User reviews

Between Death Wish II and Death Wish 3, Winner made this quickly forgotten thriller with a no name cast. It has the same over the top approach as his much more famous works, with so many memorable scenes and dialogue written by Tom Holland, best known for Fright Night and Child's Play. It's easily one of the most watchable bad movies of the 80's, so it's a huge shame that this is not on DVD. I would buy it immediately and play it for everyone i know. If you like R rated politically incorrect Nancy Drew mysteries that were made by your perverted uncle.... If you like Lifetime Original Movies on crack... If you want to see an even more outrageous version of The Stepfather, then this movie is for you.

If anyone is familiar with filmmaker Michael Winner's work, then "Scream for Help" shouldn't come as a surprise. Made smack in the middle of "Death Wish II" & "Death Wish 3". Those easily offended should steer clear. But then again, this ruthlessly trashy picture does catch you off guard numerous times. You could play a drinking game. Get the shot glasses ready, whenever you hear the word "kill". This is a lot. Yeah, as you can see, it's not one to take too seriously, even though it feels like the entire cast is giving their dramatic all.

Tom Holland's disjointed material is campy despite the context (family abuse) being frightening, but Winner's execution is where the laughs come from. Subtle is not how to describe it. It's so outrageously delirious, excessive and in-your-face making it eye-bogglingly strange and unrealistic. Was Winner sniggering behind the camera? But that's where the fun comes from.

The story creatively follows that of the dogged teenage girl's viewpoint by mixing elements of the boy who cried wolf meets Nancy Drew turned home invasion with exploitative touches. Then there's the odd, if graceless lifetime style coming of age inclusions. It's all over the place, but for some reason it gives it such a frenetic, unpredictable energy after being thrown straight into the action. Helping this out was the spirited performance of Rachael Kelly. Watching her go about her business always in the same manner can get rather humorous when not jarring. Her dialogues and reactions are priceless, but still you got admire her commitment. She would give Terry O'Quinn's "The Stepfather" a real run for his money. David Allen Brooks is perfect as the calculating, sleazebag step-father.

One thing that was hard to admire though, was that loud, obnoxious music score. Winner must be sniggering again? Outside of those intrusive guitar riffs, it felt out-of-pace. Winner's leering, straight-forward style makes use of it b-grade budget where amongst the sordid details he does install some intense passages. And how about that ending?!

From the hit & run on Janie and on you you this is 100% pure cheese. I loved it though. This was a different step in the slasher filled horror movies of the 80s. "Scream" for help. Hmmp. Overall the acting is terrible by everyone. Story is alright. Rachel Kelly is a hottie. She is scream for help. Sort of a 80s version of Neve Campbell. Rentable.(6/10)

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.

Let's see, we got veteran UK filmmaker, Michael Winner, at the helm. A soundtrack by Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones featuring Jimmy Page and Jon Anderson from Yes, and a script from noted Hollywood fear-meister Tom Holland. What could go wrong? Pretty much everything and gloriously so! I love watching this film because I can never tell if it was made to be a melodramatic satire or just a melodramatic failure. I'm leaning toward failed art. The bad acting is spread across the board but led by the entirely incapable Rachael Kelly, sporting around the screen in a variety of unflattering '80s era outfits. Ms. Kelly never once allows the viewer to lose themselves in the proceedings with her near constant histrionics. No wonder her step-father is trying to kill her! The absurd soundtrack is so over-the-top and out of place that I'm convinced that the producers threw out Jones' original score and substituted cheesy stock tracks instead. There is nothing but camp and unintentional guffawing to be had here...and that's ok. Sometimes you need a movie to riff on with your buddies like MST3K, and Scream for Help (which never received a proper release in the US) is there to help. Nice to see a new blu-ray edition on the market.

Michael Winner again misses actual greatness by a light year, but achieves inadvertent greatness in trafficking crap with his slapdash approach to film-making. The dopey plot involves a high school girl (Rachael Kelly) who believes her stepfather is trying to kill her mom.

