Monster Crap Inductee: From A Whisper To A Scream (1987)

Monster Crap Nominee: From A Whisper To A Scream

Welcome To Moldfield

1987

After dealing with several crap films forced upon me from Fantasy Football winner Gus Richlen, it is finally time for me to do something different and this definitely is something different as we get to talk about horror anthologies. It’s such an easy idea where there are several stories that cannot be their own film, but are great as shorts combined with either a frame story or something else making the stories work together. Classics include Creepshow, Trick R’ Treat, Trilogy of Terror, Tales From The Crypt (70s movie), and Tales From The Darkside: The Movie. It is a genre that I really like and normally I don’t find bad versions (but if I do, I will hate it). Just to be clear here, this is not one of those really bad films.

So how did we get this film. Well, we have 5 former film students come together and decide that they want to make horror stories based around a old southern town that may be cursed with one being the director despite the fact that he had very little experience with making a Hollywood film. In fact, he made a civil war film called Divided We Fall so this was easily his first horror movie. Of course I’m talking about Jeff Burr Then they got many of the actors the old tried and true way of Hollywood, by knowing a friend who is an actor and convincing them to be in this film.

The names they got are plenty of cult and horror stars for this anthology at the time. Names like Clu Gulager (former western actor who is known to horror fans for being in Return Of The Living Dead, while also being Jeff Burr’s former acting coach), Rosalind Cash (who was known for films like Klute, The Omega Man, and The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai), Cameron Mitchell (who was in a bunch of films like Blood & Black Lace, Nightmare In The Wax, The Toolbox Murders (the original one), The Island of the Fishmen, Without Warning, Frankenstein Island, and even has been in an anthology film that is the awesomely bad Night Train To Terror)

Although Not Intentionally As Night Train To Terror Was A Bunch Of Unfinished Films Parts Put Together With God & Satan Deciding On Souls All The While On A Doomed Train That Is Transporting One Of The Most Laughably Bad Bands In A Movie.

Susan Tyrrell (who was in Wizards; Forbidden Zone; Fire & Ice; Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker; Angel; and has also been in an anthology film with the terrible Coming Attractions (aka Loose Shoes)),

It Takes Real Talent To Be Terrible To Make A Comedy Film With Bill Murray In It Be Not Funny Whatsoever

And midget actor Angelo Rossitto. Don’t know who he is? You ever seen Freaks?

Yep….He is the guy on the table pouring the wine as they do this chant. If you haven’t seen Freaks, I think you probably should watch that film as it is definitely a scary film where despite being called exploitive and ending Todd Browning (the director of Dracula)’s career, you will see that the freaks aren’t the evil ones.

He Was Also The Midget Half Of The Fighter Known As Master Blaster

We also have actor Terry Kiser who while at the time had not been known to horror and cult audiences yet, would more than make up for it afterwards by being in films like Weekend At Bernie’s and Tammy & The T-Rex.

I Even Met Terry Kiser And Got His Autograph

But the biggest name they got for this film is Vincent Price. They got him by coming to his house with wine (knowing Vince is a wine connoisseur) and being nice to him. Vincent Price of course is well known to horror fans for films like The Fly (original), Return of The Fly, The Tingler, The Raven, Pit & The Pendulum, The Abominable Dr. Phibes (and its sequel), House Of Usher, Masque Of The Red Death, House On Haunted Hill, The Last Man On Earth, and so many others that if I keep naming them all, it would take forever. Vincent Price was also no stranger to anthologies like The Monster Club, Twice Told Tales, and Tales Of Terror.

Vincent Price Would Probably Also Want Me To Know That He Really Likes Dogs And Has A Great Book About His Favorite Dog He Ever Had Called The Book Of Joe: About A Dog And His Man

I Know How You Feel, Vincent. I Love My Dog Maili Too.

Of course, there are people who were also in films that have been inducted into Monster Crap. Of course you know Terry Kiser was in Friday The 13^th VII: The New Blood,

You also know that Cameron Mitchell was in one of my early inductions in Space Mutiny

Will Huston (though uncredited in this film) would later be hanging with Kane Hodder as his brother in Pumpkinhead 2: Blood Wings.

