A bit of a departure from the usual British saucy seaside postcard romps, Carry On Screaming took the formula of both Hammer Horror and spooky American sitcom favourites The Munsters and The Addams Family, and created a weird hybrid with an actual storyline. Wait… Sophistication creeping in? Not quite. It’s still Carry On, after all. But it is one of the more subtle ones.
Here, it’s not silly, giggly Babs Windsor who epitomises glamorous womanhood, but rather the late, great, eccentric national treasure Fenella Fielding, with her curves squeezed into a Morticia- like claret coloured velvet gown as Valeria, and Kenneth Williams, who scrubs up well, typically camping it up as the Dr Frankenstein type loon, Dr Orlando Watt.
Oddbod (Tom Clegg) and Sockett (Bernard Bresslaw) complete the dysfunctional family, and I remember the jokes hit a sweet spot between creepy, funny and sexy in a way that resonated with me as a kid watching repeats at Halloween. Once a goth, always a goth, I suppose. .. But having not seen it in years, I rather suspect it hasn’t aged well, just like me. Or maybe as with all of the franchise, you just have to lower your expectations (madam) and just lean in to the smut. I still want that dress, it’s killer. Smokin’.
PS: Harry H Corbett from ‘Steptoe and Son’ plays Bung, the bumbling detective seduced by Valeria. See above in the utterly iconic scene
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