That was an excellent one.

The first must-see film of the year.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

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.

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.

This was my fault for being obsessed. Obsessed for nearly 30 years.Allow me to explain. When I was a kid, particularly around 5-7 years old, I was rightfully not allowed to watch Rated-R or horror features, though I loved scary movies. The best I could do was either watch what I referred to "Monster Movies" (Godzilla, King Kong, etc.) or the 30-second teaser trailers on any one of the many 5-channels we got on our B&W TV. Those were the best and those scared me the most.I remember the preview for the film: Visiting Hours – but that was the only one I remembered by name. Two more, I remember to this day, right around 30 years later. One I am still searching for. One I found here, in The Silent Scream.The teaser I remember was of a woman, with some big hair and in a robe, with slippers and a flashlight. She walked downstairs, through narrow walk-ways filled with cobwebs. She goes down one path, then another "exploring" whatever and finally makes it to – remember, I was six then – what I would classify now as a crawlspace, and she proceeds in. Once in, she veers right and in a well lit area, she comes across a hand simply sticking up from a red velvet square at the end. Stupidly, she grabs the hand and it pulls her away from freedom, I suppose, while she screams. End scene (or preview.) Finally, after 30-some-odd years, I found the movie. I saw a preview on YouTube the other day, that "kind of" looked liked one of the two movies I've been searching my whole life for and put it in my Netflix queue. Low and behold, this was it. But my journey came at a cost. Not a huge one, but a price I would pay, nevertheless.The Silent Scream had such an appropriate title as the room I watched it in (alone) heard no such scream. I wouldn't even be generous enough to say, "Perhaps, back in the day (1980) this was considered scary" since Halloween in 1978 still frightens me and it was two years prior.The movie, about a college boarder, Scotty (Balding) who takes up residence in what appears to be a Psycho-Rip-off house which even includes the Norman Bates clone and even his equally strange mother. Other roommates live there, one of which appears to be heterosexual, though in today's timeframe is considered enormously flamboyant.Well, each die, one-by-one, and the remaining boarders feels either scared or concerned for all-but two minutes and then it's back to somewhat "partying" as usual.The movie's boring. Really. It contains odd characters as well as stereotypical (of 1980) characters, none of which are interesting. I'm assuming you're supposed to "root" for Scotty as she's introduced in a very lame set up involving her "comical" attempts at finding a place to crash during her college days you never see.Finally, the movie reveals the "secrets" of the hell house she selected, and finally the scene I waited 30 years to see happens.I'm more satisfied that the wait is over, than actually seeing that "scene." And I did get it wrong. No velvet, but instead a cutaway whereas one character pulls her through as she screams. Forgive me, I was six.One down, only one more to go. Once I do find that other movie from the teaser I saw as a kid, and I will eventually find it, I will report it then. As for this movie, The Silent Scream, I seriously can't recommend it. Even if just for laughs over the said scream(s.)

Let it begin. Post-Halloween slashers are in force. But this just made it in before the major onslaught, and admirably it's a above par entry. Actually it probably has more common with "Psycho" , and touch of "Black Christmas", than most brain-dead slashers. The one-note story is quite typical and fairly bare on building much in the way of sub-plots, but it's the dreary, underlining atmosphere that smothers the gloomy seaside mansion and invokes a real unsteadiness of slow-burn tension. Even the performances lend well, and the central outlook on a dysfunctional family (who rent out spare rooms in their mansion to students) grows incredibly eerie. A silently steely Barbara Steele is memorably striking in her support role, while Rebecca Balding is competently fine as the main heroine. Cameron Mitchell and Yvonne De Carlo also show up. There's a subtle stylishness to Denny Harris' direction in many effective sequences, where obviously his less concerned about a body count and ghastly shocks. The feel is more like an old-fashioned Gothic-tale, with psychotic-drama currents. A problem though, would that there happened to be many flat (or dead-air) moments. Dead silence, and believable actions aplenty. It's low-budget shows, and minimal scope gives the film a tight, dank and creaky vibe that works. Even the vast, forlorn coastal location choices, and shadowy, cob-web house-bound settings are nailed down to perfection. Roger Kellaway's hysterically sombre music score had that familiar sound to it, but Michael D. Murphy & David Shore's murkily prying cinematography really sneaks up onto the viewer. Even within the empty passages, it still emit's a spine-tingling ambiance and workably solid performances by the cast.