It’s probably normal to spend the majority of Scream and Scream Again wondering if
Gordon Hessler and his crew committed a botch-job of massive proportions or
made a conscious stab at abstract art. Hessler’s track record doesn’t make
figuring this out any easier since he directed his share of good pictures (The Golden Voyage of Sinbad) and exploitative trash heaps (Cry of the Banshee). Scream and Scream Again falls somewhere
in between those poles, and in this case, it’s probably wisest just to go with
the flow and take in its sundry oddities without thinking about any of it too
deeply. Half the picture is a political thriller in which a member of
some sort of Nazi-esque military organization keeps pinching people to death.
The other half finds a bloodsucking serial murderer/rapist terrorizing a London
nightspot called The Busted Pot. Why any swinging hippie would attend a joint
with a name like that is anyone’s guess. It’s like naming a brothel “The Crab
Trap.” Oops! Sorry. I promise not to think so much anymore.
