Movie Review: The Screaming Skull

The Screaming Skull 

Starring:  John Hudson, Peggy Webber, Russ Conway, Tony Johnson, Alex Nicol 

Director: Alex Nicol 

American International Pictures, Madera Productions, USA, 1958. 

This movie was part of Horror Movie 50 movie pack box published by Mill Creek Entertainment. The picture quality is not good, but there is not much to complain when the unit cost was about $0.30/movie. 

Eric (John Hudson) Whitlock and his new wife Jenni (Peggy Webber) move to Eric's mansion. Eric's first wife Marion died when she slipped and broke her skull and fell into pond. The house has a mentally undeveloped gardener Mickey (Alex Nicol, who also directed this film). Mickey was very fond of the first wife Reverend Edward Snow (Russ Conway) and Mrs Snow (Tony Johnson) come to meet the newlyweds. Jenni is mentally fragile and spent some time in asylum after her parents drowned. 

Eric's new wife Jenni

Mickey seems creepy at first but he is okay

Mr and Mrs Snow come to visit the Whitlocks

The Snows were also friends of Marion

Mickey shows Jenni Marion's grave and says he hears her speaking at night. Jenni begins to fear that the house is haunted. Jenni hears weird noises at night. Then a closet opens and there is a skull inside. 

Marion's gravestone

Skull in the closet

After initial shock Jenni goes back and tosses the skull out of the window. But it comes back knocking the door! Jenni faints. Is there a real ghost or is someone trying to drive Jenni insane? 

Good riddance, skull

Jenni does most of the movie's screams

Rev. Snow tries to console Jenni

Rev. Snow tries to calm down Jenni. Jenni tells that she feels guilty because she could not save her parents when their boat capsized. Because Marion's portrait reminds Jenni of her dead mother, Eric and Jenni burn the portrait. Then something screams like a small dinosaur and flowerpots explode. 

Jenni looking at Marion's picture

Jenni finds a skull but Eric lies that there is no skull. Jenni faints again and Eric hides the skull for later use. Eric is scheming to get Jenni's money and probably murdered his previous wife. However he loses the skull and blames poor Mickey for hiding it. Then some spooky things happen. 

There is something strange in the garden

This will come in handy later, thinks Eric

Eric: Where is my skull?!! Mickey: ???

The eerie music is composed by Ernest Gold who later composed award-winning soundtracks for movies Exodus, On the Beach and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. 

The movie has good atmosphere in some scenes. Still, the campiness wins this time. Skulls pop out in weird places and in the end there are some bad special effects. There is also clumsy editing that makes some scenes jumpy. It is almost annoying, because the movie had some similar potential as Carnival of Souls or Night of the Living Dead. The movie is a bit over one hour long, but still it drags heavily. Originally the movie came with a tagline: "FREE!! We guarantee to bury you without charge if you die of fright during SCREAMING SKULL!" It is safe to assume that the movie company did not lose money because of this promise. 

Rating: Bad