How great is Vincent Price? If you have read any of my contributions to this site, you might have caught my coverage of another major release of his films on Blu-ray in October of last year. You might also recall my endless gushing over how great he is! He is so great! He is great enough to carry so many movies that would have been forgettable without his towering screen presence! He is great enough to do narration on one of the greatest pop songs of all time! He is so great (How great IS he?) that a bunch of young filmmakers, with the stringiest of shoestring budgets (the cast and crew slept at the director’s mother’s house), fought for months to secure him for their first theatrically released film. That surprised me for two reasons: in the end, they had made a cool enough movie not to require his entertainment-elevation skills, and they somehow managed to cast him for the weakest part of their project. Regardless, Jeff Burr’s totally twisted, blood-soaked anthology From a Whisper To A Scream is the most surprising horror movie I’ve seen in years.
Yet, it opens without much promise. In the unimaginative and clunky framing story, a reporter comes to visit the Oldfield town historian (Vincent Price) after his niece is executed by the state. Once we enter the vignettes, however, as Price’s character works his way backward through time to explain why the town is cursed by terrors, the film comes alive with style and creativity. First, The Tall Man star Clu Gulager plays an elderly man, in the present day, stuck caring for his feeble older sister, who has become obsessed with the possibility of making love to his attractive boss, even if that means resorting to necrophilia. In the second story, Terry Kiser (Bernie from Weeknend at Bernie’s — No joke!) is hiding out with a witchdoctor in the ’50s who might have the key to eternal life. Next, a woman is in love with a glass eater at a late ’30s freak show, but he has a secret debt to the circus’ snake lady (Rosalind Cash), and loving her back might involve making the ultimate sacrifice. Finally, a small platoon of Civil War soldiers led by Cameron Mitchell (Google him — he was in everything) are captured by a sadistic cult of orphaned children after the war has ended.
Those final two episodes are good enough, and are so full of interesting ideas, they could easily be — and probably should have been feature films on their own. The freak show episode, especially, feels a little overstuffed. The short rapidly throws a lot of exposition at you, and it’s all done with an abundance of engrossing drama, but you can sense the power of a much bigger story trying to rip through its 15-minute window. It still plays exceptionally well, and has maybe the most upsetting death scene I have ever witnessed. I wouldn’t dare spoil it for you here, and some of you more dedicated horror fans have probably seen some shit that would make this look like that Android commercial where the different animals become best friends, but my eyes almost popped out of my damn skull when this thing came to its grisly climax.
I don’t want to sell the first two segments short. This whole film almost makes you forget Creepshow, another fine effort to bring the nasty chills of classic horror comics to life, but I think the freak show piece and the civil war short deserve the most attention. Cast with a lot of first time child actors, in a film overflowing with disturbing taboos, watching a bunch of late 1800s kids go all Children Of The Corn (but actually scary) on bewildered union soldiers takes the cake. These kids totally sell the psychosis, in truly admirable performances, and even 24 hours later I am crossing the street when I am about to pass the children in my neighborhood. I know this might sound potentially too sick for many of you, but I want to assure you the filmmakers have no intention of shocking you cheaply. The script, penned by a different writer for each vignette, is smart and the writing will provoke and engage you just as much as the gnarly spectacles on screen.
As previously mentioned, it really is a shame what a let down the framing device is. That seems to be plaguing most anthology films. It either doesn’t quite work, defying its own logic, or it just isn’t particularly interesting. This, Vincent Price’s final performance in the horror genre, suffers from the latter. The movie ends on a meaningless note, but that can’t do much to ruin the terrifying symphony you had been enjoying up to that point. See this thing, and love it. If you have seen it and you think it sucks, then let me know in the comments, so I can be real mad at you.
THE PACKAGE
Scream Factory has, once again, outdone themselves with this disc’s supplementary content. The quality of the digital transfer, however, isn’t quite what we have come to expect from them. It mostly looks great, but a few scenes have a flickering issue, and one other practically looks like the celluloid was about the fly off the reel. Otherwise, it’s an excellent preservation of an extremely cool movie.
Multiple Audio Commentaries — With different cast and crew members
A Decade Under The Influence — Feature-length documentary about teens making super 8 movies
Return To Oldfield — Deeply comprehensive documentary on the production of the film: completely engaging and the story of bringing Price into the picture is incredible!
Still Gallery
TV Spots
Foreign Theatrical Trailer
