Sorry, this movie sucks

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

There are better movies of two hours length. I loved the actress'performance.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Susan George plays Marianne, a young go-go dancer in London apt to running away from any man who takes a liking to her; she's not fickle, exactly, she just has a troubled past with men starting with her nefarious father, nicknamed "the Judge." After a fellow picks Marianne up on the road, she finds herself at the altar about to marry him, but enters their best man's name on the marriage certificate instead. This enrages her intended, who turns snitch to the Judge (and Marianne's wicked half-sister) who's in desperate need of a Swiss bank account number that only Marianne knows, an account that houses legal papers incriminating the Judge in various dirty doings. Written by Murray Smith and directed by Pete Walker (who also produced), the misleadingly-titled "Die Screaming Marianne" (without a comma) isn't a horror movie or a suspense-thriller; it's more of a character portrait-cum-criminal melodrama, one that is curiously coy in its violent and sexual matters. George is seen dancing in a bedazzled bikini under the opening credits, but she doesn't dance again, nor does she get much of a chance to create a genuine character. Marianne is unpredictable in all the wrong ways; she's a question-mark whose actions are confusing, confounding and often reach a dead-end (running off from her new husband in the early morning hours, she hitches a ride, stops to rest in the meadow grass, applies for a dancing job, turns it down when the boss asks to "see the goods," and then returns home). Finale at the Judge's seaside spread in Portugal is even odder, with lustful, jealous Judy Huxtable bent on torturing Marianne to get that account number before killing her. Before long, bodies have piled up, corpses have to be identified, the cops are on their way, and we still have no idea who Marianne is. *1/2 from ****

It is hard to believe that 'Die Screaming, Marianne', a boring and uninspired 'shocker', was directed by British horror master Pete Walker, who would go on to make the wonderful 'Frightmare'. Admittedly this was his first film and he needed time to refine his art, but 'Marianne' has little if anything to recommend it. It is very like the Italian 'giallo' films which were popular back in the early seventies, and hardly deserves to be called a horror film.Susan George stars as Marianne McDonald/Evans and, to her credit, plays a strong and resourceful character. Her evil father, a corrupt judge played by Leo Genn, and her power-hungry and avaricious stepsister, are out to get their hands on Marianne's fortune - a hefty amount left to her by her rich mother - which she is to inherit on her twenty-first birthday.'Die Screaming, Marianne' belongs to the family of horror films whose titles promise much and then do not deliver the titular carnage. Such films as 'Driller Killer' and 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre'. 'Driller Killer' is an interesting psychological horror film which owes much to 'Repulsion' and it certainly has its merits, but its reputation as a notorious video nasty is just silly considering the very tame gore in the film. And 'Texas' is a horror masterpiece but it definitely does not offer up a constant stream of blood and severed limbs as its title suggests.Susan George completists will want to see 'Die Screaming, Marianne' but anyone else will find the proceedings tedious and instantly forgettable. There is a good title song which has a nice melancholy feel to it, and there is a cool opening credits sequence which sees George go-go dancing in a black bikini. But the rest of the film - apart from the rather attractive scenery in the scenes shot in Portugal - is almost excruciatingly dull and pointless. Do yourself a favour, and catch Susan in the horror film 'Fright' instead. So much better.

Not particularly gripping tale of a 'free spirited' Susan George becoming embroiled in a seedy crime racket, led by a 'defrocked' Judge.Not just *a* Judge, but 'The Judge' - Leo Genn's character who is continually accorded the definite article by sundry friends and enemies - who are largely interchangeable. This melodrama, with a heavy accent on the corrupt authority figures, bears some resemblance to Pete Walker's later baroque horrors. But the formula isn't developed as of yet - and he had yet to work with the waggish scriptwriter David McGillivray. Walker followed this film with the relatively interesting curio, "The Flesh and Blood Show" - collaborating with the talented veteran Alfred Shaughnessy of "Upstairs, Downstairs" fame - and then his fecund period began with "The House of Whipcord" in 1974.Susan George and Judy Huxtable are done a great disservice by Walker and scriptwriter Murray Smith here with their reductive portrayal of female characters. Such as shame for George in particular, subject of much brutality in Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs" the following year, but also Huxtable, who was the evocative beauty at the heart of the whimsical "Les Bicylettes de Belsize" two years earlier.There is always some degree of objectification of women in Walker's films, but what is lacking here is the suspenseful, charged context of his later films. "Frightmare" and "House of Mortal Sin" have something of the Hitchcockian about them: Hitchcock-meets-the Grimm Brothers-meets-British exploitation cinema of the 70s. This is a rather more humdrum affair, with even the exotic locations eliciting no more than a Gallic shrug in this viewer.

Forget PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE or BRIDE OF THE MONSTER. This gem, which was released in the early 80s in a very gory video box, was marketed as a horror film, yet is really a lame drama about 2 cops searching for a lost girl. Everyone even remotely connected to this film (especially it's video release) should be jailed for life.