Good Boy (2025), A Lynchian Hound-Led Halloween Film

 

By Joe Gibson

 

Introduction

 

This article includes some spoilers, mostly labeled in advance.

 

Good Boy 2025 (there have been other films by this same title in 2022 and 2023) is essentially a haunted house movie where the dog is the main character whose perspective and reactions frame our understanding of the story and dictate its trajectory. This is the directorial debut of Ben Leonberg, the real life owner of the dog, Indy, and it has a very small cast mainly consisting of Indy (the name is the same for his character), his owner Todd, and a couple other characters. (Leonberg has directed shorts and has credentials for both receiving a degree in filmmaking as well as teaching filmmaking to others, but a first feature film is still a milestone.)

 

From the moment I learned this movie existed, it was one of my most anticipated movies of the year, and, having learned more about it, I find it very impressive. The film took about three years to film because Indy is just a normal dog, not a trained actor, and, if you watch the film in theaters right now, there will be a section at the end where Leonberg talks about how they shot some of those scenes.

 

Review

 

The film is incredibly atmospheric, firmly planting you in a vulnerable perspective. The camera is low to the ground as it is for Indy, who is also the only character that the camera does close-ups for. The sound design plays up the sound of house creaks and windshield wipers because that is how it would be for the dog (also the flickering and pulsing of lights viscerally follows the flow of the supernatural). However, it would be imprecise to say that Indy is the POV character as the camera follows him rather than protruding from his intentions. We see the shadows come into view behind him a few seconds before he senses them so we are in a privileged perspective relative to Indy, where we know what might happen, but we are still stuck on his level unable to do anything to change what he is going through.

 

The film to prove this point also mixes reality with the surreal, ripping us from Indy’s nightmares to a Shadow Man’s hunt for Indy to dreamlike visions of another dog. Consequently, this is at least a little Lynchian; I do not expect great debate over that point. More than anything else, the film wants you to be able to feel the horror it creates without a grounding human presence (human faces are largely out of focus in this movie to allow Indy to step up as the true star), and so Leonberg’s directing takes literally every opportunity it can to build and codify that suspense. 

 

However, that is where it becomes very important that the POV character is not technically Indy but us along for the ride. As Leonberg reveals if you stay to the end of the theater experience, they did not have Indy act out these scenes or respond to scary stimuli (they lured him around the set with quacking noises); they are just constantly juxtaposting suspense with Indy’s neutral face to get a response. This is not mathematical precision but a function of the audience establishing emotional continuity, and I get the sense that Leonberg felt like if he eased up even a little on the suspense at all, the illusion might be shattered. (At only 72 minutes, even if you find the game tiresome, it is not that long.) 

 

Personally, I found that formula effective the entire time, but there is also eventually some progression. Consistently, the film executes its scares through lingering on juxtaposing images until something appears in the background like Michael Myers, then pulling back to Indy’s movements, entrenching you in a slow building suspense. Then, late into the movie, it hits you with two back to back jumpscares when the threat becomes more tangible. From this point onward, the reality defying visions and distortions of physical object permanence get more frequent, pulling us deeper into the house and its secrets.

 

Though this all is very interesting, the meat of my reviews are usually the logical consistency of characters and plot, but, while there is a lot to talk about with that, it is also very difficult because of the Lynchian nature of this film’s presentation and its leading man. The movie does not have the capability to explain the details of the haunting as they occur because Indy is a dog, just weaving him through open-ended imagery, confrontations with a Shadow and increasing stakes and obstacles all while still showing him yawn, piss, eat, whine, bark and sleep.

 

 

Interlude

 

I am about to discuss some of the finer details of the movie’s plot, but I will give you every opportunity to leave before I get to those details. First, I should say that I do not think any embargo exists on spoiling this film especially if doesthedogdie.com was allowed to report on this movie before the official release, and, even if it does, I am not any kind of official reviewer of horror media that gets early screenings on contract to withhold specific details or negative criticism. The only reason I got to see this on the 2nd and not the 3rd is because theaters around me had the film open today. Any civilian could have joined me, and any conversation we have in a public forum would have the potential to be this in depth. I strongly advise you not to read the rest of this if you have not seen the movie yet. In a year of great movies, this is still a remarkable experience you should not deprive yourself of. 

