From a Whisper to a Scream

aka The Offspring

Director - Jeff Burr (Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III)
Starring - Vincent Price (House of Wax '53), Clu Gulager (Return of the Living Dead), and Susan Tyrrell (Rockula)
Release Date - 1990
Genre - Horror
Tagline - "Welcome to Oldfield.  Stop in for a night of pure terror" and "The birth of your worst nightmare"

   

     I've seen posters for this flick on horror sites in the past and assumed that it was a slasher with Vincent Price having a small cameo.  However, once I started watching it I found out it was an anthology film with Vincent Price holding all the stories together in a similar fashion to the Creep from Creepshow II.  It also stars actor Clu Gulager who starred in a number of films and television shows like Return of the Living Dead and The Virginian.  It is also directed by horror vet Jeff Burr who directed a number of classic horror flicks like Stepfather II, Puppet Master 4 and 5, Pumpkinhead II, and Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III.  This film had a lot to live up to, but could it deliver? Also, I did not want to rate the movie as an overall film, but rate each segment on its own because some of the segments were not as good as others.

     The film opens with a serial killer being executed on death row.  A reporter present at the execution visits Oldfield, Tennessee to speak with her uncle who raised her.  Her uncle (Price) is the local historian that tries to explain that the area her niece was raised has a history of housing killers.  That is was not him that raised her that way, however, she was born into it.  He then relates four stories to her that have taken place in the surrounding community at various times in history.

Tell 1 Rating (out of 5):

     The first tell follows a weird man who lives with his ill sister.  He is a strange man that works during the day and takes care of his sister at night.  He even goes to the extremes of giving her a sponge bath every night instead of hiring a nurse.  It is not known if the two have sexual relations but from the rest of the story it would only make sense.  Anyway, at work he is obsessed with  a female coworker.  After talking her into going on a date with him he drives her home.  He pulls over, against her wishes, and forces himself on her.  She, thinking she is better than him, refuses his advancements and in a heat of passion he strangles her.  A couple days later he goes to her funeral service to pay his respects, that is until every leaves then he does what any strange man would do, and that is pop out the champagne and make love to her corpse.  The story then fast forwards nine months where he is once again bathing his sister.  He decides he no longer wants to do this and stabs her before strangling her.  As this takes place a hand is seen digging out of the strangled woman's grave.  The man goes downstairs to drink a few and watch tv because killing people can wear ya down.  While he is sitting there he hears a thud and gets up to go see what it is and discovers his sister's body lying at the bottom of the steps.  He goes up the steps to see who did this when he is tripped by a zombie baby.  The baby then blabbers gurggled words about him being the father.  He then calls Maury for a DNA test.  I made that last part up.

 Tell 2 Rating (out of 5):

     The second tell follows a young thug that owes money to the wrong people.  Also, he is a horrible husband/boyfriend and his lady rolls on him to the goons.  He flees his home when they show up to kill him.  While fleeing he is shot but manages to find a small rowboat before he passes out.  He then awakens several days later in a small shack with an old black man taking care of him.  One night the thug can not sleep and gets up to find the old black man sitting in the middle of a pentagram chanting.  He does not disturb him and goes back to bed.  The next day the old man heads out to pick mushrooms so the thug goes through his things.  While searching under the bed he finds century old pictures of the old man and he still looks the same as he does now.  He comes to the conclusion that the old black man knows voodoo and has used it to become immortal.  He makes the old man teach what he knows but is impatient.  He wants to know it now and tries to kill the old man.  However, that does not work and the old man knocks him out.  The thug wakes up later tied down.  The old black man told him that he had gave him a potion to make him live longer and the batch he made would actually give him 70 years but for double crossing him he is going to make sure he is in a lot of pain for that long.

Tell 3 Rating (out of 5):

     The third tell follows a young girl who is in love with a man that works as a sideshow performer.  He is able to eat sharp objects without cutting himself.  However, their love can not be because the owner of the sideshow does not let her performers fraternize outside of the carnival.  They are actually her slaves and she grants them the abilities to do whatever feat they perform.  They agreed to this because they are on the run for various reasons and by pledging their allegiance to her and giving her their freedom they are granted these powers and the police wont look for them there.  So the two love birds sneak off so they can be together and the owner revokes the gifts she gave to him and all the sharp objects he has ingested begin to cut their way out.

Tell 4 Rating (out of 5):

   

The fourth tell is probably my favorite of the film.  It follows a group of Union soldiers during the Civil War as they work their way to the other troops.  They are  unaware that the war had actually ended and kill a group of Confederate troops.  Before they reach their destination they come across a group of young kids that take them hostage.  The kids are battered and injured and no longer trust adults because they killed their families.  The kids tie the adults up and kill one of them before cutting the eye out of another one for a little girl who had hers poked out.  The third and final adult tricks a little girl into thinking he is her friend before snapping her neck. He tries to escape before he is captured again and find the kids playing a game with the adult corpses.  The kids then hold a trial for his life before they find him guilty.

      For the most part I really liked this movie.  I sat down to watch this with the mindset I was watching a slasher flick but I was way off.  What I liked about the film was the stories.  The stories in the movie are very diverse and each offer a completely different story than the last.  Also the acting is top notch which is what you would expect from a cast like this one.  I also liked the atmosphere of the segments.  It helps the dark vibe of the whole film which add to the horror in this one.  The things I did not like about this one was some of the tells lacked with the delivery.  The tell about the glass eater just ended.  There was really no climax to the story with the guy just dying.  It could have easily been fixed but the production team left it that way.  I also did not like the effects.  The zombie baby does not show itself on camera unless shadows are covering and most of the kills are not on camera with just buckets of blood being dumped on walls when the kills take place.  Other than those things I mentioned I really like this movie.  It was definitely different than what I thought I was sitting down to watch.  This one should be watched.