The corridors of Fengriffen Manor feel heavy with something older than the stone walls themselves. A hand, severed long ago, moves with its own purpose, dragging the weight of betrayal and violence across two centuries until it reaches the present. That image sits at the heart of And Now the Screaming Starts!, the 1973 Amicus production that still stands out among British horror films for the way it mixes family secrets with outright supernatural terror.

This piece examines the film’s story in detail, traces its roots in Amicus’s move away from anthologies, looks closely at the practical effects that still hold up, and considers how the themes of inherited guilt and sexual violence continue to resonate. It also explores the careers of the key people behind the camera and in front of it, and places the movie within the wider shift happening in British horror during the early 1970s.

Deep within the annals of British horror cinema, few films capture the exquisite dread of a family curse quite like this 1973 Amicus gem. Blending Gothic atmospherics with supernatural chills, it delivers a tale of inherited terror that lingers long after the screams fade. This exploration uncovers the film’s masterful blend of hauntings, practical effects, and psychological unease.

The film’s intricate plot weaves a 200-year-old curse involving a vengeful spirit and a demonic hand into a modern Gothic nightmare. Amicus Productions’ portmanteau roots inform its standalone terror, showcasing innovative effects and stellar casting with Peter Cushing at the helm. Its themes of generational guilt, sexual violence, and spectral revenge cement its place in the evolution of haunted house horrors.

The Bloody Hand of History

The narrative unfolds in the opulent yet decaying Fengriffen Manor, where newlyweds Simon (Ian Ogilvy) and Catherine Fengriffen (Stephanie Beacham) arrive for their honeymoon. Catherine, plagued by vivid hallucinations from the outset, witnesses grotesque visions: a mutilated woman with shattered teeth clawing desperately at the walls, pursued by a leering brute named Henry Fengriffen (Geoffrey Whitehead). These apparitions escalate as a malevolent, disembodied hand begins to stalk her, grasping, throttling, and invading her most intimate moments. The hand, revealed as the vengeful appendage of a wronged servant girl raped and mutilated by Henry two centuries prior, embodies the curse that dooms every Fengriffen bride to madness and death.

Simon dismisses his wife’s terrors as bridal nerves, but the manor’s patriarch, Uncle Peter (Peter Cushing), harbours dark knowledge of the family secret. Flashbacks meticulously reconstruct the original atrocity: the 18th-century servant, betrayed after bearing Henry’s bastard child, endures unspeakable violation before her hand is severed in a botched hanging. Her spirit, tethered to that limb, returns to exact retribution on the Fengriffen bloodline. Director Roy Ward Baker intercuts these periods with seamless precision, using dissolves and superimpositions to blur past and present, heightening the inescapable cyclical horror.

The film’s structure builds tension through Catherine’s deteriorating sanity. Early scenes establish the manor’s oppressive grandeur – creaking staircases, shadowed portraits, flickering candlelight – all hallmarks of Gothic tradition. As her visions intensify, everyday objects become conduits for terror: a four-poster bed levitates, mirrors reflect phantom assaults, and the hand emerges from unlikely crevices. Baker’s pacing masterfully alternates quiet domesticity with explosive set pieces, ensuring each manifestation feels earned rather than gratuitous.

Key to the plot’s propulsion is the revelation of Simon’s true parentage, linking him directly to the curse’s progenitor. This twist, unveiled in a stormy midnight confrontation, forces a reckoning with hereditary sin. Catherine’s pregnancy mirrors the servant’s, priming the cycle for renewal unless broken. The climax erupts in a frenzy of poltergeist activity, culminating in a desperate exorcism attempt that underscores the curse’s unyielding grip.

Amicus’s Portmanteau Shadow

Amicus Productions, founded by Americans Milton Subotsky and Max J. Rosenberg in Britain, specialised in anthology horrors like Asylum (1972) and Tales from the Crypt (1972), but this film stands alone as a confident single narrative. Produced on a modest budget of around £200,000, it exemplifies Amicus’s resourcefulness, transforming limited sets into labyrinths of dread. Filmed at Shepperton Studios with exteriors at the evocative Herstmonceux Castle, the production leaned on veteran Hammer alumni for authenticity.

The script, penned by Roger Marshall from David Case’s novel Phenomena, expands the source material’s sparse hauntings into a visually rich tapestry. Marshall’s dialogue crackles with period flavour, blending 18th-century vernacular with contemporary unease. Amicus’s decision to forgo their signature wraparound framing allowed deeper immersion, distinguishing it from contemporaries like Hammer’s And Now the Screaming Starts! wait, no – this very film marks Amicus’s bold pivot.

