User Reviews

Yes, the acting in this isn't that great. Yes, the director plays one of the characters, which is pretty much always a bad sign for a horror movie (Glen or Glenda, Eegah, Incredibly Strange Creatures, etc.). Yes, the entire storyline is fantastically predictable and has been done a thousand times. And yeah, the special effects are really, really terrible. And no, it did not scare me enough that I was able to take advantage of their free funeral offer (Does that still hold for DVD's?) But other than that, it really wasn't that bad. So, a rich woman who was formerly in a sanatorium moves into her new husband's old home. His old wife had died there, in a way that the pastor takes every care to explain is suspicious. Then she starts seeing creepy things while her husband is away all the time. I guess there aren't really spoilers here because I'm not TECHNICALLY telling you anything, but anyone who's watched enough of these movies should know the rest by heart. But really, except for a few moments and one really annoying gardener, this manages to keep up a pretty good atmosphere. I thought that it wasn't bad for what it was. Definitely not 2.7

Despite the catch-penny title and stupid "warning" to viewers, this is a well-crafted thriller. In fact, it's a mix of thriller and horror as we can't be sure of what's behind the infernally sneaky skull. Seems poor troubled Jenni accompanies new husband Eric to his dead first wife's empty mansion. It's empty except for loony gardener Eric, who bumbles around like a gimpy zombie. Now strange sounds and happenings that surround a mysterious skull start haunting Jenni. Is it her troubled past and imagination, or maybe the loony gardener devoted to Eric's first wife, or maybe even a truly evil spirit. Old movie fans may notice echoes here of 1940's classic Hitchcock, "Rebecca".

The horror aspect as a whole is downplayed in favor of actress Webber's truly impressive performance as Jenni. In fact, she runs a gamut of emotions in convincing fashion without the self-mockery of many horror flicks. In fact, I'd give her a hooded Oscar for carrying the tricky narrative in compelling style. For guys, her traipsing around in a see-through gown also works. Outstanding too are camera-man Crosby whose b&w shadings are A-picture atmospheric, along with director Nicol who manages to blend the somewhat awkward parts pretty effectively.

I wish IMDB were able to post the movie's budget, with a cast of five and just a few sets, it couldn't be much. But they got their money's worth and so will viewers if you can get past the title and stupid warning.

A man brings his new wife to his home where his former wife died of an "accident". His new wife has just been released from an institution and is also VERY rich! All of the sudden she starts hearing noises and seeing skulls all over the place. Is she going crazy again or is the first wife coming back from the dead?

You've probably guessed the ending so I won't spell it out. I saw this many times on Saturday afternoon TV as a kid. Back then, I liked it but I WAS young. Seeing it now I realize how bad it is. It's horribly acted, badly written, very dull (even at an hour) and has a huge cast of FIVE people (one being the director)! Still it does have some good things about it.

The music is kinda creepy and the setting itself with the huge empty house and pond nearby is nicely atmospheric. There also are a few scary moments (I jumped a little when she saw the first skull) and a somewhat effective ending. All in all it's definitely NOT a good movie...but not a total disaster either. It does have a small cult following. I give it a 2.

Also try to avoid the Elite DVD Drive-in edition of it (it's paired with "Attack of the Giant Leeches"). It's in TERRIBLE shape with jumps and scratches all over. It didn't even look this bad on TV!

Welcome to a bad ghost story and someone's nightmare. This horror tale finds a newly married husband(John Hudson)and wife(Peggy Weber)haunted by the memory of his previous wife and screaming skulls found throughout their empty mansion and lily pond. Is the husband really trying to drive his already anxious bride insane? Or is it the learning challenged gardener Mickey(Alex Nicol)who has taken care of the mansion's grounds since the death of the original mistress of the house? This low budget horror flick has a story line that keeps you involved all the way the finale. Special effects are pretty bad even at 1958 standards. I swear at times the screaming skull sounds much like it should be in a Godzilla movie. Also in the cast as Reverend Snow is character actor Russ Conway. By the way...the lurking gardener(Nicol)is the film's director. You can catch this as part of AMC's Monsterfest.

The heroine actually does most of the screaming in this very poor man's 'Rebecca' that although an AIP release actually owes far more in content and style (and the friendly warning at the start) to William Castle. Director Alex Nicol makes his job considerably easier by casting himself in a role which requires him to speak only in monosyllables.

As the film begins a narrator warns us THE SCREAMING SKULL is so terrifying you might die of fright--and if such happens a free burial is guaranteed. Well, I don't think any one has died of fright from seeing this film, but a few may have died of boredom. THE SCREAMING SKULL is the sort of movie that makes Ed Wood look good.

