"The hand crawls... the hand threatens... the hand LIVES!!” The next thing you’ll tell us is the hand has blood on its hands. Wait. Does that sound right? Join your faithful Grue Crew - Doc Rotten, Chad Hunt, Bill Mulligan, and Jeff Mohr - as they wander through the crawling-hand world of And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973).
Decades of Horror 1970s
Episode 123 – And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973)
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England, 1795: the young Catherine has just married Charles Fengriffen and moves into his castle. She becomes the victim of an old curse that lays on the family. On her wedding night, she is raped by a ghost and gets pregnant.
IMDb
Director: Roy Ward Baker Writers: Roger Marshall (based on Ferngriffen, the 1970 novella by David Case) Selected Cast: Peter Cushing as Dr. Pope Herbert Lom as Sir Henry Fengriffin Patrick Magee as Dr. Whittle Stephanie Beacham as Catherine Fengriffin Ian Ogilvy as Charles Fengriffin Geoffrey Whitehead as Woodsman / Silas Guy Rolfe as Lawyer Maitland Rosalie Crutchley as Mrs Luke Gillian Lind as Aunt Edith Janet Key as Bridget Sally Harrison as Sarah
Despite the immortal cricket living in Jeff’s basement, chirping along throughout the episode, the 1970s Grue-Crew have fun with the Amicus Production of And Now the Screaming Starts! Bill loves the cast, especially Ian Ogilvy and Stephanie Beacham, and bemoans the late entry of Peter Cushing and the even later entry of Herbert Lom. Despite the disembodied crawling hand showing up in the first ten minutes, Chad made it all the way through the film and like Bill, thinks it’s an “okay” film. Jeff kind of likes this film; despite its inconsistencies, he does get some frights. Of course, Doc always appreciates a Peter Cushing film and swears he forgot it was a “hand” film.
Your Decades of Horror 1970s Grue-Crew thinks this is worth the watch for the cast if for nothing else. At this writing, And Now the Screaming Starts! Is available to stream on Amazon and on Blu-ray disc from Severin. (Jeff is ordering the Blu-ray.)
Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror 1970s is part of the Decades of Horror two-week rotation with The Classic Era and the 1980s. In two weeks, the next episode in their very flexible schedule will be the infamous Equinox (1970).
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