Reed and Malloy never tried to catch a transvestite rapist in ADAM-12, but other members of the Los Angeles Police Department respond to A SCREAM IN THE STREETS, on Blu-ray from Severin Films.

A rapist (Con Covert, FANTASM) has claimed five victims so far, the latest being a fifteen year old girl stabbed to death in the park. Special Unit Nine vice detective Ed Haskell (television regular Joshua Bryant acting under the name "John Kirkpatric") is less than pleased to have a new partner in Bob Streeker (Frank Bannon) who has a tendency to rough up suspects and make busts without search warrants. In between busting massage parlor sickos, holdup suspects, drug dealers, punks, and peeping toms, they both entertain fantasies of violent retribution towards the killer, especially after he murders an undercover cop (Rosie Stone, RACING FEVER).

Boasting plenty of gratuitous sex and nudity along with some BUSTING-type cop action and some "roughie" moments, A SCREAM IN THE STREETS is nevertheless an uneven hodgepodge of elements that never quite gels together. Although Carl Monson (PLEASE DON’T EAT MY MOTHER) is credited solely with direction, IMDb also credit producer Harry Novak, production manager Bethel Buckalew (BELOW THE BELT), and cinematographer Dwayne Avery (THE EROTIC DREAMS OF CLEOPATRA), and it shows in the haphazard structure. Covert's woman-hating transvestite killer is sidelined for much of the time along with his murders in favor of the antics of a peeping tom (stuntman Bobby Angelle) – who spies on pot-smoking couple Sandy Carey (FLESH GORDON) and John Tull (COUNTRY CUZZINS) as well as bored wives in a lesbian clinch Angela Carnon (POOR CECILY) and Sandy Dempsey (ILSA, SHE WOLF OF THE SS!) – a tender sex scene between Haskell and his worried wife (Mady Maguire, A CLOCKWORK BLUE), and a near-hardcore raunchy one between switchboard operator Jenny (Colleen Brennan, LADY DYNAMITE) and officer Brian (Christopher Geoffries, DROP OUT WIFE) before a downbeat ending. Monson also directed THE TAKERS for Novak along with the "Ten Little Indians" knockoff LEGACY OF BLOOD and the later Frank Stallone vehicle SAVAGE HARBOR.

A SCREAM IN THE STREETS had two VHS releases in the United States in different cuts, one from CNH Video titled SCREAM STREETS and an abridged double feature edition with AXE from Best Film & Video – one of a handful of double features of Novak titles that also included THE CHILD/DUNGEON OF TERROR (Jean Rollin's REQUIEM FOR A VAMPIRE), I DISMEMER MAMA/BEHIND LOCKED DOORS, FRANKENSTEIN'S CASTLE OF FREAKS/THE MAD BUTCHER, and KIDNAPPED COED/HITCH-HIKE TO HELL, along with a solo VHS of MANTIS IN LACE – while the UK had three VHS releases of the shorter reissue GIRLS IN THE STREETS. Something Weird Video put out an uncut VHS followed by an Image Entertainment DVD, and Severin Films' 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC Blu-ray seems to utilize the same materials for their 1.33:1 pillarboxed fullscreen and 1.85:1 matted presentations. There is a bit of damage here and there, and the patchwork quality of the editing and reediting may have done some damage before it even hit the screen, but the presentation is colorful and generally crisp, while the greater resolution call attention to the threadbare set design and details of the actors' nether regions previously indistinct due to the standard definition reproduction of the garish Movielab color. The open-matte presentation reveals headroom as well as more nudity – especially during the Brennan/Geoffries sex scene – while the widescreen versions suggests that little consideration was actually taken for theatrical framing. The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track is very clean, revealing the particulars of uneven location sound recording and some bizarre library music choices (including the odd transitions) while the English SDH subtitles refer to Streeker as Striker.