Carry On Screaming! starts in Oakham Woods as a young couple Albert Potter (Jim Dale) & Doris Mann (Angela Douglas) are out on a date. Albert disappears to investigate a strange noise & upon his return he finds Doris missing. Scotland Yard’s finest Detective Sergeant Sidney Bung (Harry H. Corbett) & his trusty sidekick Detective Constable Slobotham (Peter Butterworth) are on the case & make the connection between this case the disappearance of several other young women in the same area within the past year. They search the woods but find nothing except a finger, they stumble across a large house belonging to Doctor Orlando Watt (Kenneth Williams) & his sister Valeria (Fenella Fielding) who are secretly using a hairy monster named Oddbod (Tom Clegg) to kidnap women which they then turn into shop dummies which they then sell to local stores, they are questioned but Bung finds nothing suspicious. Can Bung piece the clues together, figure out the truth & put a stop to the Watt’s sinister plan? It’s well worth a watch to find out…
This British production was directed by Gerald Thomas & was the twelfth Carry On in a series that has produced over thirty films & Carry On Screaming! is surely one of (if not the) the best. The script by Carry On regular Talbot Rothwell has all the sexual innuendo, smutty gags, crude humour & puns that make these Carry On’s so much fun to watch & thankfully it doesn’t take itself too seriously. I have to admit that I find Carry On Screaming! hilarious even as a die-hard horror fan or perhaps even because I am. It parodies & makes fun of all the Hammer horror film so popular at the time this was made with great affection & it is never disrespectful towards it’s inspiration. Director Thomas tires to take the mickey out of everything, Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, mad scientists, a sexy vampire, old dark creepy mansions, a mummy, bringing the dead back to life, the sinister butler & plots involving the kidnapping of sexy young English maidens & adds plenty of humour to the proceedings so it never becomes too scary or frightening. It moves along like a rocket, it never becomes boring & is consistently funny, I love the interchanges between Bung & his dim-witted partner Slobotham, the hilarious rows Bung & his wife Emily (Joan Sims) have night after night as he comes out with sarcastic quips to her constant moaning, the silly dialogue & situations that crop up & I just think the entire film works extremely well at what it sets out to do. Another area where Carry On Screaming! succeeds so well is that it looks & feels like a horror film with wonderfully atmospheric period sets especially Dr. Watt’s mansion & basement laboratory. The costumes are great with Bung wearing a Sherlock Holmes type cape & smoking from a pipe & how did Fielding get into that dress? The cinematography by veteran Alan Hume is great with a rich bright almost garish colour scheme, fantastic stuff. The over-the-top acting as everyone camps it up big time is worth watching the film for in itself, Corbett was a last minute replacement for Sid James when he couldn’t take part due to illness & does a great job while Feilding makes for an incredibly sexy & hot looking villain, the other Carry On regulars like Williams who hams it up with the best of them, Sims, Dale, Butterworth, Charles Hawtrey as Dan Dann the gardening man, Bernard Bresslaw as Sockett the butler & future Dr. Who Jon Pertwee also turns up. I think Carry On Screaming! is a fantastic film from the catchy & funny opening theme song right down to the happy almost feel good ending, wholeheartedly recommended & an absolute must for Carry On & comedy fans.
