Matty profiles the late, great Jeff Burr’s ghoulish debut feature.

Though imperfect, FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM ranks among the strongest and most charismatic horror anthologies to arrive post Amicus, joining Necronomicon (1993), Body Bags (1993), and Tales From the Hood (1995) (which, incidentally, was also co-written by producer/scripter Darin Scott) as one of the video era’s top examples of the form. On occasion feeling exactly like what it is — the product of a bunch of rookie impresarios whose skills didn’t match their ambitions yet — From a Whisper to a Scream uses scrappiness as an asset. The ragged edges add more grit and more gristle to its already heady mix of murder and mayhem. 

Wooed by young helmer Jeff Burr’s passion for the project (albeit ultimately unhappy with how graphic the finished article was), the mighty Vincent Price leads the wraparound as a weary historian [1]. Giving an impromptu private lecture to a journalist (Susan Tyrrell) about the blood-soaked legacy of a small town — the wonderfully named Oldfield — the four stories Price recounts paint an evocative, Stephen King-esque picture of perpetuating, cross-generational evil. Just don’t dwell too much on the narrative’s patchy internal logic.

The first segment — the vignette responsible for From a Whisper to a Scream’s alternative title, ‘The Offspring’ [2] — is a gloriously icky number anchored by Clu Gulager’s skin-crawling performance as a necrophile serial killer. As character driven as it is grotesque, the tale concludes with an amusing mini-monster punchline. No wonder B-maven Charles Band, a man with a well-documented kink for such things (see: Ghoulies (1985), Dolls (1986), Puppet Master (1989) et al), was briefly interested in acquiring the film. The second and third yarns — a wickedly effective blend of two-handed drama, voodoo and mutilation that touches upon such weighty subject matter as race and privilege, and a dark love story pitted against a colourful circus backdrop — suffer slightly due to their same-y structure but exhibit a succulent mean streak accentuated by their EC-flavoured kiss-offs. From a Whisper to a Scream’s best chapter, however, is saved for last. Tracing Oldfield’s roots to the Civil War, its disturbing exploration of combat, desertion and trauma packs a wallop and prefigures Burr’s later masterpiece, fellow killer kiddie mood piece Straight into Darkness (2004).  

Burr and the gang’s feature debut (his, Scott and co-creator C. Courtney Joyner’s initial stab, a vampire flick called ‘Nightcrawlers’, fell apart due to money issues), From a Whisper to a Scream hit U.K. cassette via Medusa. Granted a brief theatrical run in the U.S., the film did OK-enough at the box office to warrant distributor The Movie Store toying with the idea of a sequel. Fashioned as ‘The Offspring II’, the follow-up would have centred on the additional crimes of Gulager’s bespectacled psycho. Considering Burr’s subsequent — if only half-accurate — reputation as the don of horror sequels (see: Stepfather 2 (1989), Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990), Pumpkinhead II: Blood Wings (1993), and Puppet Master 4 (1993) and 5 (1994)), it’s a cruel irony that he was never able to realise another instalment to this, especially since the sorely missed auteur frequently described From a Whisper to a Scream as a rare artistically satisfying endeavor.

That said, with the film’s themes of human atrocity and emphasis on mood and style, its importance within his oeuvre cannot be understated.

From a Whisper to a Scream is the blueprint for every Burr joint henceforth, and its modest cult status is entirely justified.

USA ● 1987 ● Horror ● 100mins

Vincent Price, Susan Tyrrell, Clu Gulager  ● Dir. Jeff Burr  ● Wri. C. Courtney Joyner, Darin Scott & Jeff Burr, additional story material by Mike Malone

[1] At the time, Price was keen to tout From a Whisper to a Scream as his “final” horror movie — an honour that eventually went to zombie buddy comedy Dead Heat (1988). On set for two days, the Price material was lensed on studio space leased by his old Poe compadre, Roger Corman. According to Burr, Corman himself paid the star a visit during — spoiler alert — the shooting of his death scene. 
[2] Which, in turn, inspired the name of U.S. punk band The Offspring. The rockers even pilfered the ‘Offspring’ font for several of their early releases.