Having already spoofed postwar British life (Carry on Nurse, Carry on Teacher, both 1959) and the tourist trade in Carry on Cruising (1962), the makers of the "Carry On" films (Great Britain's longest running film series, consisting of more than thirty titles) turned their attention to cinema, mocking the James Bond movies with Carry On Spying (1964) and the epic Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton misfire Cleopatra (1963) with the vastly more diverting Carry On Cleo (1964). It was inevitable that the troupe's satirical barbs would be brought to bear against the Gothic tropes of the Hammer horrors, the result being Carry On Screaming (1966), one of the biggest hits of 1966. Though series frontman Sidney James was absent due to illness (and replaced by Harry H. Corbett in his one and only "Carry On" appearance), regulars Kenneth Williams, Jim Dale, Charles Hawtrey, and Bernard Breslaw returned to tender the one-liners and double entendres with trademark acuity. The Hammer films were not Carry On Screaming's only target; the naming of Kenneth Williams' character, Dr. Watt, is a sly allusion to the BBC kiddie show Dr. Who. (Four years later, Jon Pertwee, appearing here in his second of four "Carry On" films, would be cast as the third Dr. Who.) Contributing to the ghoulish goings on a saucy spin on Morticia Addams is Fenella Fielding, who Fielding later supplied the pertly menacing voice of The Village in the enigmatic ITV series The Prisoner, starring Patrick McGoohan.

By Richard Harland Smith