The dippy sub-Nancy Drew exploits are periodically interrupted by typical Winner sleaziness including completely gratuitous nudity. The acting is uniformly amateurish, as if the cast just memorized their lines minutes before they were shot. As with most Winner movies, it's shot haphazardly and unimaginatively. The over-anxious soundtrack is almost always inappropriate and sounds like it belongs in an episode of "Charlie's Angels". And if you're a fan of bad songs, stay tuned through the credits for "Christy", one of the most laughable themes I've ever heard! Surprisingly sung (horribly) by Jon Anderson of the legendary prog-rock band Yes.

All of this is not to say the movie isn't perversely entertaining. Most of Winner's movies are, for me. It's fascinating to watch such slapdash nonsense. This is the kind of movie that has you checking the cast on IMDb just to see if anyone escaped this crap and went on to anything of note. I checked. No one really did. Corey Parker is the only one who had much of a career to speak of following this mess. Though Led Zepplin's John Paul Jones surprisingly is credited for the crap score! This is obviously a travesty, but for ludicrous plotting, inane dialog, brain dead behavior from every character and a handful of sleaze, it's just the ticket.

Residing somewhere in a parallel dimension called "Scream for Help" where everybody is a scumbag reigns Christie Cromwell. Played with such over-the-top antics and foul-mouthed bombast by Rachael Kelly, this single performance makes this movie one of the sleaziest and most entertaining eighties bad movies I have ever seen. Young Christie thinks that Paul Fox, who has recently married Chrisite's mother Karen, is a conniving philanderer who is only after their money and wants the both of them dead. She's right of course but the problem is getting anyone to believe her since she's such an abrasive little bitch that nobody wishes to come near her let alone listen to her petty conspiracy theories. One morning she follows Paul on her bike until he motors away from her. Not one to be deterred easily Chrisite waits the next day until Paul drives by the spot she lost him at and continues to follow him. This goes on for about a week until she finds Paul's car outside a house. Christie looks into the window to see Paul engaged in a little back door sex with a mysterious woman which she promptly takes a picture of. This escalates the war between Paul and Christie with the dopey Karen caught in the middle trying to make nice with both of them. From here on you might need a shower as the seediness pours through every scene as Christie and Paul try to out scum each other. Along for the ride are Christie's acquaintances, I can't see her having any friends, the extremely large busted Janey (you'll know what I mean) and her boyfriend Josh. When Janey is run down by Paul Christie grieves like any good friend would do by losing her virginity to her boyfriend. This leads to one of the funniest lines when Josh comes over to see her only to be shot down when Christie says that she was looking for anyone to pop her cherry "even the garbage man". Wow! A final showdown ensues as Karen and Christie become hostages in their mansion as Paul, his partner/double crosser Brenda and her husband Lacey battle wits with the vicious teen. This movie is like a Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoon if Road Runner was banging Wile E.'s mom. That's the best way I can describe this. Every time Christie thinks she's got Paul dead to rights he manages to get away unscathed. Plenty of nudity, profanity, and eighties cheesiness to keep even the most jaded of viewers with a smile on their face. "Scream for Help" is the very definition of why a really good "bad movie" trumps the pretentious crap that poses for theatrical fare today. Simply a must see for any fan of B-grade cinema.

"Scream for Help" is yet another fun 80's slasher movie, where a young girl believes that her stepfather is trying to kill her mother, and so in usual fashion the girl becomes all Nancy Drew and sets out to prove her theory right, which then unravels when him and his gang come after her and her mother and terrorizes them.

Yes this movie is very cheesy which I love and very 80's which again I love, the central character of Christine who along with her friends start sleuthing was fun, and plus when she falls for the boy next door that was also hilarious in true 80's fashion. The mix of teenage antics and slasher movie terrority both really work well together and even gels at an even pace and does create a decent amount of suspense especially during the final showdown.

All in all "Scream for Help" is just a fun time waster.

Christie Cromwell (Rachael Kelly) holds suspicions that her new stepfather Paul Fox (David Allen Brooks) is trying to kill her mother Karen (Marie Masters). As Christie tries to convince others of the truth, her words continually fall on deaf ears.

Scream for Help is a 1984 thriller penned by Tom Holland who'd previously worked on Psycho II and Cloak and Dagger. Holland wanted to make a more psychological horror to counter the prevalence of slashers in the genre. Michael Winner came across the script and loved it and set the film up at Lorimar as his next project. The film proved a critical and commercial disappointment and even Tom Holland himself has not spoken favorably of the film saying it encouraged him to direct Fright Night himself as to avoid a repeat of someone not getting his script right. On the surface you can see rich ground for a tense psychological thriller, but in execution it falls to the level of what feels like a 70s TV movie with more swearing, nudity, and violence.