Gene Whitham was Harry in Grizzly, David Del Valle was also in an uncredited role in Chopping Mall, and heck, even the director of this film Jeff Burr would go on to direct a Monster Crap film.

Yeah, He Directed That Film

With all that out of the way, let’s get to this movie.

We begin with…

Opening Title Card Drop With Heart Beating As They Reveal The Cast

The glass breaks on that title card as we begin with a woman coming out of a bathroom in a towel.

This woman puts on a wedding dress and the door opens with a man showing up in a suit.

Don’t You Know It’s Bad Luck To See Your Wife In The Wedding Dress Before You Two Get Married?

They dance with the guy grabbing her arm. We then see this was all a dream as that same woman is now at a place of execution as she is going to be executed for his murder via lethal injection.

And This Is Where We Have Our First Problem As Between 1960 To 2007,  No One In Tennessee Was Executed And It Wasn’t Until 2000 That They Changed The Execution Method To Lethal Injection. The Method Of Lethal Injection In 1987 (The Time Of This Film) Would Have Been The Good Ole Electric Chair.

Oh Yeah, And A Character We Will Learn More About Beth Chandler Is There As Well

The woman is executed and we find out she was Catherine White, who is the niece of Julian White, who Beth decides to deliver the news of her niece’s execution.

Just So You Know Where Oldfield Is

And we finally meet Julian White.

Basically we find out that Catherine committed her first murder at age 7 and doesn’t stop until she is 32. Julian basically shrugs off the execution as just something that happens in this town and more evil will happen in this town of Oldfield as well since he says that town is cursed with evil. We then go into the story of Stanley Burnside which is the first story in this anthology and the first thing we see is Stanley with a dead body he calls Grace, saying he should have bought her flowers.

He then starts performing oral sex as the corpse starts coming alive with a smile.

But thankfully this is a nightmare that Stanley screams awake from.

He then screams when he sees someone covered in a yellow sheet next to him.

It Is The Body Again And It Makes Him Give Her Breasts A Good Motorboating

Thankfully, this was another dream and he is completely awake. We then go to a barbecue.

He seems to have his eye on the lady in the blue dress named Grace.

Stanley gets so distracted that his burgers are burning. A guy comes over and sees that he is looking at Grace. He also has the hots for her and he gets a beer before going over to try his luck. We then go back to night at Stanley’s place as he is giving his sister Eileen an ice bath.

If You Find Any Of The So-Called Brother-Sister Dynamic Here Creepy, It May Help To Know That The Actress Playing Eileen Here Is Clu’s Actual Wife.

Eileen here is very week and has had high body heat ever since she had Rheumatic Fever, which is really not well and she is of course very co-dependent on her brother to take care of her. But anytime someone wants to talk to Eileen, he lies and says she is out and then lies to her by saying it was a wrong number so both seem to be in this strange phase of living together.

We then go to the packing plant that Stanley works at and he is given a company pay for the delivery. Stanley is very awkward around Grace and it seems she just puts up with it. Grace apparently got a rose from a secret admirer and Stanley tries practicing how he will ask Grace out. Stanley finally gets up the nerve to call Grace and ask her out, while also revealing he was the secret admirer. Originally she isn’t interested, but when she finds out he was the secret admirer, she accepts.

The two of them go out to a restaurant and it is clear from the very beginning that Grace is merely doing this because he sent her the flowers. She is very cold to him and it really makes you wonder why in the hell she even accepted the date. As he talks to her, we get this weird moment of blood coming out of her mouth.

Don’t Even Ask Me Why These Dream (or In This Case, Day Dream) Sequences Happen At This Point Of The Story.

We are of course snapped back to reality and back in the car, Grace basically indicates she has no interest in this relationship continuing any further and wishes they just stayed co-workers. He then forces himself on her and when she rejects him, he strangles her to death.

