Hitchcock for the poor Ghost stories have always been one of the most common types of horror stories. First they appeared in literature, and from the beginning of the XX century – in cinema. Such films became especially popular in the 50s, when many small independent film companies appeared in the United States, which could make films quickly and cheaply. The most famous of these studios was the company American International Pictures, which put on stream the production of unassuming, but spectacular paintings on topics of interest to the audience, which were avoided by major film companies. One of these films was the film “Screaming Skull”, which became the directorial debut of quite famous actor Alex Nicolas at the time.
This film, shamelessly borrowing plot twists from such classic thrillers as Rebecca and Gas Light, tells the story of a woman with an unstable psyche named Jenny, who marries a wealthy widower and settles in his secluded estate. There she begins to hear strange sounds and see mysterious phenomena. Especially often she imagines a human skull pursuing the heroine in the most unexpected places. Jenny involuntarily begins to ask herself whether her ghost is haunted by Marion, her husband’s first wife, who died in this estate under mysterious circumstances. Or maybe there's no ghost and she's just slowly going crazy? Or is someone deliberately trying to make her mad? For most viewers, the denouement will not be unexpected, since the scriptwriters could not overcome genre cliches.
It is interesting to note an interesting fact: while in Russia this picture is almost unknown, in the United States it is in some sense a cult, as evidenced by about three thousand estimates on the IMDB website. Such fame, undoubtedly, contributed to the screening of the tape in one of the episodes of the popular US comedy television series “Mystery Theater 3000”, which is based on ridiculing the shortcomings of old low-budget films. I must say that the film “Screaming Skull” quite deserved skeptical reviews of film critics. Now its viewing can be recommended only to the biggest fans of old horror films.
4 out of 10