A big part of what doesn't make the film work is in the performances of the film as well as Winner's direction which is very workman like and pretty much ends at "point and shoot". Rachael Kelly is very uncertain in the role as Christie, and considering the role is complemented with a heavy dose of voice over narration it only makes the flaws in her performance that much more apparent. The movie also never builds much in the way of tension or unease and the musical score by John Paul Jones is comically out of place and almost reminded me of the music you'd hear on CHiPs in some scenes. The climax is kind of fun in a trashy way (apparently the action sequence was an inclusion at Winner's request and you can see that's where his primary focus is), but it's also pretty much where any semblance of internal logic falls out the window.

Scream for Help seems like it might've made for a tension filled thriller were it in more sturdy hands like Richard Franklin (who allegedly was considered for the movie, but confirmation hasn't been found) but instead Winner's direction, wooden performances, and a distracting score make a film that should be tense mostly banal with only some mild points of amusing ridiculousness. If you see one film about a teenage girl suspicious of her new stepfather, then just watch 1987's The Stepfather because it's everything in this film but better.

This is fantastic trash from one of the most accomplished trash directors, Michael Winner . It is "The Girl Who Cried Wolf" and that wolf is her stepdaddy (David Brooks). Like most of Winner's work, it is loud, as subtle as a sledgehammer, full of nasty expletives and downright mean-spirited. If that's not a hard enough sell for you, it's also filled with sleazy sex and there's a sexual assault.

Say what you want about the man, but Winner does deliver. He attacks his genre work with enthusiasm and a healthy dollop of offensiveness. He's not afraid to alienate more sensitive viewers and he never goes for suggestion when a lurid close-up will do.

The idea of showing everything from the perspective of a young girl is a good one and it's novel to watch little Rachael Kelly, as Christie Cromwell, riding around on her bike as she pokes her nose into her stepdaddy's sordid affairs.

The film's final half hour is a rocket ride of sleaze, violence and brutality and testament to Winner's blazing talent for garish overstatement.

You'll be a better human being if you miss this, but a lesser trash monger.

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!

I first learned of this movie many years ago, when I was reading a film book that declared this movie as being one of the worst movies of 1984. So of course, I knew I would have to track it down and watch it to see if it deserved that dishonor. I just finished watching it now, and yes, it has to be one of the worst movies of its year. Or any year, for that matter! The script for the movie is unbelievably stupid, with characters making idiotic decisions at an incredibly rapid output. Sometimes this stupidity is, I admit, unintentionally funny, but most of the time you'll be angry at screenwriter Tom Holland's apparent feeling that the audience was beneath him.

In fairness, not all of the movie's failure is his fault. The always heavy-handed director Michael Winner can't seem to inject much intelligence in this moronic story, often telling it in a rushed and not fully explained manner that suggests that there was chaos in the editing room. (As it turned out, Winner also edited the movie under the pseudonym "Arnold Crust")

I must also add that the movie also has one of the WORST musical scores I have ever heard for a thriller in my life, being both strident and unsubtle. I will admit that the climatic 20 or so minutes do have a little spark and suspense, but then what good will the movie managed to build in those 20 minutes is ruined with Winner's stupid concluding scene.

On the back of the video box, there is a quote from Winner stating, "SCREAM FOR HELP is one of the most terrifying scripts I've ever read". All I can conclude from that is that Winner never read many scripts in his career.