After seeing what he has done, he sings his song that he wrote for her and cries. He gets her out of his car and leaves her dead body on the side of the road.

The next day, the boss announces the murder of Grace, the co-worker who talked to Stanley at the barbecue finds it a shame as he was about to ask her out. Stanley has obvious wounds on his face and just doesn’t want to say what they are from. It comes night time and Stanley breaks into the funeral home and there, he goes the Katie Vick route.

Then we immediately go to a night where she is already buried.

Seriously, We Have What Looks Like Is About To Be Necrophilia (We Don’t See The Act Itself) And Then We Cut To The Grave Already Being Filled. I Don’t Think Things Go That Fast.

Nine months later, Clu Gulager comes home with ice and Eileen needs an ice bath immediately.

And For Some Reason Went Insane With The Make Up

While bathing her, Stanley decides that he is tired of being with his sister so he just stabs her with the ice pick.

And then he tries to drowns her in the same ice bath.

He thinks that is enough, but it isn’t so he strangles her to death with the straps on her robe.

Stanley then goes to watch cartoons and drink beer while singing the song that he made for Grace. Unbeknownst to him, a hand comes out of Grace’s grave.

If You Are Thinking That Hand Is Too Small To Be Grace’s, You Might Be Onto Something

Stanley hears something and thinks it is Eileen, even Eileen is dead and he should know that. He then hears something break. It is a plate, but there is also some green slime left over.

He Better Be Careful Because Slimer Might Be Nearby

Soon enough, he is bitten in the hand by a creature.

He also gets psychologically tortured as the creature throws his sister’s body down the stairs. Instead of getting out of the house, he goes upstairs where he gets pushed down the stairs. He meets the creature and finds out that…

The Monster Is The Child Conceived By Stanley’s Necrophiliac Rape Of Grace.

The creature calls him “daddy” and attacks Stanley as the last thing we see or hear is Stanley’s screams.

The screen goes red and we transition to a glass of wine that Julian White is drinking.

Vincent Price And His Wine

Beth doesn’t really believe any of this (and why should she) and Julian tells her about the librarian that used to live here being buried here as he used to bring women to this house for romantic interludes and one of those women’s husband found out about this and dealt with the two of them with his axe. Yep….both bodies buried here. He says that some nights that you can hear the lovers scream…..and yet he never called the cops about this or anything.

Beth thinks that is a good story, but it tells her nothing about her niece. Julian says all of this has to do with this cursed town and then goes back even further in time to 30 years ago with a man by the name of Jesse Hardwick. We then go to a trailer park where Jesse being woken up by his girlfriend.

The Girlfriend Is Dressed To Go To The Funeral

The girlfriend then tells Jesse that she is leaving him for good and has revealed Jesse’s location to the McCoy brothers, people that Jesse ripped off.

Jesse makes a run for it, but is ultimately shot.

They leave him to die and Jesse gets on a boat before losing consciousness.

But an oar comes in to take the boat which means he was found by a passer by on a boat. While unconscious, Jesse a bad dream about being on the boat at there being blood and hands coming out of the water to drag him in.

Jesse awakens in a place with an elderly man named Felder Evans.

He introduces himself and when asked if he lives here all alone, Felder says he doesn’t now as he thinks Jesse is going to live with him. Felder also believes in voodoo and prays to the voodoo spirits. Jesse sees him during one of these chants and sees him drinking a liquid of some kind that Felder made. Jesse later asks Felder (while Felder is doing some wood carving to make a duck) how long he has been living out here and Felder doesn’t even remember how long (aka been a long ass time). Felder talks about herds of buffalo and if you stay still, they won’t be disturbed by you so you can carve wood to your hearts content, which Jesse finds strange as there hasn’t been herds of Buffalo in Tennessee in a long ass time.