Production challenges abounded: censorship under the British Board of Film Censors demanded trims to the rape flashback’s brutality, yet the film’s raw intensity prevailed. Released on a double bill with From Beyond the Grave, it grossed respectably, affirming Amicus’s viability beyond anthologies. This era saw British horror grappling with declining Hammer dominance, and Amicus filled the void with eclectic terrors. The choice to shoot at Herstmonceux Castle gave the exterior shots a real sense of age and isolation that studio sets alone could never provide.

Influenced by earlier hand-centric horrors like Mad Love (1935) and Doctor Syn adaptations, the film nods to folkloric motifs of severed limbs seeking justice. Its Gothic framework recalls M.R. James ghost stories, where rational facades crumble under spectral assault. Baker’s background in suspense helped him keep the supernatural elements grounded in the characters’ emotional states rather than letting them float free as mere spectacle.

Spectral Assaults: Iconic Nightmares

One pivotal sequence sees Catherine cornered in the manor’s chapel, the hand scaling walls like a spider before lunging at her throat. Cinematographer Denys Coop employs low-angle shots and harsh chiaroscuro lighting to amplify its grotesque autonomy, wires and puppeteering concealed masterfully. The hand’s wrinkled, claw-like fingers, crafted from latex and horsehair by effects maestro Tom Smith, convey unnatural vitality through twitching sinews and pulsating veins.

Another standout: the bedroom siege, where the hand erupts from beneath the marital bed during consummation, symbolising violated purity. Beacham’s raw screams, paired with Ogilvy’s impotence, dissect marital discord under supernatural strain. Sound design, with guttural rasps and splintering wood, immerses viewers in her paranoia. The chapel scene in particular shows how Baker used architecture itself as a weapon, turning sacred space into a trap.

The hanging scene flashback, with the servant’s jaw dislocated in a convulsive death throes, utilises practical makeup by George Blackler: porcelain teeth shattering against stone, blood cascading in arterial sprays. These moments, far from exploitative, probe trauma’s lingering stain, prefiguring modern horrors like The Witch (2015). The practical approach meant every effect had weight and texture that digital work often lacks even today.

Generational Guilt and Gothic Psyche

At its core, the film interrogates inherited culpability. The Fengriffens’ opulence rests on patriarchal violence, the curse a metaphor for repressed colonial sins or aristocratic decay. Catherine’s visions externalise suppressed societal horrors – rape as the original sin, madness as feminine hysteria punished. The story never lets the audience forget that the manor’s beauty was built on cruelty, and that the past refuses to stay buried.

Gender dynamics sharpen the blade: women bear the curse’s brunt, their bodies battlegrounds for male legacy. Beacham’s portrayal evolves from naive bride to feral survivor, challenging passive victimhood. Simon’s arc, from sceptic to sacrificial lamb, critiques masculine denial. Class tensions simmer: the servant’s low birth fuels vengeful ascent, inverting power structures akin to The Innocents (1961). Religion falters; crosses repel momentarily, but pagan fury prevails, questioning Christian efficacy against primal rage.

Psychologically, it anticipates The Haunting (1963) in subjective terror, blurring hallucination and haunting. Catherine’s unreliable perspective invites doubt, mirroring real dissociative disorders. The film’s strength lies in how it makes the supernatural feel like an extension of the characters’ own guilt and fear rather than an external force dropped in for shocks alone.

Effects That Claw at the Screen

Special effects anchor the horror, with Tom Smith’s hand – a star in its own right – employing pneumatics for lifelike motion. Multiple variants allowed versatility: crushing skulls, levitating objects, even puppeteered across ceilings. Budget constraints birthed ingenuity; no CGI precursors needed when wires and miniatures sufficed. Smith’s experience on Doctor Who gave him the discipline to make the hand feel alive without relying on expensive tricks.

Makeup transformations stun: the servant’s post-rape disfigurement, with flayed flesh and exposed bone via gelatine appliances, rivals Hammer’s gorier output. Poltergeist sequences used wind machines and pyrotechnics for chaotic verisimilitude. These techniques influenced later films like Evil Dead (1981), where possessed limbs echo this precursor. Opticals by Bob Dearberg enhanced ghostly overlays, Catherine’s face superimposed amid swirling mists, evoking ectoplasmic fury.

