Comments on: Beautiful screamers

By: rhsmith

rhsmith — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 14:23:40 +0000

Actually, it’s that Anna Massey doesn’t scream that makes her death scene in Frenzy so awful… remember, the camera just pulls out of Rusk’s flat back into Covent Garden and you’re left to imagine what’s going on. A supremely uncomfortable moment in suspense cinema.

By: Stephen

Stephen — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 23:12:52 +0000

Good call on Peeping Tom, the first thing that popped into my mind before I clicked on the list of victims. Same with Jigoku, which I just watched last week for the first time. That final third of the film is incredible.

Along the lines of Peeping Tom, Hitchcock’s Frenzy also had some good screaming as I recall…by Anna Massey perhaps?

By: RHS

RHS — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 13:53:28 +0000

Barbara Stanwyck always had, to my mind, one of the most strangled screams in movie history… almost mannish in its gutteral quality. I’m thinking more of her BIG VALLEY screaming (wasn’t she trapped in a mine in one episode) than THE NIGHT WALKER, which I need to see again.

By: Perry Martin

Perry Martin — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 01:06:59 +0000

Great choices! Reading them inspired me to free associate on the same subject to see what came to my mind — and the first example that bubbled up from my unconscious is Barbara Stanwyck from THE NIGHT WALKER. She screams her head off during that movie — and every one raises the hairs on the back of my neck.

By: brent

brent — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 23:05:28 +0000

How about Una O’Connor in BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN when she first sees “it”‘ alive? She starts out in a throaty croak, then sloooowly raises the timbre until it finally becomes a full fledged shriek. It lasts FOREVER, and next to Fay Wray’s, makes my favourite movie scream of all time.