Thriller (TV Series) Screamer (1974) User Reviews

A very sinister episode opens the fourth series.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 7/10 · 17 May 2018]

Screamer is a hard hitting, almost bleak episode which opens Series Four. Rape is never an easy subject to deal with, and here I guess the episode is an episode very much of its time, thankfully attitudes are very different nowadays.

It's very dark, a tale of rape and revenge, it's lacking any kind of subtlety, Series Three was superb, every episode had a mystery, but a level of intrigue and mystery, this has none of that, it's almost brash in its delivery.

Pamela Franklin is excellent throughout as Nicola, Jim Norton is hugely sinister as The Man, I also really liked Frances White, who sports her wonderful Cadfael haircut.

It's good, very well made. 7/10

Vengeance Is Mine Inc.

[analoguebubblebath · 8/10 · 10 September 2005]

'Screamer' opened Thriller's fourth series in January 1975 and is a particularly tense tale of rape and revenge - a topic which was quite common in movies of the era - Last House On The Left, I Spit On Your Grave, Ms.45 to name just three.

Pamela Franklin (who also starred in 1970 chiller And Soon The Darkness - adapted from a Brian Clemens screenplay) is Nicola Stevens, an American girl en route to stay with her friends Virna and Jeff Holt. On the train she learns about a rapist loose in the area ['he's got blonde hair'] and is warned to be on her guard. Shortly before her stop a blonde man (Jim Norton - familiar as Father Ted's Bishop Brennan) gets into her carriage and unnerves her. She alights from the train, makes her way to the Holts house and is followed by the man. The next scene shows the Holts returning only to discover Nicola battered and bruised - a victim of rape.

Recovery is slow and painful and to convalesce she decides to stay with the Holts - who are sympathetically played by Donal McCann (giving Screamer its second Irish actor) and Frances White respectively. However she keeps seeing her attacker in every man and is driven to formulate her own plans for revenge....

The action unfolds in a taut fashion and the ending is neatly wrapped up.

Recommended.

Complex Episode Needs a Couple of Viewings!!!

[kidboots · 8/10 · 14 January 2012]

Pamela Franklin made a couple of "Thriller" appearances and she was always very welcome. From her very first screen appearance as one of the possessed children in "The Innocents" she always seemed right at home in creepy, psychological, even supernatural surroundings. She had appeared with Bette Davis in the very disturbing "The Nanny", had starred as one of the psychics in the frightening "The Legend of Hell House" and had played the part of the increasingly frightened girl off on a cycling holiday around France in Brian Clemen's "..And Soon the Darkness". "Screamer" is up there on the middle rung of "Thriller", not quite the best, just middling.

Franklin plays Nicola, (an American, why I don't know, the accent seems to disappear about half way through), who is going to stay with friends, the Holts (Frances White and Donal McCann - who I remembered as Phineas Finn from "The Pallisers"). On the train a woman warns her about a local strangler who is said to have short, blonde hair and when an unassuming young man (with short, blonde hair) enters the carriage, that is all Nicola needs to plunge her into a nightmare. Of course when she gets off the train the expected lift isn't there and she has to walk to the house (through dense bushes and at 11 o'clock at night) alone - followed by the young man!! The next morning when the Holts return home, they find their house ransacked, blood on the walls and Nicola hysterical.

Nicola is determined to destroy the strange man, whose face she sees everywhere, and when half way through the episode a similar looking man is apprehended (he tries to fondle an undercover policewoman) it doesn't seem to make any difference to Nicola's nightmare visions. Driving by a farm she thinks she sees "the man" sorting eggs so she drives at him and leaves the car egg spattered and the man with serious injuries. The next day the same man with a pronounced limp comes to the door!!

There are a few odd things - it is obvious Nicola is very disturbed and the doctors at the hospital are not keen to discharge her, then why are Jeff and Virna so keen for her to come home and why does Jeff blithely give her the keys to the car without another thought when she has already had a screaming session while the three of them were out for a drive earlier that day. This episode really needs to have a couple of viewings, even then it is sometimes confusing.

