Sexy Susan George (Straw Dogs) pouts and peers from wounded eyes like a B-movie Julie Christie as Marianne, a go-go-dancing free spirit on the run from her lordly father, a defrocked magistrate enigmatically called the Judge (Leo Genn), and her psychotic half-sister. It seems our shapely sweetheart has something everybody wants, namely incriminating files and a small fortune in ill-gotten gains left by her light-fingered mum in a Swiss bank to be handed over on her 21st birthday. A little conspiratorial conniving brings Marianne back to the Judge's seaside estate to await her inheritance, and the blood sport begins. Handsomely shot in the lofts of swinging London and on the sunny coast of Portugal by future British goremeister Pete Walker, this is a competently made little thriller, familiar in parts and clumsily executed in moments--the flaming car wreck is particularly ragged--but engaging overall. There is no shortage of murder and mayhem, but despite its provocative title, Die Screaming, Marianne only hints at the sex and violence that later became the hallmark of Walker's savage productions Frightmare and House of Whipcord. His signature is found in the sheer desolation of the project. In a Pete Walker film, innocence is no guarantee of survival.
Image Entertainment's full-screen release marks the film's first uncut home-video release in the U.S. The print is worn in places and in parts resorts to less than stellar footage (ostensibly to reconstruct the full version), and the color is slightly subdued, but considering that this is a 1970 drive-in film it looks fine and is quite watchable. --Sean Axmaker
