Sadly, though the legend of “The House of the Screaming Skull” may be nonsense, it’s still more interesting than anything that happens in Nicol’s film. It’s a nice legend but as is often the case with these things, it turns out to be complete nonsense – a 1963 study of the skull revealed that it belonged to a European woman and not a man of Caribbean descent. Stephen’s Church and returned to the manor house where over time most of the skeleton was lost, except for the skull. He was exhumed from the grave dug for him in the grounds of St. When Pinney refused to pay for the repatriation of his body, the slave is said to have returned as a screaming skull to bring ill-fortune on the family and the nearby village. The story tells of a West Indian slave belonging to the lord of the manor to John Frederick Pinney who had, on his death bed, sworn never to rest until his body was returned home to his home on the island of Nevis. In turn, Crawford seems to have been inspired by the folk tale of the “The House of the Screaming Skull,” Bettiscombe Manor in Dorset, England. The script, by John Kneubuhl, owes an uncredited debt to a 1908 short story by Francis Marion Crawford, also titled The Screaming Skull. But Marion – who may been murdered by Eric – really has returned from the grave and only she can save Jenni when Eric’s thoughts again turn to murder… It all turns out of course to be a gaslighting plot by Eric to drive Jenni mad and inherit her family fortune. Before long, Jenni is buying into Mickey’s belief that Marion’s ghost haunts the house, disturbed by strange screaming sounds (Eric dismisses them as the cry of the peacocks that live in the grounds) and skulls that keep appearing and disappearing around the house. Jenni is introduced to family friends the Reverend Snow (Russ Conway) and his wife (Tony Johnson) and the mentally impaired gardener Mickey (Alex Nicol himself). The main plot revolves around newlyweds Jenni (Peggy Webber), recently released from psychiatric hospital following the death of the parents, and Eric (John Hudson) who arrive at Eric’s country home where his first wife, Marion, had died when she hit her head on the edge of a pond. It opens with a silly bit of business offering free funerals for anyone who died of fright while viewing the film (William Castle’s Macabre (1958) had been a recent hit with a similar gimmick, Castle taking out $1,000 of life insurance for anyone who similarly expired during a screening). Occasionally it bursts into life with some atmospheric shots or the wild finale but for the most part it simply plods – it’s not awful by any means, just a bit ordinary. The first film directed by former actor Alex Nicol is nicely shot by Floyd Crosby, an Oscar winner for his work on Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (1931) and soon to become a regular collaborator with Roger Corman on a string of films shot for The Screaming Skull‘s producers American International Pictures, but it’s all so dull, a turgid plod through a plot that had already been played out many times already.
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