UnowPriceless hyped garbage

Invaderbank The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Fleur Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

adriangr Silent Scream had to jostle with hundreds of other "slasher" movies at the start of the 1980's to get into the public consciousness, and it just doesn't make enough of an impression to be remembered. The story, action and characterisation are so ordinary that it never really makes a mark on the viewer.The plot: Rebecca Balding takes a rented room in a large cliff top mansion along with 3 other students. The house is ominous, the family who own the house are creepy, and one by one, the students start dying. Cue police investigation that turns up nothing, noises in the attic, romantic sub-plot, secret passages, etc, etc.On the whole, the film just isn't exciting. Although it employs heavy duty "horror music" almost constantly (and loudly) to try and make things seem frightening, the murders are tame and the first hour of the film borders on boring. Things pick up after the big reveal and the plight of the "final girl" takes a satisfying turn for the worse, but this extended climax is diluted by some fairly weak acting from a couple of pivotal characters, and again, the dramatic music is laid of with a trowel in attempt to convince you that something really scary is going on when it's notSo don't expect to be scared. Sadly the gory excesses of other films of the early 1980's make Silent Scream seem very tame. And viewed today, it hasn't really got enough going on to recommend it on any other level either. Shame.

haildevilman 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.

thesar-2 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.)

GroovyDoom The bait-and-switch tactics of movie trailers are the stuff of legend. We've all been rooked into watching or attending movies that turned out to be radically different than what the trailers implied. One of my biggest memories of this was "Silent Scream", which had a highly memorable trailer that basically revealed the creepy high point of the film. At age 10, I wasn't prepared for the fact that the movie itself was more atmospheric than thrilling, not to mention a body count that tops out at a modest 2. I begged my parents to take me to see "Silent Scream" at the drive-in, and then I think I fell asleep halfway through the movie because I was so bored.Now that I'm considerably older, I got the chance to see "Silent Scream" again, and I can appreciate it for being a very enjoyable film, somewhat lacking in the gore department but otherwise bizarre enough to hold one's interest for the brief runtime of the film. Whether you enjoy the film or not will probably depend on your own fondness for the moth-eaten elements of horror cinema, such as spooky cellars, cobwebs galore, and secret passageways that lead to nothing but trouble.Perky Rebecca Balding is a college student whose desperation for a place to stay leads her to a foreboding mansion that anybody in their right mind would flee in a heartbeat. With three other boarders living there too, there seems to be safety in numbers, that is until one of them is found stabbed to death on the beach. How long before our heroine becomes the "final girl" who has to confront the morbid secrets of the bizarre family who rents out their rooms? The worst thing about "Silent Scream" is that the plot of it is rather obvious. The family who presides over the seaside mansion consists of Yvonne DeCarlo, the matronly elder, and a young boy named Mason who is way too young to be her son, even though he seems to think that he is. Since Barbara Steele's name is in the credits of the movie too, it isn't hard to figure out that when she doesn't show up right away, she's a surprise that'll be dragged out later. The first time you actually see her on screen in the film is one of the movie's biggest highlights. Her performance is actually quite disturbing and effective, amid the silly slasher stuff that goes on.In fact, all the the actors are good here. Yvonne DeCarlo doesn't have much to do, but she's a formidable presence in the film nonetheless. Cameron Mitchell is on hand too, upping the cult movie factor here even further. Considering that it's clearly a slasher film inspired by the success of films like "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th", it's worlds apart from the countless cookie-cutter slasher movies that followed. The gratuitous nods to "Psycho" help lend it some weight, and you gotta love any movie with a secret passageway that leads up to a secret room in the attic.