Hammer House of Horror: The Silent Scream (1980)
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
Chuck Spillers (Brian Cox) gets out of prison and decides to visit Martin Blueck (Peter Cushing) the kind old man who visited him while he was on the inside. Martin offers Chuck a job, which at first sounds great to him and his wife (Elaine Donnelly) but soon they realize other motives. You see, Martin runs a pet store with wild animals who he is training to not need cages. Soon Martin plans to try his experiments on humans.
THE SILENT SCREAM was only the second film I watched from Hammer's series and I must admit that I thought it was extremely good and so good in fact that it probably could have been turned into a feature film with great success. The film is quite a clever little gem and especially once you learn a secret about the Cushing character and there are several twists that happen throughout the running time that kept me off guard and glued to the set as to what was going to happen.
The story itself is very good and as I said each twist will have glued to what is going to happen next but it certainly doesn't hurt that we've got such great performances with Cushing leading the way. The actor was simply perfect in his role and really managed to make you believe that he was this sweet old man and even after he takes the convict hostage you still like him. Once that twist happens your feelings towards him changes but he plays that side perfectly as well. Both Cox and Donnelly are also very good in their roles.
THE SILENT SCREAM is the perfect mixture of drama and horror. Certainly a must see for fans of the studio.