When Felder goes out to gather some mushrooms, Jesse decides to look around and finds an old scrapbook. It reveals that Felder Evans has lived back in the 1800s and became a freed slave before he disappeared, basically telling that Felder has lived for more than a 100 years and has somehow found a way to not die. When Felder comes back, Jesse demands to know how he has survived so long and wants himself to be able to live for a long time as he sees riches in this formula for eternal life. Felder does the ceremony again, but it doesn’t work to Jesse’s satisfaction so he knocks the old man up, ties him up, and throws him into the water.

Thinking he killed the old man, Jesse ransacks the house trying to find the liquid that has been keeping the old man alive for so long. Suddenly, a mud covered Felder barges him and hits Jesse with an oar, knocking the con man out.

Jesse wakes to find out that the old man has tied him up. Felder then reveals that he had already given Jesse the liquid when he was dying on that boat. Felder is upset that Jesse tried to kill him for something he already had as he pours lamp oil on him. He says he gave Jesse enough formula to make him last 70 years so anything he can do will hurt, but wont kill Jesse. He then chops off Jesse’s arms and legs, then burns him with a torch.

He leaves his head and body (limb-less) in a bag on the streets, where he is found by a car passing by.

Jesse is sent to a hospital where they bandage him up and leave him in a burn ward. The doctor says that despite all the blood loss and stuff, he is somehow still breathing. The doctor doesn’t think the man can hear him and he tells the nurse if there was any mercy, the man will die soon as he is in hell with all this pain. They leave as we see a bandaged up Jesse and the only thing he can do is shed tears since he knows that for 70 years, he will be living in this hell for 70 more years.

Back at the library, Susan is tired of hearing this fiction while Julian keeps telling her it is not fiction. Julian then reveals that his niece actually believed she was on a mission of mercy every time she cut someone’s throat and continues to believe that it is Oldfield that does this to people. He then goes back further and talks about a story of the traveling carnival that comes to town with one person named Amarrillis Caulfield who loved the carnival more than others. We go to that carnival that is called.

Interesting Name

We then see Amarrillis.

We also see the barker by the name of Tinker.

You All Wanna Be One Of Us??!!

He is talking about freak exhibits and there is one exhibit that Amarrillis is definitely interested in and it is the man that eats broken glass and razor blades named Steve Arden.

At the show, he eats broken glass and razor blades as onlookers look on in amazement that this shit doesn’t kill him. After the show, we see that Amarrillis and Steve are in love.

Steve has a poker game to get to and needs Amarrillis to go, but she only does so after he promises to meet her in the graveyard tomorrow. Oh, and of course, this asshole is watching all of this.

At the poker game with several of the freaks, we find out that asshole (whose name is Leonard) is a spy for the owner of the carnival known as the Snakewoman.

She owns more than the carnival as she basically owns each of the carnies’ lives as she has some dirt on them and some magic threats that she can use on them if they ever decide to leave. Steve leaves the game after this altercation and the next night, he meets Amarrillis at the graveyard. Steve tries to dissuade her from loving him, but she can’t and she wants to marry him. They of course have sex in the graveyard, which is no exactly the smartest place to do that in a movie with monsters

Decoys Ring A Bell

Unfortunately for them, some of the sharp stuff Steve has been eating comes out of his fingers, which stops the sex.

Steve tells her to never come near him again if she loves him. Steve comes back to the carnival as the Snakewoman laughs at his pain and reveals she has a statue of him that she can do this awful magic with.

Amarrillis comes back after the Snakewoman leaves again, she tells Steve that she wants him to leave with her. They are then stopped by Leonard, who has a gun.

Bad news for Leonard is Tinker comes up from behind him and stabs him in the side with a sword.

Before he dies, Leonard reveals that he has an eye on his chest so the Snakewoman say everything.

The couple leave as the Snakewoman vows vengeance for the death of Leonard.

At a motel, Amarrillis and Steve make love when all the sharp stuff that Steve has eaten over the years comes back to bite him in the ass. She can only scream in pain as the man she loves is ripped into pieces on the inside by the very stuff he used for his act.

The Snakewoman comes by later to laugh at Amarrillis, who is in bed with the completely torn apart body of Steve.

