From a Whisper to a Scream

From a Whisper to a Scream (1987)

Welcome to Oldfield. Stop in for a night of pure terror.

The uncle of an executed murderess relates four stories of his hometown, Oldfield, to a reporter. In the first, an elderly man pursues a romance with a younger woman, even to the grave and beyond. In the second, a wounded man on the run from creditors is rescued by a backwoods hermit who holds the secret to eternal life. In the third, a glass-eating carny pays the ultimate price for looking for love on the outside. And in the fourth, a group of Civil War soldiers are held captive by a household of orphans with strange intentions for them.

Date of release
1987-09-25
TMDB
5.8 / 10 (104)
Runtime
1h 40m
Genres
Horror
Director
Jeff Burr

Casting

Interesting facts

From a Whisper to a Scream is a 1987 American anthology horror film co-written and directed by Jeff Burr and starring Vincent Price, Susan Tyrrell, Clu Gulager, Terry Kiser, Harry Caesar, Rosalind Cash, Cameron Mitchell, and Martine Beswick. The film features four horror stories set within the small town of Oldfield, Tennessee, each related by an elderly local historian (Price) to a local journalist (Tyrrell) who reported on the execution of his serial killer niece.

Production

From a Whisper to a Scream was developed by Jeff Burr, C. Courtney Joyner, Mike Malone, and Darin Scott, all former film students and friends who met one another while attending the University of Southern California. Burr devised the idea of a "haunted Southern town" in which various horror stories would take place.

Director Jeff Burr, whose only prior film was the American Civil War drama Divided We Fall, had limited experience in Hollywood, and met much of the cast (Rosalind Cash, Clu Galager, Terry Kiser) through friends, rather than through a traditional casting process.

In order to secure Vincent Price for the role of Julian White in the frame story, Burr went in person to Price's house with a bottle of wine (aware that Price was a wine connoisseur) and gave him the script in person. Burr would later recall,

We came bearing gifts, and wouldn't you know ... he opened the door himself when we knocked! It was a flurry of "Gee, Mr. Price, we're fans of your work ..." and "we wrote this script," and he actually invited us inside. He had every reason to ignore us, and even if it was on a polite level, he could have said, "Okay boys, contact my agent," but he was just so gracious.

Price—who at that point in his career was reluctant to do more horror movies—later expressed regret at taking the role in a letter to German actor and puppeteer Gerd J. Pohl, claiming his agent had misrepresented the film. Nevertheless, Burr recalls Price as "professional, gracious, and accommodating", praising his performance and his professionalism on set, despite Burr's suspicion that From a Whisper to a Scream was "the lowest budget film [Pri…

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