Very loosely based on the famous Francis Marion Crawford story, SKULL is about a wealthy but nervous woman who marries a sinister man whose first wife died under mysterious circumstances. Once installed in his home, she is tormented by a half-wit gardener, a badly executed portrait, peacocks, and ultimately a skull that rolls around the room and causes her to scream a lot. And to her credit, actress Peggy Webber screams rather well.

Unfortunately, her ability to do so is the high point of the film. The plot is pretty transparent, to say the least, and while the cast is actually okay, the script is dreadful and the movie so uninspired you'll be ready to run screaming yourself. True, the thing only runs about sixty-eight minutes, but it all feels a lot longer. Add to this a truly terrible print quality and there you are.

There are films that are so bad they are fun to watch. It is true that THE SCREAMING SKULL has a few howlers--but the film drags so much I couldn't work up more than an occasional giggle, and by the time the whole thing is over your head will roll from ennui. If it weren't for Peggy Webber's way with a scream, this would be the surefire cure for insomnia. Give it a miss.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

This movie is typical of the films that were around when I was a kid. We actually went to them in movie theaters or drive ins and enjoyed them. We weren't jaded by the "more special effects" mentality that exists now. I love that some guy with a few buck would at least attempt a movie like this. I never saw the MST3 group do this, but it doesn't surprise me.

Now the plot is OK. It's a classic ghost story. Drag the new wife (who has some serious issues of her own) to the house of the first wife. Throw in a mentally handicapped gardener, and a lot of secrets, and you're set to go. Where it falls apart concerns what is real and what isn't. Are we seeing the psychological destruction of the man or do these ghosts really exist? How put together are these characters?

The skull, of course, is the central image. There are some really bad images. When the skull is rolled at the young woman, it looks like a bowling ball, bumping across the carpet.

Then there are all those late at night scenes where the bride must come out of her room, walk along the balcony, wait to go down and see what is going on. And, where is that husband all the time.?

The ending is pretty good. There should have been more of that all along instead of a plastic skull being used for horror effects. The acting is pretty stiff, but all these B horror films had pretty poor acting. I'd still recommend it.

****SPOILERS***** After killing his rich wife Mariam by staging an accident where she ended up drowning in a pond at the Whitlock Estate Eric Whitlock, John Hudson, realized that he jumped the gun by taking out Mariam before she she could leave a will. Thus tying up all her money and holdings and only leaving him the mansion with almost nothing in it.

Eric didn't waste any time and quickly married sweet and pretty Jenni, Peggy Webber, who's even more loaded, in money not booze, then his late wife Mariam. Jenni is also very emotional and erratic since she was a little girl. Having seen her parents drown before her eyes Jenni always felt guilty by not being able to save them. Since her parents tragic deaths her mental capacity deteriorated so much that she was committed to a sanitarium from where she was released just before she married Eric.

Knowing that Jenni is very suicidal Eric plans to drive her to kill herself by planting a plastic skull in various parts of the mansion. After Jenni is gone, by killing herself, Eric can grab all her money which he's having trouble grabbing from his first wife Mariam. This guy, Eric, is nuts, when you see how Jenni looks you would want to grab her not any of her money. With Eric, being her husband, grabbing Jenni isn't a crime but murdering her is.

Eric's plan is working to perfection as Jenni is slowing losing her mind and being driven to kill herself but there's just one hitch, the gardener Micky, Alex Nicol. Being very friendly with Jenni, in a brotherly-like way, who reminds him of Mariam Mickey spoils everything that Eric had planned for her by finding the skull that Eric had hidden in the pond and then hiding it in a flower-pot in the greenhouse.

Nothing that Eric can do in slapping Mickey around would have him reveal where the skull is, it seems that Mickey thinks that the skull is that of his dead friend Mariam. Eric thus changes his plan, was he that cheap that he had no money to buy an new plastic skull?, to drive Jenni to kill herself but to do the job himself. Unknown to him he had awaken the ghost of Mariam and she has some unfinished business to take care of with him.

Trying to copy the great William Castle the movie "The Screaming Skull" starts off with a warning to the audience that in case you drop dead from fight watching the movie the makers of "The Screaming Skull" will pay for your funeral expenses. Your told just leave the name and address of somebody that the theater can get in touch with to identify your body.

What would have been far more helpful was for the theater to give everyone seeing the movie "The Screaming Skull" a bottle off No-Doz extra strength to keep them awake long enough to see the movies ear-splitting and mind-numbing ending.

Some of these reviews are far more inept than the film the "insightful" film lovers are critiquing. Comments about a lack of gore and such are pretty telling as to the age and tastes of those who hate this flick so passionately.

The Screaming Skull is a creepy, atmospheric tale that relies on mood rather than effects to generate chills. It won't scare the pants off anyone, but it is suitably creepy for late night viewing. It's also wonderfully fun, in the typical 50s b-movie vein. A soap opera plot infused with horror elements. Classic AIP! One of my all-time favorite "bad" movies.