The next time we go to a carnival. They have a new attraction in the Human Pin Cushion.

Yep…..Amarrillis Is Now One Of Them….One Of Them

We basically cut back to Julian and Beth who reveal that Amarrillis never escaped the carnival. Julian then shows Beth the original town records that go back to the Civil War. Beth says that every town has its weird stories, but Julien says Oldfield’s history is written in blood on pages of human skin. Of course, we won’t show you that human skin pages because they couldn’t afford that. We then go to a story where a group of Union soldiers are still finding random Confederate soldiers to kill and they are led by Sgt. Gallen.

He’s The Guy In Front

They find some Confederate soldiers and kill them, despite the fact they tried to surrender. They find a pamphlet that the war is over, but Gallen doesn’t care and still wants to kill Confederates and bed their widows. One of the soldiers Pike is completely against this idea and tries to head home, but Gallen shoots him under the guise of desertion.

The remaining three continue on, trying to find the next town so they can do their horrible acts to it. But unfortunately, they are ambushed by booby traps left around and knocked out.

And The People Who Set Those Booby Traps Are All Children

They are tied up and taken to Oldfield, which yes….is entirely run by children (Little Rascals basically as in the credits, the kids are called Our Gang, what the Little Rascals were originally called).

Our Confederate Gang

One of the Union soldiers tells the kids that the war is over and not seeing any threat, goes towards one of the kids. That is of course a huge mistake as he is stabbed right then and there.

A Good Ole Dick Stabbing

He is left to die while the other two are brought inside and separated into separate places to be imprisoned. The lead kid tells Gallen of a magistrate who they follow and he will decide the Union soldiers’ punishment. Gallen is not happy with this predicament as he is given food and water from a little girl with an eye patch named Amanda.

She Also Is On A Crutch.

The stabbed soldier will not last the night so they just leave him. The other soldier is an asshole towards the kids so the children knock him out. Back with Gallen and Amanda, Amanda talks to Gallen (even though she is told not to) because Gallen looks a lot like her father, who was killed in the war and everyone else here also lost their parents due to the war because General Sherman burned down the town.

Yeah, That’s What General Sherman Was Basically Known For….Burning Down Towns

Gallen shows a bit of humanity in admitting that Sherman is a mean man. The bell rings which signals a meeting with the magistrate so Amanda leaves. The lead kid named Andrew warns Gallen not to try anything with Amanda as she is his friend. The meeting is to determine who will die and it is that blonde haired asshole who got knocked out earlier. They chloroform him as we see Amanda picking flowers when Andrew tells her to come with him as he has a surprise for her. That surprise is a new eyeball as they took it from the asshole.

Gallen hears the screams and realizes he needs to escape. He tells Amanda that if he is allowed to escape, he will take her with him and adopt her as his own daughter. He even lies and says that he had a daughter named Amanda once, but she died during the war. He even says that the doctors where he is from will fix her up so they will never know she is missing an eye or know the scars she has. She unties Gallen and that is a huge mistake as Gallen was lying this whole time about everything. He kills Amanda.

Gallen tries his escape and sees that they have chopped that asshole guy to pieces and play stick the body part on a hook to his torso.

Andrew comes down and sees that his friend has been murdered. Gallen makes his escape, but is stopped by Pike, who is still alive. Pike then stabs Gallen in the leg and leaves him for the kids to re-capture him. Gallen awakens to the meeting room where Andrew decides that he needs to meet the magistrate before dying.

Yeah, The Magistrate Is Body Parts Of Their Parents Sewn Together With Two Heads

Andrew says this is all that is left of their parents, after Union soldiers like Gallen destroyed the town and killed all the adults. The kids put together this magistrate and made it their leader. Gallen tries to plead that the war is over, but Andrew says the killing continues though. Gallen says there is no reason for any of this anymore and Andrew says that as long as there are people like Gallen, there is always a need. Andrew tells Gallen that he will be his sermon tonight.

They take Gallen (still tied and gagged to a chair) outside and burn him alive for the murder of Amanda.

