Search - The Screaming Skull on DVD

5 stars for groovy movie, minus 10 stars for lousy DVD

GODFREY HAMILTON | HOLLYWOOD, CA USA | 05/13/2004

(2 out of 5 stars)

"This is an endearing , odd little film directed by industry workhorse Alex Nicol who died recently at the grand old age of 85, and who gave himself the role of the grief-struck gardener Mickey in "Screaming Skull". Smart move; he's the most interesting character in the flick. I remember being scared by the trailer and even the poster when this movie first came out, but then I was 7 years old and a good, lurid poster could scare the bejayzuss out of me. The movie is cheap, moody, and the spare unadorned settings (I should think the peacocks and the flowerpots in the greenhouse took up most of the film's budget)
somehow work to create a sense of jagged paranoia, although you'd think the new bride would be a tad suspicious that her new hubby can't seem to get the electricity turned on in the dark mansion he's brought her to, and she has to manage with the light of one (!) sputtering candle by which to read her Henry James. And it's a mark of the movie's quirkiness that her bedtime reading is Henry James, and not ... well, given the era, Erskine Caldwell...
however, what should at worst be a guilty pleasure and at best a treasured item in your genre DVD collection, is sabotaged by the awful quality of the print. Alpha Video are very hit and miss, for instance their "Brain that Wouldn't Die" and "Killer Shrews" are not half bad, quite crisp with good sound, whereas "Night of the Blood Beast" is a scratchy splotchy mess, and "Hercules Unchained" has great chunks of the movie missing. But if you're keen to have a copy of some rare items, AV are often acceptable given the attractive packaging and LOW prices. In the case of "Screaming Skull", however, they frankly have a lot of nerve charging ANYTHING for the DVD. The print is speckled and scratched throughout, in places badly damaged, it jumps and hiccups, the tonal quality is non-existent; contrast so dreadful the whites flare into a screen-bleaching nothingness while the darker tones emerge as charcoal-dark blotches making the whole thing resemble a monochrome Jackson Pollock. At the most viewable moments, the image is a dull degenerated gray. Even more egregious, if that's possible, is the sound - so muffled that our plucky heroine's dialogue is unintelligible, you have to grab at a word here and there and try to infer what she might be saying. The male voices - lower register - do survive reasonably intact. Alpha Video really should be ashamed of themselves on this one. They can't keep hiding behind "But look how cheap!", eventually fans will wise up and start demanding refunds. On "Screaming Skull" at least, AV should pay us, the eager collecting movie fan public, for taking this dreadful technical travesty off their hands. But hey, I repeat ... the movie is strangely loveable, and hopefully someone will, one day, find a cleaner print."