Scream of Fear

A wheelchair-bound woman (Susan Strasberg) doubts her sanity after repeatedly seeing her absent father’s corpse around his French Riviera home.

Taste of Fear (Scream of Fear in the US) is an oft-overlooked gem in the Hammer library.

Jimmy Sangster’s script is a mix of suspense, mystery, horror and film noir that blends well. Further, Sangster anticipates cynical audiences by having his characters quickly acknowledge the cliché plot-points, thus giving the story an air of freshness. Sure, there are some holes, but they’re reasonably easy to overlook, and Sangster more than makes up for them by delivering a knockout third act.

Director Seth Holt makes the most of his limited budget, and avoids the stagy feel that permeated so many Hammer productions by setting a good number of scenes outdoors. Additionally he coaxes a great performance out of Susan Strasberg and wisely regulates Christopher Lee’s ridiculous French accent to the background.

Taste of Fear’s only flaw is its pacing. The script spends a lot of its first act building atmosphere when it should be moving the story along, and as a result, the audience gets ahead of the characters regarding some plot points. It’s not until midway through the second act, when the characters finally catch up with — and overtake — the audience, that the movie really takes off, but once it does it doesn’t disappoint.