History Film / TheScreamingSkull

* BreakTheCutie: Jenni comes pre-broken, for your convenience.

* CrustyCaretaker: Mickey.

* DullSurprise: Believe it or not, the best example doesn't come from Jenni, but Reverend Snow when he finds Eric's dead body.

* {{Gaslighting}}: Eric's plan to drive Jenni insane and get control of her money.
* GoldDigger: Eric is a rare male version. The death of his first wife was so sudden that she hadn't finalized her will, leaving Eric with only the house, so now he's after Jenni.

* InNameOnly: Has pretty much nothing to do with the F. Marion Crawford short story (which is worth reading-- check it out [[http://gaslight.mtroyal.ca/scremskl.htm here]]).

* KickTheDog: Eric's treatment of Mickey -- though in this case it's more "Repeatedly Bitchslap The Dog".

* ManChild: Mickey.

* UnwittingInstigatorOfDoom: Reverend Snow inadvertently makes the situation worse. After TheReveal, it looks like Eric'll be able to have Jenni committed, but the Reverend talked to her and became convinced she really did see a skull. He intended to search the grounds for it the next day, even bringing along others to help. Hearing this, Eric goes to where he hid the skull, but it's suddenly gone. As a result, Eric plans to simply murder Jenni and fake a suicide before he's found out. Luckily, his attempt is interrupted.

Eric and Jenni are young newlyweds with a lot of baggage. Eric is a widower whose first wife died in an unfortunate accident, leaving him her country estate. Jenni is a wealthy young nervous wreck fresh out of an asylum. The estate's lone retainer, [[CrustyCaretaker Mickey the gardener]], loved Marian and dislikes Jenni for replacing her. Now they're all going to spend a few days in a huge, empty mansion echoing with the ghosts of the past. WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong

* TheBluebeard: Eric is after Jenni's fortune, and it's implied that he was also after Marian's.

* DrivenToSuicide: Jenni is established as suicidal at the beginning of the film. Eric is playing on this with both Jenni and their neighbors, hoping to either push her entirely over the edge or to cover his own actions if she found dead.

* SanitySlippage: Mickey may not have been the sharpest tool in the box, but Marian's death -- and possibly knowing Eric killed her -- sent him over the edge into MadnessMantra territory. Jenni herself teeters on the verge of this, but she survives thanks for Marion's intervention.

Eric and Jenni are young newlyweds with a lot of baggage. Eric is a widower whose first wife died in an unfortunate accident, leaving him her country estate. Jenni is a wealthy young nervous wreck fresh out of an asylum. The estate's lone retainer, [[CrustyCaretaker Mickey the gardener]], loved Marian and dislikes Jenni for replacing her. Now they're all going to spend a few days in a huge, empty mansion echoing with the ghosts of the past. WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong

While it soon becomes [[TheUnTwist transparently obvious]] that Eric is the culprit he's not the only one playing with skulls. His attempts to [[DrivenToSuicide drive Jenni to suicide]] (or at least set things up so that no one will ask too many questions when they find her hanging from the ceiling) go well until Mickey swipes the skull Eric's been leaving for Jenni to find. At the film's climax, when Eric goes looking for his missing skull, Marian's ghost turns out to be RealAllAlong, and a veritable pack of ghostly skulls hound Eric across the estate and drag him to death in the same pond where Marion drowned.

* SanitySlippage: Mickey may not have been the sharpest tool in the box, but Marian's death -- and possibly knowing Eric killed her -- sent him over the edge into MadnessMantra territory. Jenni herself teeters on the verge of this, but she survives thanks for Marion's intervention.