Legacy in the Shadows

Though overshadowed by Amicus anthologies, its cult status grows via home video revivals. Remakes eluded it, but motifs permeate The Hand (1981) and Idle Hands (1999). Critically, it bridges Hammer’s decline and video nasties’ rise, preserving Gothic elegance amid splatter trends. Cultural echoes appear in TV: Doctor Who’s similar appendages nod to its DNA. Its restraint amid 1970s excess underscores British horror’s psychological forte. You can find thoughtful pieces on this period of British horror over at Dyerbolical once in a while, where the focus stays on the craft rather than just the scares.

Director in the Spotlight

Roy Ward Baker, born Roy Baker on 19 December 1916 in London, entered filmmaking as a clapper boy at Gainsborough Pictures during the 1930s. His trajectory accelerated post-World War II, where he served in the Army Film Unit, honing documentary skills. Transitioning to features, he assisted Alfred Hitchcock on The Lady Vanishes (1938), absorbing suspense mastery.

Baker’s directorial debut, The October Man (1947), showcased noir tension, starring John Mills. He helmed Ealing classics like Don’t Bother to Knock (1952) with Marilyn Monroe and Inferno (1953), a 3D Western thriller. British output included The Singer Not the Song (1961) and seafaring drama H.M.S. Defiant (1962).

Horror beckoned in the 1970s: Hammer’s Asylum (1972), a portmanteau triumph; Vampire Lovers-adjacent The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974); and Amicus’s And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973), plus From Beyond the Grave (1974). His genre work blended restraint with shocks, influencing portmanteau revivals. Later career spanned The Fire Fighters (1973) TV series and Zeppelin (1971). Retiring in 1982 after The Flame Trees of Thika miniseries, Baker received BAFTA acclaim. He died on 5 October 2010, aged 93, remembered for versatile craftsmanship across 50+ films. Key filmography: The October Man (1947, psychological drama); Don’t Bother to Knock (1952, Monroe’s dramatic breakout); Asylum (1972, anthology horror); The Vault of Horror (1973, EC Comics adaptation); Seven Golden Vampires (1974, Hammer-Shaw co-pro); The Beast Must Die! (1974, werewolf whodunit).

Actor in the Spotlight

Peter Cushing, OBE, born 26 May 1913 in Kenley, Surrey, epitomised refined terror. Early life saw stage aspirations; RADA trained him before Hollywood bit parts in The Man in the Iron Mask (1939). War interrupted, but post-1945, he shone in BBC’s Robin Hood series.

Hammer immortality arrived with The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) as Baron Frankenstein, opposite Christopher Lee. Van Helsing in Horror of Dracula (1958) cemented his Sherlockian gravitas. 1960s-70s frenzy: The Mummy (1959), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), Cash on Demand (1962), Amicus’s Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965), The Skull (1965).

Cushing’s output neared 100 films; Star Wars’ Grand Moff Tarkin (1977) globalised him. Awards: horror con lifetime achievements; OBE 1989. Personal tragedies – wife Helen’s 1971 death – deepened his pathos. He passed 11 August 1994. Comprehensive filmography highlights: The Curse of Frankenstein (1957, iconic Baron); Horror of Dracula (1958, vampire hunter supreme); The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958); The Mummy (1959); Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972); And Now the Screaming Starts! (1973, patriarchal guardian); Legend of the Werewolf (1975); Star Wars (1977, Tarkin); Shock Waves (1977, Nazi zombies); Tales from the Crypt (1972, anthology star).

Bibliography

Rigby, J. (2000) English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema. Reynolds & Hearn.

McCabe, B. (2019) The Bloodstained Bay: Amicus Productions and British Horror. Midnight Marquee Press.

Harper, J. (2004) ‘Portmanteau Terrors: Amicus in the 1970s’, Sight & Sound, 14(5), pp. 34-37. British Film Institute.

Jones, A. (2015) ‘The Hand That Haunts: Motifs in British Supernatural Cinema’, Horror Studies Journal, 6(2), pp. 112-130. Manchester University Press. Available at: https://www.manchesterhive.com/view/journals/hor/6/2/article-p112.xml (Accessed: 15 October 2023).

Subotsky, M. (1978) Interview: ‘Anthologies and Curses’, Fangoria, 72, pp. 22-25.

Earl, J. (2021) ‘Roy Ward Baker: Unsung Hammer Hero’, Empire Online. Available at: https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/roy-ward-baker/ (Accessed: 20 October 2023).

Hutchings, P. (2009) ‘Historical Nightmares: The Gothic in 1970s British Horror’, in The Gothic in Contemporary British Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 45-67.

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