The next day, Andrew’s voice says that it is now time to rebuild Oldfield back to her former glory. What we see is an American flag raised as for the kids now, the war is over.

Unfortunately, That Looks Like A 50 Star Flag And The Flag In The 1800s Did Not Have 50 States To Be Stars Until 1959.

We go back to Julian and Beth as Beth says that is quite an origin to this town. She likens it to something from Lovecraft or Poe and Julian drinks to those two masters of horror. He says their monsters were only in their head before they put them to page while the monsters here are on the parks and streets. Beth then says that now Catherine is caught up in this history, which Julian says the minute she got caught up in the fabric of this town, she was lost.

Julian reveals he was lucky enough to just watch the murderous parade pass by. It is at this point that Beth reveals she was more than a journalist, but a close friend to Catherine. Apparently, Catherine told Beth that her uncle Julian poisoned her mind with the horrible tales of this town to the point that she turned into a killer. Beth then reveals a switchblade and kills Julian with it.

The last words Julian says to Beth before he dies is “Welcome To Oldfield.” And that ends the movie.

Despite the movie being called From A Whisper To A Scream in most places, the distributers in the good ole US of A decided they needed to pack this film with another film The Outing as part of a double feature and to pair it, they called it to The Offspring (even though as we showed only one story had an offspring of any kind in it). It barely made its budget back with it making $1.3 million out of a $1.1 million budget so it was a disappointment. At the time of its release, the critical reception was mixed at best and several actors in the film, namely Vincent Price, hated the film. Despite being in a zombie themed action comedy called Dead Heat and his last film being in a dark fantasy romance film called Edward Scissorhands, this was his last straight up horror movie he ever did and expressed huge regret for being in this film, saying his agent misrepresented what the movie was until he had basically signed the contract and was stuck with doing the film. But ever since it came on home media, it has gotten a bit of a following. Also this helped several people including Jeff Burr get better work. Jeff Burr would become more of a horror director and pretty much, many of the big names associated to this movie still went on to have decent careers.

Unfortunately, as with this being mostly an older cast, plenty of names have since passed away. This was the last film Angelo Rossotti (who played Tinker) was ever in and in 1991, he died at the age of 83 due to complications from surgery. Vincent Price (who played Julian White) passed away in 1993 at the age of 82 from lung cancer and emphysema. Harry Caesar (who played Felder Evans) left this mortal coil in 1994 at the age of 66 due to complications from diabetes. Cameron Mitchell (who played Sgt. Gallen) also died in 1994 at the age of 75 from lung cancer. Rosalind Cash (who played the Snakewoman) passed away in 1995 at the age of 56 from cancer. Bob Hannah (who played Harry Essex) suffered a heart attack and passed away at the age of 57. Lawrence Tiernay (who played the Warden during the execution scene) left this mortal coil in 2002 at the age of 82 from pneumonia. Miriam Byrd-Nethery passed away in 2003 at the age of 73 from cancer. Susan Tyrrell (who played Beth Chandler) left this mortal coil in 2012 at the age of 67 from Essential Thrombocytosis (a rare disease where your body produces more blood platelets that will eventually stick together and form blood clots). Gene Witham (who played Jack McCoy) had congestive heart failure and died of it at the age of 68 in 2014.  Clu Gulager (who played Stanley Burnside) died this year at the age of 93 from natural causes.

My personal thoughts on this film is that it is okay, but it really should have been better than it was considering the cast. My biggest critique is that it was all a completely depressing film and while most of the stories did deserve the character to die, we did not need the ending of the carnival story as Amarrillis deserved a better ending than to be stuck at the carnival for the rest of her natural life. But the acting was pretty good and the effects were really good. Also, there really are so many better horror anthologies out there so while not bad, it isn’t really one I am going to go back to if I want to see a horror anthology.

Now there was a NCAA Tournament pick’em back in March that had the reward being this next induction and GreyFMDan won it. The film he chose is a film that is an older film, but one that definitely deserves an induction and one that will be easy to watch.