My memory (slips) on … to Marion Crawford and his horrid
story of The Upper Birth, which (with The Screaming Skull some distance behind)
is the best in his collection of Uncanny Tales and stands high among ghost
stories in general.
Some Remarks on Ghost Stories, M. R. James’ essay in The
Bookman (December, 1929)
I watched The Screaming Skull late at night with the
lights turned off and a howling wind buffeting the house, carrying the screams
of embattled birds over the roof as leaves swirled around our garden pond, the
depths of which are unknown to man or dog… It was indeed a dark and stormy
night and that’s always a good place to start with Alex Nicol’s unsettling
adaptation of Francis Marion Crawford’s 1908 short story of the same name.
Crawford, though less well known, came before H. P.
Lovecraft and M. R. James and influenced both in their writing as the above
quotation indicates. James, a fellow Cambridge University alumnus who would
read his stories to fellow uncanny professors at Christmas, took his idea of supernatural
physicality – as evinced in both the tales mentioned whilst H.P. took the idea
of post-mortem remnants a step further with ideas of physical mortality
transcending death and the persistence of ancestral curses. All of this is the
stuff of horror films as they came to be defined and this film, an American
International Picture, feels a lot like the kind of tense, lower-budget film
being made over the pond by Hammer.
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| Newlyweds: John Hudson and Peggy Webber |
Crawford died in 1909 – an untimely heart attack triggered by a lung injury some years before, but his influence grew. So it was that API who were establishing a significant horror brand looked to make a film of this simple but dramatic tale that would play on the imaginations of its characters and audiences alike with the singularly persistent physical remnant of a murdered women: her skull.
This is a narrative which relies on the reactions of the
characters and Alex Nicol’s controlled unwinding of their mental state and the audience’s
awareness and fear of the reality of this haunting. There is also mundane
murderous humanity at play but a sense that a balancing of the books is driving
this spirit onwards. It was Alex Nicol's directorial debut and he acts too as he
did in the likes of The Man from Laramie,
The Twilight Zone and many other TV staples.
Eureka Classics is now presenting his film on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK and it's a must-watch, even through the fingers you hold up in front of your eyes as you hide behind the sofa.
The Screaming Skull starts, as so many films do, in the illusory safety of a large country house... it looks idyllic but there's a rather large pond which somehow looms under the property across the lawn. Eric Whitlock (John Hudson) and the wealthy Jenni (Peggy Webber) are just married and moving into this secluded retreat which he inherited following the untimely death of his first wife Marion some years before who had drowned in the pond after falling and knocking herself unconscious.
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| Things waiting to go bump in the night... |
The house is reassuringly lovely and there's even a friendly priest, the Rev. Edward Snow (Russ Conway) and his wife (Tony Johnson) - all the elements of normality are there to counter-point what is to follow. Jenni quickly finds that Marion's presence is still felt with the traumatised groundsman, Mickey (Nicol multi-tasking) believing that Marion’s spirit has never left the estate. Then there's Marion’s startling self-portrait on display upstairs - she looks manic and as the camera lingers it's as if she is staring right at her successor...
Gradually, strange things start happening as Eric goes away on business, leaving his new bride alone and victim to her own imagination... she has a history of mental illness and is she just over-sensitive and "hysterical" (classic tropes for women in this era it has to be noted) but the bounds between her perception and physical reality become ever more blurred...
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| Alex Nicol, acting and directing at the same time |
This is one of the missing links between gothic melodramas such as Rebecca and the intensity of The Innocents and The Haunting, onto the films of Hammer and co, from which you can pick anyone from fifty. It is packed with unsettling moments and builds towards the inevitable crisis and revelations with a disquieting pace and some guile. It's a milestone of independent American horror cinema and a line goes all the way back to Marion Crawford, Lovecraft and James... their heritage wasn't writ on the page but in our blood.
The transfer looks pristine and the set is haunted by some very enthralling extras…
- Limited Edition of 2,000 copies
- Limited edition O-card slipcase and interior packaging featuring new artwork by John Dunn
- 1080p HD presentation on Blu-ray
- Original English mono audio | Optional English subtitles (SDH)
- New introduction to The Screaming Skull by horror novelist Stephen Laws
- Shrouded in Mystery – new video essay on The Screaming Skull and the gothic horror tradition by film and literature scholar Mary Going
- Trailers
Not to be missed and only available with the Limited Edition
is: a collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the production and
marketing of The Screaming Skull by film historian Jon Towlson, author of
Subversive Horror Cinema
You can order The Screaming Skull direct from Eureka
and from all good retailers but you will be haunted by regrets if you fail to
get the Limited Edition.
Do it now!!
I love the begining were the film makers offer to cover the funeral costs of anyone who is dies from the film's shocks... there's confident marketing! I wonder how many they had to pay out for...?
Dare YOU watch till the end dear reader?
