![]() Director Alex Nicol reportedly got Peggy Webber interested in starring in the movie by telling her it was a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's film Rebecca.Each of the actors were paid $1,000 for their performances. The movie was filmed on the Hollywood estate of director Huntington Hartford in Griffith Park within six weeks.Unlike Castle, The Screaming Skull's director Alex Nicol did not actually contact an insurance company. Director William Castle made the same offer for his movie Macabre in 1958. This movie opens with a disclaimer offering free funeral services to anyone who died of fright while watching.With only 5 credited actors, The Screaming Skull has the smallest cast of any film used on Mystery Science Theater 3000.Released as the top half of a double feature with Terror from the Year 5000.In the aftermath, Jenni, Mickey, and the Snows finally have peace. Suddenly, there is a loud knock at the door. Jenni races into the house and Eric proceeds to throttle her. Meanwhile, Eric readies a noose to kill Jenni and make it look like suicide. Believing it to be the specter of the dead Marion, Jenni screams and flees with a shrieking "Marion" in hot pursuit. She takes a final walk to bid farewell to Mickey and espies a figure in the distance - someone in a wedding dress and veiled hat. Jenni prepares to return to the sanitarium. He violently confronts Mickey who tells him "Marion" took the skull. He races to retrieve it from the pond, but it's gone. He informs Jenni that he is sending men to search the estate for the skull and she relays the information to Eric. Reverend Snow becomes suspicious after hearing of the ashes and skull ceremony. Jenni, rattled, prepares to return to the rest home. He abandons Jenni on the lawn and takes the skull, hiding it in the garden pond, secretly observed by Mickey. Jenni swoons while Eric pretends to see nothing. Jenni and Eric start to bury the ashes, but that unearths yet another skull. They do so, and the painting seems to shriek during the process. Mickey observes from outside.Īs part of Eric's attempt to soothe Jenni's nerves, he urges Jenni to ritually burn the portrait of Marion because it reminds Jenni of her mother. Upon opening, there is a skull resting on the doorstep, and it appears to roll of its own accord into the house. One evening, Jenni hears vigorous knocking at the front door. Mickey tells Jenni that Marion "cries at night". Jenni attempts to befriend Mickey, and carries flowers with him to Marion's shrine on the estate grounds. Eric ascribes the presence of the aquatic vegetation to Mickey, who he suspects of entering their house unannounced at night. She discovers a lily pad from the pond where Marion drowned on the floor of the house, and later sees the image of a skull floating before the portrait of Marion. She also had heard sounds before she went into the sanitarium, so she's afraid she may be getting sick again. While alone, Jenni hears strange sounds, including knocking, distant shrieking, and doors banging. Meanwhile, Mickey talks to the painting of Marion in the lobby of the house. While Eric's away, Jenni tries to befriend Mickey. "She slipped on a leaf in the rain and hit her head on a wall and the base of her skull was bashed in and she fell in a pool and drowned," he explains. Snow divulges to Jenni the story of Marion's mysterious demise. Snow welcome the couple with fresh eggs and help them hang drapes inside the residence. Mickey was extremely close to Eric's dead wife Marion, having grown up with her. He also tends to the peacocks that live on the estate. They encounter the local Reverend Snow, his wife, and Mickey, a shabby, semi-verbal groundskeeper who can barely make eye contact. She blames herself for being unable to save them and also for hating her mother and wishing her dead prior to the accident.īack from their honeymoon, they move into the house without phone, lights, or furniture. Jenni's an unstable heiress who has spent time in a sanitarium due to a traumatic incident in her past in which she witnessed the accidental drowning of her parents. Eric Whitlock bring his new wife Jenni to his mansion on lavishly landscaped grounds from his previous marriage, which ended in the sudden death of his wife.
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