Bad first half, good second half

Amicus’ “And Now the Screaming Starts!” has a typical plot for British horror of that era, but it lacks finesse in execution, like the curious overuse of the quick zoom on Henry's portrait to suggest a sense of foreboding and the cheesy severed hand that rears its fingers too early. Catherine’s hysterics don’t help.

Thankfully, the second half gets compelling with the arrival of Dr. Pope (Peter Cushing) and an interesting flashback to 1745 that explains the weird goings-on. Of course Stephanie Beacham was one of the most beautiful women to walk the earth.

So this is a tale of two halves: The first half veers toward “What were they thinking?” bad while the second half is quite good.