Screamer
(ITC Movie title "Screamer")
Original UK transmission: 4th January 1975
Original US transmission: 12th November 1974
WRITTEN BY: Brian Clemens
DIRECTED BY: Shaun O'Riordan
PRODUCED BY: John Cooper
MAIN CAST: Pamela Franklin (Nicola Stevens), Derek Smith
(Inspector Charles), Kay Frances (Virna Holt), Donal McCann (Jeff
Holt), Peter Howell (Ward), Stephen Batemen (Stationmaster), Jim
Norton (The Man), Wolfe Morris (Balsam), Harry Walker (Sergeant),
Ambrosine Phillpotts (Lady On Train), Michael Hall (Doctor)
Teaser
Sequence
At a railway signal box, a
train passes in the night and the signalman checks it off. Aboard
the train, an attractive young girl sits in a compartment while
an older woman engages her in conversation. When she mentions
that she is going to Sawford, the older woman warns her to be on
her guard as there is a rapist on the loose in the area.
Describing the attacker as tall and blonde, she then disembarks
from the train and the girl is left alone in the compartment.
Clearly agitated, she picks up the woman's newspaper to read the
report as another person enters. Looking up from the paper, she
is horrified to see a tall blonde man sitting opposite her.
Plot
Summary
Travelling out to the country
to stay with her friends the Holts late one night, Nicola Stevens
is panicked to find herself being pursued by the
suspicious-looking man who had been on the train with her. The
next morning, the Holts return after being delayed overnight in a
breakdown and find the living room streaked in blood and Nicola
bruised and in a state of shock. Nicola is admitted to a mental
institution, where she gradually recovers her wits but is too
traumatised to help the police identify her attacker. Returning
to stay with the Holts, she is alarmed when she believes she sees
the man once again on the train, and then again at a nearby egg
farm. Even though the police insist that the serial rapist has
been caught, Nicky becomes obsessed with the notion that he is
still at large and takes mattersto her own hands, with alarming
consequences.
Comments
Another top episode, this one packs a good deal of punch
throughout and has a nice twist towards the end. The opening
sequences centred around the train and the station get one in
straight away, and Pamela Franklin's quirky portrayal of the
neurotic Nicky adds immensely to the air of uncertainty and
menace (she would return in the more low-key Won't
Write Home Mom - I'm Dead ). As usual, Clemens manages to weave a
fairly ordinary story premise into an utterly riveting script.
Highly recommended.
NOTE: The "movie" version of this story opens with a disturbingly graphic and tasteless rape scene shot in America. First time viewers are strongly advised to fast forward through the titles!
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