The Screaming Skull (1958) on Netflix
Eric Whitlock brings his bride Jenni to the estate where his first wife Marion drowned. Mickey, the gardener, believes Marion's ghost walks the grounds, and Jenni hears screams and sees skulls.
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- IMDb4.0/104,352 votes
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Trailer
Plot summary
Jenni comes to Eric Whitlock's country estate as his second wife, into a house still full of his first wife Marion, who died when she slipped at the edge of the ornamental pond and drowned. The Reverend Snow and his wife arrive to welcome the new mistress of the house; Eric tells them that Jenni spent time in an asylum after her parents drowned, and Mrs. Snow notes that Jenni is very wealthy. Mickey, the gardener, was Marion's friend from childhood and resents Jenni, and he holds that Marion's ghost still walks the property. Marion's self-portrait hangs in the house and Jenni thinks it looks like her own mother; she hears screams she cannot explain and keeps coming upon skulls. Jenni begins to fear for her own sanity.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Screaming Skull (1958)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- To get Peggy Webber to star in The Screaming Skull, director Alex Nicol told her he was planning a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca and brought a copy of the screenplay to her house.
- The Screaming Skull's opening disclaimer promising a free burial to any viewer who died of fright borrowed a gimmick from William Castle, who offered Macabre (1958) ticket-buyers life insurance; unlike Castle, Alex Nicol contacted no insurance company.
- The film was loosely based on "The Screaming Skull", a horror story by Francis Marion Crawford, which drew on English folklore about a screaming skull kept at Bettiscombe Manor in Dorset and said to belong to a black slave refused burial in his native country.
- While shooting The Screaming Skull, Peggy Webber found out she was pregnant, so several scenes had to be rewritten, including one in which she was meant to fall down a staircase.
- Director Alex Nicol promised The Screaming Skull's actors a cut of the film's box office earnings, but an issue with the film's distributor meant they never received it.
- The Screaming Skull was never registered with a copyright office despite an onscreen notice claiming copyright for Madera Productions, so companies such as Alpha Video, Echo Bridge Home Entertainment and Mill Creek Entertainment have issued public-domain DVDs of it.
