Scream of the Banshee

Scream of the Banshee (2011)
Directed by: Steven C. Miller
Written by: Anthony C. Ferrante, Jacob Hair
Starring: Edrick Browne, Eric F. Adams, Lance Henriksen, Marcelle Baer

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob5_tkjyPSI[/youtube]

Scream of the Banshee (2011)

(18) Running time: 90 minutes

Director: Steven C. Miller

Writer: Anthony C. Ferrante

Starring: Eric F. Adams, Marcelle Baer, Edrick Browne, Lauren Holly, Lance Henriksen

Reviewed by: Matt Wavish, official HCF critic

The After Dark series has been churning out numerous horrors of late, some have been rather good (Fertile Ground), some have been just above average (Husk, Second’s Apart) and others have just been dreadful (Prowl) and Scream of the Banshee falls into that last category. A pointless horror with absolutely no horror, zero tension and a story so boring you will have lost interest within the first five or ten minutes. The story of a group of college researchers discovering a mysterious ancient box may be intriguing, until you find out the contents are the head of a Banshee. Yes, you did read that right, a HEAD has been sat in this ancient box for centuries just waiting to get out and scream at someone, anyone, for heaven’s sake the darned thing just wants to scream!! Honestly, a feckin HEAD!!

Anyway, the head belongs to a Banshee, or whatever the Hell it’s supposed to be, and the film opens with a terribly filmed scene showing the cursed demon woman getting caught by some Knights, having its head chopped off and contained in this here box. I think the evil bitch has every right to be feeling a bit pissed off, don’t you? The opening scene is filmed so badly, the actual design, production, look and feel of it looks cheap and bloody awful! It doesn’t get any better once we get up to date with our researchers who discover the box and, hearing a strange breathing sound coming from inside, decide to open it (why wouldn’t you!) Chaos, or so it was planned, follows and all the horrors you could ever wish to see from a trapped head in a box will develop before your very eyes, or not!

The film plods along at a snail’s pace, there is nothing really of interest to mention apart from the fact it was so sad to see Lauren Holly stoop to such a career low, and Marcelle Baer does help keep things a little interesting as she is damn fine eye candy. The rest of the cast may not have even existed; their characters mean nothing, have no substance and are acted so badly you start to pray they will get screamed out soon. The Banshee’s first scream was supposed to be a big moment in the film as the grotesque head appears and screams, but it’s not, there is some bizarre wobbly camera work, the cast pretend to be in pain and cover their ears and it all looks a bit silly really. Turns out if the victim scream in pain, they’re as good as dead. I felt like screaming in pain in the hope I might get killed off and saved from watching anymore of this tosh.

There is a serious lack of talent here, and I doubt we will be hearing much from the writer or director anytime soon. As for hearing the scream of the banshee, it is not unsettling and scary, is plain bloody annoying and I found myself shouting back at the old hag “shut up, please shut up I can’t stand it anymore!! Kill me, just get it over with dammit!” OK, over exaggeration but I am just making a point. As if the film could not get any worse, poor old genre favourite Lance Henriksen turns up on a video which, I presume, explains the curse and how to kill the old bag. I say “I presume” because the poor chap mumbles his words in such a low tone that I honestly could not understand a bloody word he was saying, not one word!! Henriksen then turns up for about two minutes at the end, looking out of place, old, fat and done for and I actually wanted to cry. I like Lance Henriksen, he has been playing a part in some of my favourite films for years, so to see him so badly used here was just sad and shocking. Thankfully though, no one will actually see this, and if they do, they certainly won’t recommend it.

Rating:

[pt-filmtitle]Scream of the Banshee[/pt-filmtitle]