Die Screaming, Marianne is a turgid little film and not necessarily because it is obscene or particularly bad in any way. No, it is simply for the fact that it is extremely boring, especially for a thriller which this one purports to be. Very little of anything happens at any given moment, certainly nothing resembling excitement and when it does look to be picking up the pace or you glean that maybe something is about to take place, you find that by that point, you really care very little. When a film creates a sense of apathy in the viewer, that is not a good thing to have.

Directed by Pete Walker, the man who would give us The House of Whipcord and Schizo, it is almost hard to believe that it is the same man who delivered those later pictures. Every director, producer, actor or what have you is bound to have at least one dud in their lives and such was the case with this movie – a dud if there ever were one.

The various actors of this picture do a fair job of it, specifically the talented Susan George who ended up being the only watchable thing in the whole movie. Going through the film in various states of undress, trying to avoid the authorities, lovers and her father, George would bring a little life to the story, but not enough to keep it from putting you to sleep. It does have an airy and dreamy quality to it and if you were just looking to while away your time, you could do worse but on the other hand, you could do a whole lot better.

It is hard to pinpoint where it all went wrong – perhaps the opening theme song which was quite dreary or possibly with the script as everything usually starts with the script. The film meandered all over the place until the third act without really doing anything of note, though we did get to see George go from outfit to outfit, man to man. The talent was there, it was just a shame that the material was so lacklustre.

2.5 out of 5