As Good As It Gets

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

This is the fourth film of Joseph (the Anglicized version of Jose' Ramon) Larraz I'm watching and possibly the most conventional and least rewarding so far. For the record, the film shares its screenwriter Derek Ford (who later became an exploitation director himself) with a film I've also just watched for the first time during this Halloween challenge – Peter Sykes' VENOM (1971; see above).The heroine is a gorgeous blonde played by Andrea Allan: thankfully, 1970s British genre cinema was virtually a haven for such starlets, even if only a handful ever made it to the top (while the greater majority were hardly ever heard of again)! Like VAMPYRES (1974), nudity here is bountiful (in all senses of the word) including a surprisingly steamy encounter between the disturbed sculptor/murderer (Karl Lanchbury, who also appeared in Larraz's subsequent erotic vampire flick) and his mentor/aunt(!) – although the ever iconoclastic Luis Bunuel would go one better the following year in THE PHANTOM OF LIBERTY by showing a young man sleeping with his own grandmother!!Incidentally, it seemed silly to me to have the heroine here jumping straight into a romantic attachment with a complete – to say nothing of wimpish – stranger (who, conveniently, turns out to be the killer!) after having not just witnessed a cold-blooded murder but also having had her unreliable boyfriend disappear on her for good! The expected 'red herring' character is here supplied courtesy of Peter Forbes-Robertson's eccentric birdwatcher neighbor.Incidentally, the photographic models milieu is extremely typical of such European thriller fare – and the film's bland treatment of it certainly adds nothing new to the formula. Also quite inevitably, the film went through various title changes: the original one was SCREAM…AND DIE! but, apart from the one I watched it under which is listed above, it was further hyperbolically dubbed PSYCHO SEX FIEND.

Valerie and her boyfriend Terry witness a murder in an old abandoned house. They had heard the sound of a car arriving and they hid themselves. A couple had come in. They could only see the girl because He remained always in the shadow. She undressed herself and sat on his lap. Suddenly a switchblade flashes out. She's stabbed to death.Valerie in her panic rushes blindly out of the house. Outside she waits for Terry. He doesn't come. Then she hears footsteps. Again she runs and runs.... Somehow she manages to get home in the morning.In London Valerie goes back to her routine. She tries to contact Terry, be he's disappeared from sight. And worst of all, when Valerie looks out of her window she sees Terry's car parked in front of her house. The killer knows who she is and where she lives! When Valerie speaks with her friends about it, they advise her to not contact the police. After all Terry is a shady dealer, and she could get involved in a very nasty business. But what happened to Terry? Is he still alive? The killer is stalking her, and he will strike again...By the description, you could think that "Scream and Die" is a very suspenseful thriller. But you would be wrong."Scream and Die" (the title is misleading) should be seen by those that like a weird atmosphere: the thick fog that envelops the house when Terry and Valerie arrive there, Valerie's friends and neighbors, the early 70s mood, the subtle and effective soundtrack, and the bizarre! Most viewers will guess from the beginning who the killer is. But that's not really important. I enjoy "Scream and Die" because it's atmospheric and feels natural (characters and environment), but it is at the same time dreamy, and sometimes surreal. The beautiful and delicate Andrea Allan is Valerie. She is a joy to behold! If you like the films of Larraz this is another one to add to your collection

SCREAM...AND DIE! (or "The house that vanished" (1973))is the unknown piece of horror and sex that the master José Ramón Larraz did in England in the seventees. It's an erotic thriller with psychopatic murderer (Karl Lanchbury) perfomed by a beautiful model called Valerie (terrific Andrea Allan)involved in a haunting mistery and sadistic murders occurred in a isolated manor in the forest at midnights. Scream and die has an excellent and very particular quality in images and atmosferes. The movie is slow, yes, but this thing is normal in Larraz's movies: the story is very slow and predictable, but it's too sexy (the love scenes are really good and erotic) and brutal sometimes, and has the mark from the director of masterpieces as "Vampyres" and "Symptoms", both from 1974. The fog, tne night, the sounds of the killer walking with his black gloves following Valerie, the anguish in her face in her firsts shots, the slowly music give to the film a personal sight. The first murder seen by the hidden Valerie and husband as intimate witnesses and the escape from the manor are a classic composition of horror shots, wonderfully executed by the "voyeurisitic filmmaker" with a rare and genuine talent. It's a really brutal moment of sophisticated murder and "naïve" sex. Scream and die has the very personal "touch" of the catalanian director, all the constants that are in the most part of his baroque, sensual and horrific world (Emma puertas oscuras,La muerte incierta,Vampyres, Symptoms,Estigma,Whirpool, Deviation or Deadly manor) are present in here. The spiral of terror and tension grows very slowly -step by step- describing the world of this sexy model for fashion photographers in a continuated state of danger. Larraz creates a really personal style in a very traditional thriller that must be remembered by the tension,the british locations in Kent in winter,the quiet and dead moments of inusually fascination, the use of the photography, the artistic colors and the incredible dark shots of nights, the typical "english" fog, the horror moments and the clever sex that impressed me a lot in my adolescence. Scream and die has a kind of elegance in the horror genre that others horror thrillers hasn't. All the personal obsessions of José Larraz are here in a fine lesson of cinematography in his best period of his career, the british period. The fans of José Larraz need to know his firsts features, as "Whirpool" (1970) and "Deviation" (1971)-nobody has said anything more specific about these movies? (Please: more information and reviews in IMDB or other places,webs, etc.) and his last contribution tot the terror lately in "Deadly manor"(Savage lust, 1990)produced by his old british friend Brian Smedley-Aston. When the fans of José Ramón Larraz, Brian Smedley-Aston (editor of "Performance" ,etc.), his actresses and his horrific world will have a web or a personal page about the director? Where are the fans of this spanish/british filmmaker?. Goodbye!

The ratings for this movie are so high on this board, I'm convinced the former cast and/or crew members are shills. Absolutely nothing special. Another worthless haunted house movie with Freudian undertones. Bleh. There are naked women, yes. But the movie is so cheap, that it is dubbed and the sound added in later. This concept doesn't even work on a major Italian film, and it certainly doesn't work here. The lead femme is cute, though.