of a family curse, connected to a terrible crime committed by Sir Henry.

Despite his being the most established star among the cast, Cushing's part is a relatively small one; he plays a doctor brought in to try and cure Catherine of what her husband believes is a mental illness and fulfils that common role in horror films, the rationalist sceptic whose scepticism is inevitably proved wrong by events. Cushing is, however, very good in his role, and there is also a good performance from Herbert Lom as the cruel and debauched Henry, whose crime is seen in flashback. Stephanie Beacham was previously best known to me as Sable in that "Dynasty" spin-of "The Colbys", but here we get to see just how strikingly beautiful she was as a young woman.

Some of the productions of the British horror cycle could be awful, and Cushing, although a talented actor, often found himself cast in the worst of them. ("The Blood Beast Terror" from 1967 and "The Satanic Rites of Dracula", also from 1973, are two particularly dire examples). "And Now the Screaming Starts!", however, is one of the better ones. Its plot may be far-fetched, but all films in this particular genre require a large amount of suspension of disbelief on the part of the viewer, and director Roy Ward Baker, who in the latter part of his career tended to specialise in horror, is able at times to conjure up a quite genuine sense of terror. Moreover, some of the most powerful scenes are those seen in flashback, and here no suspension of disbelief is needed. Ghosts may or may not exist; men as depraved as Sir Henry undoubtedly do, which from my point of view makes them far more frightening than any ghost. This is a highly watchable film, especially when seen late at night. 7/10

A goof. The Fengriffen mansion is built in the Victorian Gothic style, quite anachronistic for a film set in the late 18th century. The actual house used, Oakley Court in Berkshire, was in fact not built until 1859. The film-makers, however, clearly felt that Gothic architecture was much more in keeping with the mood of a horror film than Georgian classicism would have been.

Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

14 November 1974 (UK)

Also Known As:

Now the Screaming Starts

Filming Locations:

Shepperton Studios, Middlesex, England, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

Amicus Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

91 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1