Filmic Friday 27

Last Friday we settled in with an old standby: The Screaming Skull

This looks so much cooler than the actual movie!

Of course, we watched the MST3K version, so we were also treated to the thoroughly upsetting Gumby short Robot Rumpus.

And yes, I'll explain the odd headgear on Mike & the 'Bots in a second.

So, Robot Rumpus is the story of how Gumby rented a bunch of robots to do his chores for him. Lazy? Yes. Inherently wrong? No. The robots malfunction and wreck a bunch of stuff and instead of suing the company they rented the robots from (and which allowed a child to rent potentially lethal machines), the parents punish Gumby. Also, they hang a robot head from the front of their garage.

People wonder why I stopped watching religious shows/movies.

The ones I grew up with were almost all as messed up as this one.

Regardless, eventually, the show moved on to the movie, and what a movie it is!

Uh, just to recap, this is what Mike & the Bots are wearing in the theater during the short.
It's because Pearl, Bobo, & Brain Guy had fooled them into wearing costumes.
It's a running joke that Bobo kills later.
It's a lot funnier in the show :P

The Screaming Skull is the story of a widower who has remarried. His new wife, the real main character, has some kind of mental illness that she's battling. She doesn't overcome it in the movie, which I give it props for, but she does struggle a lot. She wants to be a gracious bride and honor the memory of her husband's deceased wife, she's friendly to everyone she encounters, she's kind, she's dutiful, and when she begins to suspect that her mind is betraying her again, she immediately seeks help. I like this woman. She's not stupid, and she thinks about both herself and others.

Her husband, meanwhile, is a grade-A jerkwad.

Hubby couldn't be more suspicious. I've married a new woman! Better take her to the house my previous wife died in and constantly tell her that she shouldn't go back to the hospital. Can you guess the financial status of Jenni the Second Wife? Ding Ding Ding! She's loaded!

Now, before you cast all suspicions on Eric (aka Hubby), let's look at the rest of the characters:

Marianne, Eric's first wife, supposedly slipped and fell, hitting her head on the edge of a decorative pool and drowning. Hm. Suspicious.

Reverend Snow & his wife are neighbors and old friend's of Eric's, but they both also really like Jenni, who they treat with a great deal of care and affection throughout the movie.

Finally, there's Mickey.

What a looker.

Mickey is the mentally challenged gardener who is obsessed with Marianne and her grave and her flowers. He's kinda creepy, but that's just the way it's shot. He never really does anything objectionable, and he's plenty clever in his own way. He's also played by the director, Alex Nicol.

Does the presence of Mickey smell fishy? That's because he's the most obvious Red Herring in the history of film/fishing industry crossover. Put this man in a tin with oil, stat!

Pretty much the second Jenni's left alone in the big spooky mansion, bad things start happening. Namely, she keeps running into the eponymous screaming skull. It doesn't scream. She does. I think. It's hard to tell.

To be fair, she really tries not to freak out the first time she sees it.
She's trying to be brave.

I actually really like Jenni, since she's not rock stupid. She's psychologically delicate, yes, but give her a break! In the span of what sounds like a very few years she loses her parents, has a mental breakdown, recovers enough to meet people, gets married, and now she's moved into a house where the previous Mrs. Eric died pretty horribly and the electricity doesn't work and there's no freaking furniture! I'd lose it too!

So Jenni's freaking out and getting twitchier and more anxious the whole movie. Guess who's planting the skulls? Is it Mickey trying to get this usurper out of his beloved Marianne's house? Heck no, he likes Jenni because she treats him like a human being and he gets why she's nervous around him because he's a stranger to her! It's freaking Eric. Her husband. Because she's loaded and if she dies or is committed, due to it being 1958, he gets everything she owns.

Anyway, Eric gets his comeuppance eventually (after the Reverend & Wife piece together that he's a garbage man with a garbage plan) when his wife's actual ghost attacks him. Seriously. She drowns him in the same pool he likely drowned her in. It's a cool scene, weirdly enough.

Though the special effects occasionally leave a lot to be desired.

All in all, as slow as this movie is (and it's slow) it's not a bad movie. The gimmick for this film, since many horror movies had gimmicks back in the 50s/60s, is that if you died of fright because of the skull drowning a dude who deserves it, the film company would cover the costs of your burial. Since the company never even paid the cast & crew of this movie everything they were owed, I find this claim to be quite... bull. So - bad gimmick, not bad movie. I'd actually watch this on its own!

I think I may have seen an episode of Svengoolie where this movie played...

I think that's all from me today!

Go Enjoy Something!
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