Well done made for TV thriller.

[chad478 · 9 June 2001]

En route to visit some friends in rural England, an American embassy worker suffers a vicious attack that leaves her unstable and desperate for revenge. When she learns that her attacker may still be on the loose, the young woman seeks her own brand of justice that could prove fatal to several innocent parties. This Brian Clemens-scripted made for television thriller has some genuine suspense and a convincing performance by Pamela Franklin as the disturbed heroine.

Good Episode But The Dated Aspect Towards Rape Is Somewhat Disturbing

[Theo Robertson · 7/10 · 12 September 2013]

Nicola Stevens a young American working at her country's embassy is invited to stay the weekend at her friends Jeff and Virna . When Nicola alights from the train the station master tells her that her friends are delayed and to let herself in to their house since the key is under the mat . Nicola becomes aware that a man is following her . After arriving at the house , the man breaks in and rapes her . Weeks later after eventually recovering she is out with Jeff and Virna she spots the rapist

Sorry to have to repeat myself but when these were broadcast on ABC in America ITC the distributors used specially shot title sequences and this one contains a rather objectionable one where a young woman in a bathing suit swims in a pool . A man crouches in the nearby bushes then chases her as she leaves the pool and the chase culminates in a rape . Try and think of a more sadistic version of one of those Benny Hill chases and you've got a rough idea . In fact the rather dated attitude and rabidly un-PC attitude to rape is very startling . When Nicola is on a train with an elderly woman and the woman mentions there's a serial rapist on the loose the elderly lady suggests it'd be a back handed compliment if someone raped her . If someone made the same comment in a TV show nowadays the show would most likely be cancelled there and then and it's nice to know we live in more enlightned times

This attitude does spoil the episode to a large extent because it does make for a interesting psychological thriller where things aren't what they seem . I constantly found myself questioning the likelihood of Nicola's rapist constantly turning up everywhere but there's a very good reason for this that goes beyond an unreliable narrator type of storytelling and there's an element of contrivance where a character has to spell out everything at the end but for the most part the story is fairly engaging , though as I said you have to ignore the rather uneasy feeling attitude towards rape

As a footnote the videotaped look of the episode has been modified so it appears closer to 35mm film . I've no idea how the process is achieved but it's not entirely convincing but it does give a slightly more glossy cinematic look to the studio interiors and the cheap VT look does tend to let the episodes down with this show

Rehash is a good word for this one.

[Wirefan122 · 3/10 · 19 June 2019]

One reviewer noted that this is basically a rehash of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "Revenge." It is but without any sort of suspense.

This also is like most (certainly not the previous 2 episodes) Thriller episodes in which you think it is about 20-30 minutes too long. Just a tad bit painful to sit through while you wait for the inevitable last minute 'twist'. Not a very good one at that in my opinion. Almost seems dumbed down but I don't know why a lot of these episodes are like that!

Decent rehash

[brettster · 28 December 2009]

Pamela Franklin is stunning and commanding in virtually anything she appears in, and she's the best reason to tune in to this installment of the Brian Clemens series. Unfortunately, fans of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" will note more than a passing resemblance to that series' early episode "Revenge," which lifts its twist wholesale and without apology. Like most of the hour-long suspense anthology shows, from the 60-minute "Twilight Zone" format to "One Step Beyond," this episode of "Thriller" has the feel of being 15-30 minutes too long. Even with the padding, though, Franklin makes it worth tuning in for. I'd watch her read from the phone book!

A beautiful young girl on her way to visit some friends suffers a brutal attack. This unfortunate event has left the girl traumatized and pretty soon all she can think about is revenge.

[verna55 · 25 September 2000]

This videotaped TV thriller was really well made, even though it was obviously done on a small budget. British actress Pamela Franklin(THE INNOCENTS, THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE) is genuinely affecting as the unstable heroine, and she is backed by a solid supporting cast. This British television production aired here in America as a segment of ABC's "Saturday night at the movies" in the '70's.