The Ray Bradbury Theater (TV Series) The Screaming Woman (1986) User Reviews

The Lovely Drew Barrymore

[claudio_carvalho · 8/10 · 26 March 2009]

Heather Leary (Drew Barrymore) lives in the suburb and loves to read Tales from the Crypt. While walking through the woods in the neighborhood of her house, she hears a woman screaming underground. She tells her parents but they believe it is fruit of her imagination. Heather sneaks out her room in the middle of the night and discloses the secret about the scream.

Watching "The Screaming Woman" is 2009, the greatest attraction is undoubtedly the eleven year-old Drew Barrymore. The young actress has a great performance in this good tale of Ray Bradbury, actually one of the best in this how. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "The Screaming Woman"

Post E.T. Drew

[Hitchcoc · 7/10 · 23 March 2015]

The setting for this looks a lot like the California neighborhood where E. T. came to Earth. That said, we have eleven year old Drew Barrymore, playing an impressionable girl who reads Tales from the Crypt and seek out adventure. One day, while biking through the woods, she hears screaming. It seems to be coming out of the ground. As is often the case, the adults are unable or unwilling to listen to her. She teams with a little slug of a male friend, who is too lazy to even dig. There is a red herring when the two of them are chased off the property by its owner. There are clues along the way. I think the only real point of contention I have is at the very end. If you watch this, ask yourself if the result would be realistic. Overall, it's pretty suspenseful but the acting is really bad.

"I don't dig unless I hear screams."

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 8 December 2021]

This story could have merited a few pages in "Tales From the Crypt", the comic book that Heather Leary (Drew Barrymore) was so fond of reading. When she walks in the woods near her developed neighborhood, she hears a woman's repeated screams, but of course, she's not going to be able to convince any adults that it's real or anything to worry about. Even her young friend Dippy (Ian Heath) is unconvinced - "I don't dig unless I hear screams". But when she hums a tune she heard emanating from the ground that could only have been written by her dad's former girlfriend, it sets the wheels in motion for a grisly discovery that fortunately ends well for the woman next door. Why Mr. Nesbitt (Alan Scarfe) buried his wife alive is a little detail never addressed in the story, an oversight that would have him getting a free ride in a police car. The very last scene in this episode has Heather walking off with Dippy, and treating him to an unlikely story of aliens grown from mushrooms taking over the planet. Obviously, writer and series host Ray Bradbury had a special fondness for that very story, because he gave it it's own special treatment in the third season of this series titled "Boys! Raise Giant Mushrooms in Your Cellar!"! Almost three decades earlier, it was made into an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" titled 'Special Delivery'.

Well done episode that goes from imagination to reality!

[blanbrn · 9/10 · 27 August 2020]

This episode five from season one of "The Ray Bradbury Theater" called "The Screaming Woman" is one that's well done as it builds up with drama and suspense. Plus it proves it's okay to have imagination as wonder and being a little bit scared is okay as one's worries could be real. Set in the suburbs a little girl named Heather(in some early work from Drew Barrymore) loves reading horror comics(oh wow her favorite is "Tales From the Crypt") and she plays in the local woods and she thinks she hears strange screams! She's not believed by her parents the episode then starts to build drama and suspense as other characters provide clues. The end is satisfying as it proves to be real overall worth a watch for a young Drew plus the episode is entertaining with suspense.

The Screaming Woman

[Prismark10 · 5/10 · 25 December 2022]

In a housing estate in the Burbs that was popular in American movies in the 1980s.

Heather Leary (Drew Barrymore) is young girl that likes to read Tales From the Crypt.

While she walks down the nearby woods, she hears female screams. Only her dad does not believe her. No one does.

When she goes back with another boy to dig, she is chased off.

However Heather does not stop, she is sure that a woman is buried down there. She might be walking into danger.

There is a good story here but it is lost in pedestrian direction and some bad acting, aside from Drew Barrymore.

At least the climax was tense, although a tad unbelievable.

Drew Barrymore to the rescue!

[gridoon2024 · 5/10 · 15 June 2015]

Some of these "Ray Bradbury" episodes have endings so weird and inexplicable that they leave you scratching your head ("The Playground", for example). "The Screaming Woman" goes to the other extreme and comes up disappointingly simple and straightforward. At least the director tries to be less pedestrian than others in the series, utilizing for example some overhead shots. But the main - if not the only - reason to watch this episode is the presence of bright, talented 11-year-old Drew Barrymore. She out-acts most of the adults not just in this, but in other episodes as well! I mean, just compare her performance with Peter O'Toole blah-blah-blah-ing his way through "The Banshee", and it's easy to see that she comes out on top. ** out of 4.

Satire?

[jes842904 · 5/10 · 9 June 2023]

Is this supposed to be satirical or what? I know this series is somewhat campy as it is. But this episode seems to take the cake.

The conversation the young girl has with her parents at the breakfast table says it all.

Girl: "I heard a woman screaming for help all night in the woods" Parents to Girl: "Preposterous." Also Parents (to each other): "Did you hear the Nesbitts screaming and fighting and threatening each other last night and then all of a sudden Mrs Nesbitt disappeared and no one knows what happened to her!?" "So crazy! There's no way the thing our kid just told us about the woman screaming for help in the woods pertains to this situation with the Nesbitts whatsoever! What a dumb kid!"

Hahaha.