C'mon, people. This one's just fun all the way. The main villain is a skull who is rather unconvincingly underhand-pitched towards his enemies by an off-screen technician. Plus, free coffins if you die of fright from the movie! What's not to love?

When you have a disembodied skull, an empty mansion, a schizophrenic wife, a scheming cad and a nutzo gardener, throw in a minister and his wife - what have you got?

AIP's answer to insomnia.

"The Screaming Skull" gets points for audacity, offering free caskets for anyone who dies of fright from watching the film. Pretty safe bet, when you're lulled into a stupor by people who think they're in a production of "Suspense for Dummies".

But Peggy Webber was a cutie, anyway. She had a few good moments of acting here and there (especially when trying to communicate with the gardener) and no one else fills a nightgown like she. But that scared face she makes - scary in itself. Whoa.

As a whole, though, there is little suspense here and everything is telegraphed like a punch thrown by a mime. You can't be scared by this film, it's impossible. It has its moments, but not enough of them.

HOWEVER, thanks to a certain Mike Nelson and his two robot pals, there are several moments of pure joy, especially in the copy THEY got hold of ("The film jumped, and it was really scary!").

One star for "The Screaming Skull", eight and a half for the MST3K version.

Talk about a "Screaming" bore....

I agree with Shane Man, Screamig Skull may not be the best picture ever made or fine art, but it is a very good scary, chiller movie. All of the parts are taken by fine character actors. The black and white photography, setting and music give the whole thing an eerie atmosphere. The end is pretty scary too. Like I said, it may not be art, but it is the perfect thing to curl up on the couch on a Friday or Saturday night with a bowl of popcorn.

"The Screaming Skull" is your typical 1950s horror flick: some newlyweds move into the husband's house, where his deceased wife's skull may or may be not be ready to terrorize the new wife. I assume that when it first came out, the teenage boys really liked the scene where...well, you'll recognize it when you see it. If anything, this movie's most interesting aspect is that cinematographer Floyd Crosby is David Crosby's father. Back in 1958 when the movie got released, who ever would have guessed that the cinematographer's son would perform at Woodstock eleven years later? The trailer reminds you that if you die of fright while watching the movie, they'll pay for your funeral. As you can see, I didn't die while watching it. Director Alex Nicol plays the gardener; or, as I wish to call him (playing off of a recent Oscar winner), the non-constant gardener.

When I was six, I saw this movie first run and it gave me nightmares for months. I was afraid to be in my room alone, worrying about the screaming skull rolling across my floor.Twenty years later I noticed it running on television at 1:00 AM and decided to stay up to relive one of the great horrors of my childhood. The only horror that I experienced watching it as an adult was trying to stay awake! Terrible script, acting, and production combine to make it a particularly cheesy film. OK, I know that there are fans for these kinds of regrettable films, but unless you are one of these folks with unlimited time to watch bad films, avoid it.

This movie was mildly, mildly entertaining. Mainly because you keep thinking it's bound to get better. It doesn't, but you keep thinking it must. Basically, it's about a woman who gets married to a man who's first wife died tragically. As time passes, she begins to suspect that she is being haunted by the woman. While this film has some creepy moments, most of it is pretty boring, and nothing is really "scary". Most of you will also be able to see the ending long before it comes. Still, it's not a ridiculously TERRIBLE movie. And I'm sure I've seen the main character before somewhere, though I'm too lazy to actually look up her actor profile.

Synopsis: All's well when The Whitlocks return home from their honeymoon, until all signs point to the presence of another – Whitlock's dead first wife! Is Mickey playing dumb, or does he know something that Eric Whitlock doesn't?

OK, for all you guys who saw this in NYC on WPiX's "Chiller Theatre" in The '60s and '70s, this is for you. I loved it and was scared by it as a kid, laughed at it as an adult. Oh yes, those nasty little robots from MST3K made it viewable all over again! That said ...

... all the prints I've seen are poor, and the lighting is consistently overexposed in many scenes ... must've been filmed on someone's wedding budget ... for three guests. Still, it should be restored.

Nobody wanted to act in this turkey, so the director played the retard Mickey the Gardener. He's the one who looks like "Clapton!"

Cheers: Has atmosphere. Good ghosts. Great for kids, older kids won't scare at all. Roll the Credits! That's David Crosby's father Floyd doing camera chores!

Caveats: Stiff, slow and predictable ending.

Split Rating:

Adult Rating: 2 Stars

Kid Rating: 7 Stars

"Mystery Science Theatre 3000" Rating: Ten Stars!!! One of their best; some great lines.

How far can a movie's reputation rise above its actual merit?