Why does everyone bash this movie so much? What's wrong with the acting? What's wrong with the music? I thought it was nicely done, and became one of my favorite thrillers over the years. A teen girl suspects that her step dad is trying to off her mom so he can inherit her millions. The girl turns into a Nancy Drew type and starts tailing him over a period of days to see if she can get some dirt on him. She discovers he's having an affair and becomes the girl who knew too much as the step dad begins to go after her. It all leads to an awesome climax set in the family home, as the step dad and his lowlife cohorts hold the mother and daughter hostage. But the young schemer devises a way to thwart her captors and really turns the final half hour into an exciting finish. Beware though, the film is very graphic, both sexually and violently, but it's kept at a reasonable level (like two shots of Lorre topless, only one shot of Clark's gigantor boobs). As far as all the cast bashing goes, I really don't understand it. To begin with, Kelly is a beautiful, gifted actress whose career really should've taken off with this. Ok, so I had a crush on her, but still she carries the film perfectly. Brooks is sauve enough to pull off the step dad role and when he turns sinister in the end, he's great. Sisto nails his grungy, dirtbag character nicely, and Lorre is a gorgeous manipulator/femme fatale. Your only problem will be obtaining the film, which is very obscure and difficult to track down at video stores. But if you should find it, it should have no problem holding your attention, even if you (for whatever reason) laugh at it like these others have. Though I wont blame you for rolling your eyes at the sappy end credits song.

This film is a trash epic. Non stop laughs and a plot that pre dates the awesome STEPFATHER! Dont believe the wowsers, check this one out!! Disbelievers should check out the scene where Christy is trying to get rid of her boyfriend whilst her capters hide in the background. brilliant stuff! Where is she now?

I have never seen a movie this extreme. I have never seen characters be so ABNORMALLY straightforward! NOTHING is too sensitive for these persons to say out loud without hesitating. It is just like the director had a plot that would really need a three hour long movie to unfold naturally, but had to speed things up a little.

The characters in this movie aren't really afraid of anything. They just plow through their lives like bulldozers. The main character, Christie, is quite cool. Under normal circumstances, a 16-year-old girl would be terrified most of the movie, and never know what to do. But since this movie has an obligation to speed up the turn of events, Christie is an uncompromising expert at just about everything.

I strongly recommend that you watch this movie. I've watched countless of b-movies, but I was really amazed by this one and its bizarre dialogs. In fact, it's really not THAT amateurish. The overall feeling of competence is, perhaps, like the TV-series "Degrassi High" or something. The director is the same guy who did "Death Wish".

I am still in shock over the fact that this movie exists.

i thought this was a pretty good movie for its time. Its about a girl who knows her step father is trying to kill her and her mother for their money but no one will believe her and finally the step father holds them hostage in their house. Its a pretty good movie the ending makes up for the slow beginning.

What a pleasant surprise this film was! All the warning signs pointed to Scream for Help being a bad film; it's practically unknown, directed by Michael Winner (who. let's face it, doesn't have a track record for making the best films), it has a low IMDb rating and the plot is generic and largely unoriginal; but despite all of this, Scream for Help triumphs over adversity and can stand tall as one of the most fun trash flicks ever made! The film certainly has its problems; Winner appears to have no clue when it comes to style, and the film is often very choppy both in terms of plotting and dialogue, but it doesn't take itself seriously and the plot has enough about it to ensure that the film is always entertaining. The plot focuses on Christie Cromwell; a teenage girl with a problem. She believes that her stepfather Paul Fox is trying to murder her and her mother so he can inherit a fortune; but no one will believe her! Luckily for her, however, Paul is a bumbling buffoon when it comes to murder, and you can only fail to kill someone so many times before you get caught out...

The way that Winner handles the film is terrible, but somehow great at the same time. There's some horrendous use of music in this film, and the tone of the movie often changes in a heartbeat; but all this works well as Winner keeps the audience on their toes, and the film never tries to be anything other than a trash flick. The plot used in this film was changed slightly and reused for the 1987 hit 'The Stepfather', and while very good; that film mostly kept itself 'clean', but that's not the case here. Winner inserts sex, nudity, blood and nasty death scenes into this film; and while it's extremely over the top and not really in-fitting with the plot, that's Winner's style and he certainly knows how to deliver an entertaining trashy movie. The lead role is taken by unknown actress Rachael Kelly, and she's really rather good. The film plays out from her perspective, and her voice-overs again offset the rest of the film as its sort of like a little girl's diary, with sex, blood and a murder plot. Overall, Scream for Help might not do much for a lot of people - but I had a great time with it, and therefore the film comes highly recommended!

ok it may be laughable,and cheesy,but still thrilling in my opinion. the last 20 minutes or so is really good. the score seems so out of place it's not even funny. it looks more like a 70's movie than a 80's movie. but it's still pretty good. i give scream for help **1/2 out of ****