Film Snail

The Screaming Woman
The Screaming Woman

6.6

The Screaming Woman

NR·1972·74m

Summary

A wealthy former mental patient goes home to her estate to rest and recuperate. While walking the grounds one day she hears the screams of a woman coming from underneath the ground. Her family, however, refuses to believe her story, and sees the incident as an opportunity to prove the woman's mind has snapped so they can take control of her money.

Crew

Director

Jack Smight

Short Story

Ray Bradbury

Writer

Merwin Gerard

Reviews

Wuchak

Wuchak

August 20, 2022

5

**_Is the aged rich woman crazy or not?_**

The owner of a large estate near Santa Barbara in SoCal has returned from a mental health facility (Olivia de Havilland). When she hears the sounds of a desperate woman on her grounds no one believes her and those who lust for lucre want her declared incompetent. Charles Robinson plays her son and Laraine Stephens his witchy alcoholic wife. Meanwhile Ed Nelson is on hand as a shady neighbor. Joseph Cotton and Walter Pidgeon show up for bit parts.

"The Screaming Woman" debuted as a movie-of-the-week in January, 1972. I’m a fan of 70’s TV flicks as many of them are quite good and some even great, like "Tribes,” “Duel,” “Gargoyles,” “Home for the Holidays,” “Go Ask Alice,” “Scream of the Wolf,” “Winter Kill,” “Pray for the Wildcats,” Satan’s Triangle,” “Trilogy of Terror,” “Summer of Fear” and many more.

This is cut from the same low-budget cloth, but I found it kinda underwhelming, albeit still enjoyable. It effectively balances two plots, that of the wealthy woman of questionable mental state staving off greedy relatives and that of a compromised husband. One memorable scene was later borrowed for the theatrical “Carrie” (1976).

Blonde Alexandra Hay is notable on the female front in a small part.

The movie is short-and-sweet at 1 hour, 13 minutes, and was shot at Bliss Estate, Montecito, California, which is just east of Santa Barbara, near the coast, about an hour’s drive west of Malibu; other scenes were filmed in Pasadena and Universal Studios.

GRADE: C+

Media

No Videos to show.

Status:

Released

Original Language:

English

Budget:

$0.00

Revenue:

$0.00

Keywords

buried alive
inheritance
nervous breakdown
mental illness
madness
nobody believes
hagsploitation