When I was growing up, my best friend Steve often told me of the scariest movie he ever saw. It was about a skull that screamed as it flew through the air, killing all with whom it came into contact. I still remember his heart-stopping description of it springing to life from a shelf and attacking a helpless woman.

Steve had one vivid imagination. So does Jenni (Peggy Webber), the protagonist of "The Screaming Skull." After coming to live at the estate of her new husband, Eric, she becomes convinced she is being haunted by the spirit of his late first wife, Marion, often in the form of a skull that pops up in unexpected places. Sometimes she also hears screams, though Eric tells her it's only the estate peacocks.

It's hard to believe this was the movie Steve was so terrified of. For most of its running time, "The Screaming Skull" is a quiet melodrama with only faint hints of menace around its edges.

We watch as Jenni alternately speaks of how happy and in love she is or else screams her head off whenever she is startled by something Eric insists is all in her mind. Occasionally, for variety, Jenni and Eric talk to a friendly minister and his wife, but for a kooky gardener (director Alex Nicol) the only other people in this film.

Words can't do justice to how stiff a movie this is. Occasionally you get a musical sting from composer Ernest Gold and a worried expression from Webber, but otherwise this 68-minute movie is like watching paint dry.

And the dialogue! "I thought life had died for me..." "Learning from her, you give again to me. I wish there was some way to thank..." "Perhaps she slipped on a leaf..." "Dead people don't cry..." "The only cure for her fear is to teach her she is loved..."

"The Screaming Skull" is famous for one thing: A promise to patrons to pay for the "burial services" of anyone scared to death by the film. Nicol and writer John Kneubuhl apparently put most of their effort into ensuring no one would ever be in a position to collect.

To give the movie credit, the black-and-white cinematography by Floyd Crosby (who shot "High Noon" and was David's dad) has real character and works surprisingly well at establishing a gloomy mood despite the sunny outdoor setting. The actors are decent most of the time, and the obvious plot twist developed with some craft.

But that's not enough to offset the overall ineptitude on display. The scares, when they finally arrive, are much too artificial and contrived. When the title character finally does attack, it's more likely to provoke titters than jitters.

I didn't care much about how things worked out for Jenni, Eric, Skully, the Rev. I just kept thinking about Steve, wondering how something so inane as this could have provoked such captivating retellings back in the day. I guess sometimes there are two movies, the one that exists and the one we remember. Too bad the former is usually worse.

I *love* this movie. It terrified me deliciously on late-night TV when I was 12 or so, and when I discovered it on video in recent years I found it just as enjoyable as I remembered. [I admit that I no longer have to whip back the sheets to reassure myself that there's no skull in the bed, but as a kid I enjoyed several highly dramatic bedtimes because of "The Screaming Skull"...]

And the ghost in the greenhouse (plus funky theme music) still strikes me as a standout spook clip. Over the top? Maybe - but if a horror movie can't be over the top, what can?

...simply because there are so many insulting reviews directed at anyone who didn't think it was very good. I understand that people who saw this when they were younger were scared by it, and are fond of it. But they seem to think that people who say it's not very good are a bunch of 20-year-olds who only get "scared" by gore and have to have nudity and special effects to enjoy a horror film. Well, I'm close to 40, and the guys from MST3K aren't 20-year-old gore-loving idiots either. They are people who know movies, especially BAD movies. I hate gore and avoid it when I can because it's gross, NOT scary. But neither is this film. I happen to think the Ring was one of the most terrifying films I've ever seen, and it has practically ZERO gore, definitely no nudity, and no crazy special effects either (at least until the end scene). But I understand that since The Ring came out, there have been many movies similar to it, so a horror fan who sees it tomorrow isn't necessarily going to be terrified by it like I was. So I can usually avoid insulting their taste or intelligence. The Screaming Skull is fun to watch for the cheese factor, and it isn't the worst movie out there by any stretch. That doesn't make it good. It's predictable, it's cheesy, and the attempts at atmosphere and "scares" are pretty lame. Just my opinion, you shouldn't get all upset about it if you disagree.

Listen, if you have to start a movie with a gimmick such as "we'll pay for your funeral if you die from this film because it is SO terrifying," then you KNOW YOURSELF that you "got nothing". This was a type of gimmick that was used pretty commonly back in the day when the film-makers knew they didn't have much else to attract viewers. But if you can't accept that, at least try to understand that anyone who saw this after they were 8, has simply seen other movies with this same kind of plot and the same lame techniques. They can see the ending coming from the first 5 minutes. That's all. Saying it's because it "requires you to think" or you only like gore-fests, is unfair and kinda laughable. People disagree on things, you don't have to get nasty because someone else didn't like your favorite scary movie from childhood. Anyway, thanks for reading.