And Now the Screaming Starts!

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Roy Ward Baker directs. Denys N. Coop behind the camera. Douglas Gamley scores. Peter Tanner cuts. Runs lean at under 100 minutes. Produced in United Kingdom. Dialogue in English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

• 153 years old — a genuine piece of film history.
• 2Directed by Roy Ward Baker, shot by Denys N. Coop. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
• 3Original score by Douglas Gamley. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
• 4Editor Peter Tanner shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
• 5Stephanie Beacham and Peter Cushing and Patrick Magee carry the top of the cast.
• 6Marketing tagline: "The hand that crawls, kills, and lives!".
• 7IMDB entry: tt0069715 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
• 8Only 72 TMDB ratings — you're getting ahead of the curve on this one.
• 9Classified under 8 themes, including "rape", "supernatural", "haunted house", "possession".

The technical file

Cinematography

Denys N. Coop

Original score

Douglas Gamley

Editing

Peter Tanner

Makeup / hair

Paul Rabiger

Runtime

91 min · 1h 31m

Aspect ratio (typical)

1.37:1 (Academy)

Status

Released

Original language

EN

Certification (US)

R

IMDB

And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973) ↗

Rotten Tomatoes

40% 🥫 Rotten

IMDB rating

5.9/10 · 3,669 votes

MPAA

R

Also by

Roy Ward Baker

• 
  The Valiant

  1962 · ★ 8.3
• 
  The Human Jungle

  1963 · ★ 8.2
• 
  Danger UXB

  1979 · ★ 8.0
• 
  The Avengers

  1961 · ★ 7.8
• 
  Jason King

  1971 · ★ 7.8
• 
  A Night to Remember

  1958 · ★ 7.7

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

Full-resolution frames — open one to save it as a wallpaper.

Wallpaper

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

• 

  ▶
  And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973) ORIGINAL TRAILER [HD 1080p]

  Trailer

Community reviews

What people are saying

• Wuchak2020-03-27
  ★ 5/10

  Bad first half, good second half Catherine (Stephanie Beacham) moves to the Fengriffen manor in rural England, 1795, to marry her fiancé Charles (Ian Ogilvy) where she’s immediately fascinated by a portrait of his dead father, Henry (Herbert Lom), as well as harassed by spectral images, including that of a severed hand. Does the loner woodsman (Geoffrey Whitehead) hold the key to why the estate is cursed? Peter Cushing dominates the second half as a doctor of the mind. Amicus’ “And Now the Screaming Starts!” (1973) has a typical plot for British horror of that era, but it lacks finesse in execution, like the curious overuse of the quick zoom on Henry's portrait to suggest a sense of foreboding and the cheesy severed hand that rears its fingers too early. Catherine’s hysterics don’t help. Thankfully, the second half gets compelling with the arrival of Dr. Pope (Cushing) and an interesting flashback to 1745 that explains the weird goings-on. Of course Stephanie was one of the most beautiful women to walk the earth. So this is a tale of two halves: The first half veers toward “What were they thinking?” bad while the second half is quite good. The film runs 1 hour and 31 minutes and was shot at Shepperton Studios, Middlesex, England, with the exteriors of Fengriffen Castle done in Windsor, Berkshire. GRADE: C

  Read full review ↓
• CinemaSerf2022-04-04
  ★ 5/10

  Roy Ward Baker has assembled quite a decent cast for this rather daft horror film. Stephanie Beacham is "Catherine" who is to marry the squire of "Fengriffen" (Ian Ogilvy) and so moves into his manor house. Her wedding night certainly doesn't go to plan, though - she discovers that there are ghosts and they are out to enforce a curse put upon the family many years ago. Can they sort out this scourge before it drives her mad or worse, takes her life? This really picks up after about 50 minutes when Peter Cushing ("Dr. Pope") comes onto the scene to help them get to the bottom of it, but otherwise it's all just a rather predictable, cheap and cheerful, horror with lots of squeaking violins to compensate for some mediocre dialogue and acting. The few scenes with Herbert Lom liven it up a bit, and there is fun to be had with the wandering hand, but for the most part it is just really well titled - lots of screaming,

  Read full review ↓

Production companies

Who made it

• AM

  Amicus Productions

  GB

Key crew

• NovelDavid Case
• Camera OperatorJohn Harris
• Assistant DirectorDerek Whitehurst
• Second Assistant DirectorLindsey C. Vickers
• Production ManagerTeresa Bolland
• ProducerMax Rosenberg
• Art DirectionTony Curtis
• ContinuityBetty Harley
• ProducerMilton Subotsky
• CastingRonnie Curtis
• EditorPeter Tanner
• Makeup ArtistPaul Rabiger
• Executive ProducerGustave M. Berne
• Focus PullerDavid Wynn-Jones

Themes & keywords

What it's about, really

• rape
• supernatural
• haunted house
• possession
• curse
• old house
• ghost
• severed hand

Release history · US

When it landed

• Theatrical1973-04-27R

Also known as

International titles

• Το Κομμένο Χέρι του ΒρυκόλακαGR
• ΚραυγήGR
• And Now the Screaming Starts!US
• And Now the Screaming StartsNL
• La maledizioneIT
• スクリーミング／夜歩く手首JP