Classic Horrors Club

Denny Harris ran a successful commercial production company in California. One day he decided he wanted to make a movie. That is, I’m supposing that’s what happened. He made The Silent Scream (1979) and it remains his one motion picture credit. Even though it was released in late 1979 and into 1980, and some critics called it a Halloween rip-off, it was originally filmed before Halloween in 1977. Even when the result turned out to be “unreleasable” and 86% of it was re-shot, it was completed earlier in 1978 than Halloween.

That’s not to say The Silent Scream isn’t a rip-off of something else, particularly Psycho. However, for a different classic, it reminds me of Black Christmas. The camera moves from an exterior shot of the big house on the hill (one you may recognize from Spider Baby), in through the basement window, then up a cobweb-filled secret staircase into the attic. Someone is lurking behind the walls, but it’s not a boy named, “Billy.” Spoiler alert, it’s a girl named, “Victoria” (Barbara Steele.)

Just because she’s lurking, though, doesn’t necessarily mean she’s the one killing the three college students who’ve rented rooms in the house. The prime suspect is Mason (Brad Rearden), the high school student trying to keep things together for his family since his mother (Yvonne DeCarlo) lives upstairs and won’t come down, much less speak. One of them, and possibly even the mother, carries a big knife and uses it to brutally stab their victims.

The Silent Scream isn’t as effective as Psycho, Black Christmas, or Halloween, but it is oddly entertaining. Wildly uneven, it packs most of the plot and action into the final act where it’s almost too much to follow. There’s some mystery when the first body on the beach is discovered and Lt. Sandy McGiver (Cameron Mitchell) and Sgt. Manny Ruggin (Avery Schrieber) launch an investigation, but it’s superficial at best.

Hold on a sec… we’ve got Cameron Mitchell, Barbara Steele, and Yvonne DeCarlo… some big names in genre film. Sadly, their parts are small, their scenes filmed in only two or three days, and doubles used for some shots. We get more screen time with the horny college students, primarily Scotty Parker (Rebecca Balding) and Jack Towne (Steve Doubet.) They’re not bad, but just not as interesting as the characters we don’t see as frequently.

I vaguely remember seeing The Silent Scream at the Enid Drive-In and being bored. This strikes me as odd considering I don’t find it the least bit boring now. However, it lacks the thrills and suspense promised in the trailers and TV spots that I must have seen way back then. (You can watch the trailer here.) Whoever produced it knew a thing about marketing; it makes you want to see a movie, just maybe not this one.  

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