| Taste of Fear | |
| Director: | Seth Holt |
| Screenplay: | Jimmy Sangster |
| Producer: | Jimmy Sangster |
| Starring: | |
| Cinematography: | Douglas Slocombe |
| Editing: | Eric Boyd-Perkins |
| Music: | Clifton Parker |
| Color Process: | Black and white |
| Studio: | Hammer Film Productions |
| Distributor: | Columbia Pictures |
| Runtime: | 82 minutes |
| Country: | United Kingdom[1] |
| Language: | English |
| Gross: | $800,000 (Europe)[2] |
Taste of Fear (U.S.title: Scream of Fear) is a 1961 British thriller film directed by Seth Holt.[3] [4] The film stars Susan Strasberg, Ronald Lewis, Ann Todd, and Christopher Lee in a supporting role.[5]
After the suicide of her best friend, wheelchair-user heiress Penny Appleby arrives at her estranged father's estate on the French Riviera. Her stepmother, whom Penny has only just met, informs her that the father has been called away on business. She cannot say when he will return or why he left when he was expecting Penny's arrival. Although the stepmother has made the place comfortable for Penny, the young woman does not trust her. That night she believes she sees her father's corpse in the guest cottage. When others respond to her hysterical screams, the corpse is not there. The stepmother tries to convince Penny that her recent tragedy is causing her to hallucinate, and the family doctor cites Penny's history of neurotic behaviour to support that view.
The family chauffeur meets Penny privately to say he believes Penny did see something unusual, even if not a corpse. He offers to help her investigate. As they proceed, Penny begins to wonder if he is really an ally or if he is leading her away from the truth. When a police detective begins his own investigation, he suspects that Penny may have secrets of her own.
Jimmy Sangster stated that he originally wrote the film for Sidney Box who assigned him to produce it. According to Sangster, Box became ill and stopped his work temporarily, leading his work to be taken over by his brother-in-law Peter Rogers, who was busy working on the Carry On series. Sangster then bought the film back from Rogers and sold it to Michael Carreras on the condition that Sangster would be allowed to produce. Filming began at Bray Studios in Berkshire[6] on 24 October 1960.[7]
Taste of Fear was distributed in the United Kingdom on June 5, 1961, with an 82-minute running time. It was later distributed in the United States with an 81-minute running time on August 22, 1961, under the title Scream of Fear. The film was a success in the United Kingdom and the United States and was very popular in Europe, being one of Hammer's most profitable productions which led to a cycle of similar films.[2]
In March 2013, it was announced that the film will be remade for Sony, and directed by Juan Antonio Bayona, whose previous credits include the acclaimed 2007 Spanish horror film, The Orphanage.[8]
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Taste of Fear suggests the work of a scriptwriter dangerously overstimulated by Psycho and Les Diaboliques and determined to find even more variations to play on the theme of the peripatetic corpse. Jimmy Sangster is too deep in the Hammer tradition to achieve much finesse. ...The plot, although it twists like a cork-screw in its final sequences, is a good deal less impenetrable than its creator might like to think; and even the final images, of Ann Todd (who has played with a nice neurotic edge) smashed on the rocks, and Susan Strasberg rather smugly triumphant on the clifftop, achieve no great surprise. But, within the limitations of material which is frankly tosh, Seth Holt has done a professional job. All those creaking shutters, flickering candles, wavering shadows and pianos playing in empty rooms still yield a tiny frisson. The director has gone all out to make Taste of Fear work on its own level – and the result is no less silly than usual, but a good deal more watchable"[9]
Christopher Lee stated that the film "was the best film that I was in that Hammer ever made... [...] It had the best director, the best cast and the best story." Ann Todd contradicted him, saying that she thought "it was a terrible film. I didn't like my part, and I found Susan Strasberg impossible to work with-all that 'Method' stuff."