Meet a lovely couple of newlyweds, Eric and Jenni. Eric is a widower who inherited his late wife Marian's palatial country home after she died in an unfortunate and mysterious accident. Jenni is a wealthy young nervous wreck fresh out of an asylum. Oh, and there's also [[CrustyCaretaker Mickey the gardener]], he of unkempt hair and [[ManChild a child's mentality]], who claims that Marian "cries in the night" and dislikes Jenni as an unwanted replacement. Now they're all going to spend a few days in a huge, empty mansion echoing with the ghosts of the past, with nothing to hide their emotional baggage. WhatCouldPossiblyGoWrong

Screaming Skulls, that's what. Jenni starts to hear unexplained screeches at night, and stumbles upon skulls that disappear by the time she brings someone else to see them. Is the ghost of Marian hanging around to drive Jenni away? Is this all Mickey's doing, who underneath his moronic exterior hides the shrewd mind of a psychological torturer? Is Jenni suffering another mental breakdown? Or is Eric a murderer -- dispatching Marian for the mansion and attempting to do it again to Jenni so he can inherit her fortune?

Actually, though it's [[TheUnTwist transparently obvious]] that Eric is the BigBad, he's not the only one playing with skulls. His attempts to [[DrivenToSuicide drive Jenni to suicide]] (or at least create a condition in which her ending up hanging from the ceiling won't be questioned too much) go well until Mickey swipes the skull Eric's been leaving for Jenni to find and exposes him for the murderer that he is. At the film's climax, when Eric goes looking for his missing skull, Marian's ghost really ''does'' show up, and a veritable pack of semi-translucent skulls hound Eric across the estate before one attaches itself to his neck and brings him down in a pond, drowning him.

* DrivenToSuicide: Jenni attempted it prior to the movie. This, or having her declared incompetent, seems to be Eric's goal.

* SanitySlippage: Mickey may not have been the sharpest tool in the box, but Marian's death -- and possibly knowing Eric killed her -- sent him over the edge into MadnessMantra territory.

* HonkingArriingCar: The Reverend Snow and Mrs. Snow arrive at Eric and Jenni's palatial country home in a honking car. The horn toots off camera while Eric and Jenni are having a private moment, and Jenni suddenly wonders who it could be.

This 1958 American horror film was directed by Alex Nicol, a character actor who was tired of being typecast as villains in Westerns and film noirs and thought a horror movie offered an opportunity to expand his range. Besides directing, Nicol also plays a supporting role as Mickey the gardener. The movie was made on a shoestring budget, mostly filmed over two weeks at the Huntington Hartford Estate outside Los Angeles, with a small ensemble of character actors (Peggy Webber, John Hudson, Russ Conway and Tony Johnson) who agreed to appear in the movie for a reduced salary of $1,000. Nichol promised his costars a percentage of the film's profits, but the production company refused to pay the bonus.

''Screaming Skull'' was originally released by Creator/AmericanInternationalPictures in a double-feature package with ''Film/TerrorFromTheYear5000''. The movie gained some notoriety for its Creator/WilliamCastle-inspired gimmick of promising a free coffin to anyone who "died of fright" while watching it (unsurprisingly, no one tried to collect). Although ''Screaming Skull'' received decent critical reviews and performed fairly well in theaters for a low budget picture, it earned its creators very little money; one of [=AIP=]'s producers failed to file a copyright claim and thus the movie fell into PublicDomain almost ''immediately'' after its release.

''Screaming Skull'' was originally released by Creator/AmericanInternationalPictures in a double-feature package with ''Film/TerrorFromTheYear5000''. Although ''Screaming Skull'' received decent reviews and performed fairly well in theaters for a low budget picture, it earned its creators very little money; one of [=AIP=]'s producers failed to file a copyright claim and thus the movie fell into PublicDomain almost ''immediately'' after its release.

This 1958 American horror film was directed by Alex Nicol, a character actor who was tired of being typecast as villains in Westerns and film noirs and thought a horror movie offered an opportunity to expand his range. Besides directing, Nicol also plays a supporting role as Mickey the gardener. The movie was made on a shoestring budget, with most of Nicol's costars friends of his who agreed to appear in the movie for a reduced salary of $1,000. Nichol promised them a percentage of the film's profits, but the production company refused to pay the bonus.