Good concept, poorly executed.

A Masterpiece!

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Scream for Help opens like a made-for-TV Nancy Drew mystery, with plucky teenager Christie Cromwell (Rachael Kelly) investigating her stepfather Paul Fox (David Allen Brooks), who she believes is trying to murder her wealthy mother (Marie Masters). It's not long, however, before director Michael 'Death Wish' Winner grows weary of this softly-softly approach, and adopts a more exploitative style, starting with gratuitous sex and ending with a violent 'home-invasion' set-up that ultimately makes his film more akin to a video nasty.Winner's handling of Tom Holland's risible script is amazingly ham-fisted throughout, and the acting is generally just as atrocious (it was only Kelly's second screen role but it would also be her last), but it is this technical ineptitude, along with all the nudity and violence, that makes this film such an unmissable treat for fans of trashy cinema.6/10 for being so entertaining despite being so bad, plus an extra point for the unforgettable Lolita Lorre in her one and only screen role as Brenda Bohle, Paul Fox's sexy partner in crime: not only does she go absolutely starkers for a surprisingly graphic sex scene, but she also has the best death, electrocuted in a trap prepared by the ever resourceful Christie.

Certainly not as bad as some make out, this 1984 Winner movie filmed in New York does take a while to really get going. Rachael Kelly is excellent, albeit in awful 80s clothes, as the child who nobody will listen to when she says she and her mum are in danger from her step dad. The male and female leads help to ensure this is so slow to start with TV soap like performances. Eventually, however, Lolita Lorre and the tremendous Rocco Sisto enter the fray and the joint really starts to jump. Last third is fabulous home invasion stuff with Winner pulling no punches. With uncompromising and non PC approach including gratuitous sex, decently promoted this could have been successful exploitation fare but as it turns out, I for one had never even heard of it. Worth a look, well the second half anyway!

While watching Scream For Help, one can't help but wonder if the film is intentionally inept or just hopelessly inept. The overbearing music, the ridiculous acting, the laughable plot developments, the risible dialogue… all these things surely point to some kind of bad joke at the audience's expense courtesy of director Michael Winner? It's hard to believe anyone could accidentally make something so perfect in its wretchedness. But then, if the film IS a deliberate exercise in bad taste and terrible film-making, one must wonder what is the point in it ever having been made at all? Angry teen Christie Cromwell (Rachael Kelly) lives in a huge suburban house with her mother Karen (Marie Masters) and her new stepfather Paul (David Brooks). Christie keeps a secret diary chronicling what is going on in her life, and her latest entries are dominated by suspicions that Paul is, in fact, plotting to murder her mum. With everyone dismissing her theories as paranoid fantasy, Christie decides to gather more evidence so she starts following Paul everywhere he goes. Soon she discovers that he is having a torrid affair with Brenda Bohle (Lolita Lorre), and the plot thickens when she overhears the pair of them discussing their plans to murder Karen and Christie. She even discovers that Brenda is secretly married to a slimy crook, Lacey (Rocco Sisto), and the devious duo are merely using Paul to carry out the murder for them. They plan to pocket whatever fortune Paul inherits, and then blackmail him for the rest of his days for his part in the crime. Christie finally succeeds in convincing her mum that her life is in danger, but it looks like her warnings have been heeded too late when the three scheming villains besiege them in their house, locking them in the cellar and vowing to kill them before dawn.There's no reason why Scream For Help couldn't have been a decent little thriller. Handled effectively, the plot could have quite easily led to an updated version of "Suspicion", with modern-style sex and gore and a degree of teen interest. Unfortunately, Winner doesn't handle anything in his film effectively at all. There isn't a single believable moment in the entire movie – the bad guys are thuggish idiots who could barely plan a pool-party, let alone a murder; while Christie is an impossibly resourceful teenager who takes everything (including life-threatening danger and her own impending murder) coolly in her stride. Every performance in the film is astonishingly amateurish, and the story leaves no cliché unturned as it progresses to its over-the-top denouement. At least the film has a remarkably fitting title – Scream For Help, indeed! That is precisely what most viewers will find themselves doing, not out of fear but out of teeth-grinding despair at the incompetency of the whole thing.

I like this movie a lot. True, it's not a cinema classic, but as a "B" horror film, it rates a B+. The story, acting, and direction are much better than most films of this sort. My biggest complaint with the film is the music, which is often out of sync with the film, and at other times shrill to the point of being annoying. The actors do a fine job, particularly Sisto, in the sleasy, white trash role. The young actress who stars in this film is quite effective, and I have to wonder why she didn't get a career boost, after this one.I'd like to purchase this film, if it is ever released on DVD.