Wonderful character development!

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

SCREAMPLAY is a very low budgeted, black and white comedy horror film about a horror writer called Edgar Allan (go figure) who finds, to his horror, that his fictional creations are coming very much to life. It's a film with a cult, old dark house-ish feel to it, similar to SPIDER BABY but nowhere near as good. In fact, I found it quite tiresome for the most part; it goes on and on, trying to be so quirky and so funny, and simply isn't. There are some engaging slapstick-infused moments and a lot of weirdness, but overall it's simply not that interesting.

Sort of a "Sunset Boulevard" plot meets "Cabinet and Dr. Caligari". It works best with the stiff silent-film or expressionist acting, and the reusing of old-time "special effects" (such as scratches on the film to represent rain, or peculiar use of rear-screen projection to suggest depth). Gets a little slow in the middle but it's worth it to the hear the LAST LINE for the worlds worst/best pun, which sort of suggests the whole film was designed just for that. We gave it a standing ovation at the Brattle in Harvard square (the filmmaker lived in Brookline). This film was released on video by TROMA in 1999, but thank god is not like a Troma film.

This film reminded me a lot of THUNDERCRACK which was also shot in black & white with overly melodramatic acting and also with filmmaker George Kuchar in an acting role. The grainy black and white photography, primitive double exposure effects and harsh lighting bring to mind old silent movies (some old movies like NOSFERATU are edited into the movie). It's basically a twisted and slightly nightmarish look at a screenwriter whose scripted murders happen in real life. The director plays the lead role like Dwight Frye on speed. Definitely recommended to fans of strange and unusual experimental cinema.

I first saw this film on late night cable. I was channel surfing when I was confounded with the Troma logo of the city skyline that most cult movie fans know and love, eminently my brain triggered that it was going to be an hour and a half of mutant junkies with D cup breasts fighting giant penis monsters. But when the 1930's style opening credits come up (in black and white!!!), I was in for a rude awakening: this Maltese Falcon meets Eraser Head had me glued to the set form start to finish (which is pretty good considering it was 3am). It's a complete send up of the short series of the 30's and 40's complete grainy picture and the actors over acting (in a ROCKY HORROR sort of way not a Troma sort of way), with their voices booming out like it was recorded on a old style microphone. Sure there's a bit of gore but not to the heights that Troma is famous for. I was surprised (as well as sadden) when Troma didn't release this film with their 'RE-MASTERED' series, as most of this film is fading from memory (I saw the film over two years ago and haven't found a copy of it on video since!). Maybe it's too 'artsy' for Troma standards or not enough T & A - in fact NONE AT ALL!!! Or maybe the Penis Monster had a bit part I missed when I blinked.