Scream of Fear

Susan Strasberg and Ann Todd

Seth Holt's Scream of Fear, first released under the title Taste of Fear in 1961, is an under sung mystery thriller. The film was a Hammer Production, but stops a little short of being a horror film. There is no supernatural aspect to the movie, just human skullduggery. The script by the Welshman Jimmy Sangster, who had a hand in most of the Hammer films of this period, is a rehash of mystery tropes in which allegiances and even identities shift. The set-up, an heiress (Susan Strasberg) in a wheelchair stuck in a cliffside villa on the Cote d'Azur with a possible evil step-mother, is a low budget variation on Rear Window, with a little Gaslight thrown into the mix, and Holt's usage of stuffed animals indicates that Psycho was lingering in his mind.

Still, the film rises above its premise through the gorgeous lens of Roger Slocum whose varied credits include Kind Hearts and Coronets, The  Servant, The Fearless Vampire Killers, Travels With My Aunt and Raiders of the Lost Ark. In toto, his life work exists as an impressive and eclectic body. On Scream of Fear, Slocum is able to elevate the cheap set into a believable space where peril resides. Holt has Slocum shoots most of the drawing room scenes with one character in foreground and the other players positioned diagonally in the mid-distance. Effective ratcheting of suspense or boring neo-Expressionist portentousness? Opinions differ. In the Village Voice, Jonas Mekas gave it the back of his hand calling the film "bad in every way." Christopher Lee, who appears in the film as a sinister seeming French Doctor, thought it was the best film Hammer ever made.

Ann Todd and Christopher Lee

I lean more to Mr. Lee's point of view, but know that Scream of Fear's charms are minor. It does not try to reinvent the cinema or the Gothic Mystery genre. However, did Ann Todd or Susan Strasberg ever give better performances? I think not. Ms. Strasberg's character is a perfect fit for her fidgety neuroticism, but Mr. Holt deserves some credit for all the performances. Mr. Lee is in fine form, as are Ronald Lewis and Fred Johnson, though I hope the latter wasn't paid by the word. Part of the reason there never was much of Seth Holt cult was that he died far too young, at age 47 in 1971. I am not sure he ever would have risen too far above the slough of B pictures he was assigned, but his best pictures, Scream of Fear and Station Six-Sahara, are stealthily rewarding.