An innocent bride, a brooding husband, a dead wife, a grizzled handyman and a friendly minister and his wife. Add in a ghostly presence, a skull that appears and disappears, and the lily pond where the first wife met her grizzly demise. Sound familiar? This starts off exactly like "Rebecca" with the grizzled handyman a combination of Mrs. Danvers and "Dark Shadows'" Willy long before the Gothic serial and 20 years after Alfred Hitchcock's adaption of the popular Daphne DuMaurier novel. Low grade American International offered burial insurance to those who died in the theater while watching the movie (or more possibly drive-in) and there was no William Castle to be found. It's all fun, ableit surprisingly good, and the conclusion is genuinely chilling, leaving the audience to make their own conclusions and ultimately get into the action a little more. Don't be put off by the total unknowns in the cast. They do a great job considering the budget and similarity to "Rebecca", perhaps making this head and shoulders above other Z grade shockers of its day.
Review of The Screaming Skull
