It’s obvious that writer/director/producer Scarlet Fry aka Walter Ruether III is a fan of all things horror and that can be an admirable trait in a filmmaker. However, his film Scream Machine is less of a love letter to genre greats and more of an insult.
Despite having an introduction by Lloyd Kaufman of Troma fame, this film is one big let down in all aspects of horror. Told in anthology form by two terrible hosts, Dr. Fry and Dr. Headly Graves (a severed head with an eye patch and some of the worst prosthetics I have ever seen), the lighting and editing done during introduction segments is as close to professional as this film gets.
I usually give credit where credit is due and most independent directors come up with creative editing and cinematography to make up for the lack of budget; Fry just seems to have the mentality that pointing the camera and going through the motions is enough. I wish that anything about this film sucked me in… The truth is I tried to watch it several times before giving up on it entirely.
Normally I would say this one wasn’t for me, but I would encourage others to give it a chance to see if they could get anything out of this that I didn’t… but this is not the case with Scream Machine.
This is probably one of the worst films I have ever seen. I give this film 1 slice of pizza on the couch out of 5.
