Watch The Night God Screamed For Free

Wonderful character development!

The Worst Film Ever

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

*****SPOILERS***** At first we see this Charles "Sweet Charie" Manson type hippie leader calling himself Billy Joe Harlen who's using his drug crazed and brain damaged followers to do in this peaceful God fearing couple Fanny & Willis Pierce. It's Billy Joe who feels that in the Pierce's ministry of love and peace that their a serious threat to his power in taking his mind numbed customers or followers away from him. Breaking into the Pierce's church in the dead of night Billy Joe and his gang beat Willis into a bloody pulp and crucify him on the church's crucifix until he bled to death. Arrested and sentenced to death together with two of his followers who participated in Willis's murder Billy Joe puts a curse or hex on Fanny, an eye whiteness to this horrible crime, for her testimony being what convicted him for her husband's murder.It's now three years later with Fanny not fully recovered from her ordeal that what seems like Billy Joe's followers are now back in action to make Fanny pay for having him and his loyal followers as well as co-murderers put behind bars for life. It all started when Fanny was asked to babysit from the Coogans and what seemed like the Coogan house was put under siege by a gang of faceless psychos out to kill everyone, including Fanny, in it. With Fanny going out of her already unstable mind the final shoe to drop is when the what seemed like the "Angle of Death", dressed in all brown carrying a king size wooden cross, broke into the house determined to kill her and the entire Coogan family.***SPOILERS*** We have at the end a surprise ending to all this that has to do with the reason that Fanny was driven insane and to the point of self destruction. But the plan to drive her nuts went a little bit too far with her ending up dropping dead, as she fell down a flight of stairs, of sheer fright! As those responsible for Fanny's death then try to concoct an alibi in not having anything to do with it they get a mysterious phone call from the person who's really behind all this horror, whom they thought was one of them, saying that they'll be his next victims!

Not a bad little shocker. In fact, it's better (and much more original) than a good number of inexplicably more-famous '80s slashers and probably would have a better reputation amongst genre fans if it weren't so obscure. The version I saw released by the Canadian label Marquis Video (it was also released on VHS by Guild Home Video in the UK and Trans-World in the US) is very dark and scratchy, which only adds to the authentic, gritty and creepy feel of the film. It would still be nice to see a company clean this one up and release it to DVD sometime in the near future but it's hard to tell if that's actually going to happen or not. SCREAMED is home to quite a few tried-and-true genre conventions. The first half deals mostly with religious fanaticism, a backwoods hippie cult (then-popular because of the Manson murders) and psychological torment, while the second half turns into more of a home invasion thriller/slasher flick with some telephone terror thrown in. However, the film manages to pull it all off fairly well and even throws in a few genuine surprises along the way.After drowning a girl during a forced baptism, cult leader Billy Joe (Michael Sugich) and his motorcycle-riding Jesus Freak followers break into a church and crucify preacher Willis Pierce (Alex Nicol) when he won't give up the donation box without a fight. Willis' reserved wife Fanny (Jeanne Crain) witnesses the brutal murder from a hiding spot and later testifies to convict Billy Joe and put him on death row. Billy Joe promises he'll get revenge before being taken away and as Fanny leaves the court house, she's given an evil stare-down by some of the other followers. From then on out Fanny becomes increasingly more paranoid and emotionally fragile. She starts hearing the echoing threats of cultists in her mind and believes she's being followed. The judge from the trial asks Fanny if she'll babysit his four "teenage" children; Peter (Dan Spelling), Nancy (Barbara Hancock), Sharon (Dawn Cleary) and Jimmy (Gary Morgan), for the weekend while he and wife go on vacation. Fanny reluctantly agrees and arrives at the secluded country home only to find her charges harboring hostility toward her because the parents insist they all stay home for the entire weekend.At nightfall, Fanny starts receiving heavy-breathing phone calls, which soon turn into threatening ones as the voice on the other line utters some very familiar sayings; the same ones she heard from Billy Joe at the trial. Not long after, a dummy is left in the yard with a death threat attached, the kids start seeing glimpses of hooded people sneaking around outside from the window, the phone goes out and the power goes on and off. It seems that the surviving cult members have followed Fanny to the home and are now going to get the revenge. Even worse, some of the cultists have managed to sneak inside the home and start murdering the kids one by one... Everything leads up to a twist ending that I personally didn't see coming at all.Not a particularly violent film, this relies more on suspense, twists and exploiting hard-to-see or barely-glimpsed images in the pitch dark to achieve it's horror. It also benefits a LOT from a quality lead actress in the main role. Jeanne Crain (an Oscar nominee in 1950) does a very good job and helps to offset some of the weaker performances from the lesser-known actors/actresses in the cast. Apparently this title rubbed some people the wrong way, so the film had to be retitled simply SCREAM to play in more conservative areas. Check it out if you can find it!

This unimaginably obscure gem of horror perfectly epitomizes why I, and surely many regular members of this website with me, absolutely worship the 70's decade! "The Night God Screamed" is genuinely creepy without there being much of a budget for make-up effects, the concept is very original and I even daresay unique, the tone throughout the whole film is devastating and grim, the acting performances are far better than they have any right to be and – even though it didn't even need one – the script provides a very clever and almost unpredictable twist near the end. Quite a number of 70's horror movies revolved on satanic cults and devil worshiping ("Enter the Devil", "The Devil's Rain", "Race with the Devil"…), but this film centers, or at least partially centers, on the members of a fanatic Catholic movement and I assure you these Jesus freaks are equally uncanny as Satanists; if not uncannier. Billy Joe, a self-acclaimed prophet oddly resembling Jesus Christ himself, and his herd of brainwashed disciples crucify a preacher before the eyes of his poor and defenseless wife Fanny. The woman testifies in court and the culprits are sentenced to death, but naturally not before Billy Joe swears he'll avenge himself. A certain time later, Fanny becomes stalked and terrorized by religious maniacs, not coincidentally whilst she's babysitting the (adolescent) kids of the judge that sentenced the verdict. In case of movies like "The Night God Screamed", the lack of budget is actually the biggest trump. Director Lee Madden obviously searched for different ways to create suspense and an atmosphere of disturbance, other than the usual visual shocks effects and grisly murders, and he definitely succeeded! The remote rural settings are sublime, the music is chilling and all the characters are terrifically cast. Jeanne Crain is excellent as the dame in distress and especially the Jesus freak dude is supremely eerie. But, undeniably, the biggest triumph here remains the simple yet effective story. "The Night God Screamed" doesn't rely on zombies, vampires or supernatural phenomena. The menace here comes from seemingly normal human beings, with their unpredictable moves and dark twisty minds. It's a truly great film, and I know it's difficult to track down, but luckily enough the people looking for this type of cinematic gold are very persistent.

There are certain films that are really well written and very scary, but they are totally unlucky. I recall "Let's scare Jessica to death", which is a very very creepy movie, and you just hope this tension would end, at mean time you hope it would never end. Nobody talks about "Let's scare Jessica to death", and you can't find a DVD or data about it, or even watch it on TV. The same is applicable to "The night God scream", which is a very well written movie, that captures the real essence of horror. There are no zombies or special effects. No bowels or beheading and certainly no rotten corpses, but it's a hell of a movie that makes your blood freeze. You breathe with difficulty and you sit at the edge of the chair. Nobody really understands what the real horror is.. What you see in "Saw", "Van helsing" and "Scream" is just gore. I am not amazed that there was only one comment about such a great movie, because it was born unlucky like "Let's scare Jessica...". If you are not into gore and rotten corpses, and you think that apprehension is the real essence of horror, then do yourself a favor and go find this movie.