 

In any case uh, when I got to the theater, I was alone and then realized the full extent of my actions; I was watching an atmospheric indie horror movie not only in a party of one but in a completely empty theater. And then for some asinine reason, a Lego commercial decided to use zombies to make its pitch (I don’t like zombies). Before it could prime me for terror too much, I realized the commercial was self-defeating. These were not Haitian Zombies (which I tolerate) but Romero Ghouls, and they, stuck within their involuntary impulses, started to gravitate toward the Lego commodities, literally replicating the critique of consumerism that is Dawn of the Dead but unintentionally this time. 

 

Anyway, the film still did suck me into its POV, but I was not terrified. It was more a feeling of resignation to whatever was going to play out. I have stalled long enough. Proceed beyond this point if you wish, but do not say I did not give you every opportunity to avoid spoilers.

 

(Some of) The Plot

 

The film starts with a cold open demonstrating Indy’s perceptiveness and Todd’s illness, splicing in organic exposition to show the backstory of these two characters. Indy, as an expressive character growing in knowledge over the course of the story, does enforce his will on the plot in ways to make him a three dimensional character. Indy’s loyalty to Todd is the central idea to this story, motivating most of the scenes. Though I hesitate to fit it into the traditional Hero’s Journey structure, Indy crosses a threshold exiting the car and going into the scary house because Todd asks him to, and Indy will fight more to save Todd than for his own survival.

 

Following the cold open health episode, after they discharge Todd from the hospital, he decides to leave his apartment and go to his deceased grandfather’s house complete with a graveyard of his many family members that died young in the forest nearby. The grandfather’s house functions as a Gothic Old Dark one, and, while the entity seems to be following Todd there, it becomes clear that his grandfather’s death and the reputation of weird happenings at this house are tied to this. Todd’s name means death, so the stakes are clear.

 

As ghostly visions of a Shadow Man and an older dog correspond to opening doors and disembodied whining, Indy will have to figure out what happened to the grandfather and his dogs and what awaits them in the cellar. Todd, to an extent, is in his own movie getting denied a certain type of healthcare and using candles and incense for homeopathic therapy. When they go into the forest, a character in the distance reveals he is a foxhunter and offers warnings to our heroes.

 

Still, Todd isolates from society and his sister, and barely interacts with the foxhunter, going deeper into the possession of the Shadow, even shutting Indy out from being able to help him to increasing degrees. In these lonely moments, the dog Bandit enters the story, overlaying his memories with our experience of Indy’s perception (we view Bandit and Indy overlaid after Indy finds projections of Bandit’s bloody bandana, and Indy proceeds as if he genuinely perceived those events happening). The Shadow Man’s aura is pervasive; cutting through Bandit’s scenes by being the villain of that story to the point that it took me embarrassingly long to realize that the wisest interpretation of those scenes was that Bandit is actually a good guy.

 

I mentioned there are two back to back jump scares, and I will clarify that on a set-up and pay-off level, one of those is easily predictable because one of the horror movie VHS on the television screen shows that type of scare happening. The foxhunter also repeatedly foreshadows that fox traps are in the area, which we see pay-off late into the movie. The storytelling in that regard is careful, so I really do not know what to do with “Indy has a chain on him that he can’t remove that suddenly transfers to being around Todd” except for magic, unreliable narration or some kind of subtextual reading.

 

I like things to make sense, but I also cannot tell you how much of those confrontations with the Shadow and Bandit were dreams (dogs sleep a lot throughout the day). The ending is actually probably the best place to further that discussion, but the original disclaimer about spoiling the plot would magnify when discussing the ending. Please do not finish this essay before watching the movie, but it is here for when you do.

 

The Ending (Major Spoilers Past Here)

 

I know the discourse surrounding this movie very much relies on the notion that the dog’s survival is the only acceptable and watchable conclusion. (Some have gone even further, declaring that nothing bad can happen to the owner either because it would make the dog sad or that nothing at all should happen to scare the dog, at which point we don’t even have a movie.) However, I have had a more nuanced perspective this entire time. From a dog’s perspective, Indy fighting tooth and nail to his very last and saving his owner, then dying in his arms, would be a glorious worthy end. Even so, there is a logistical error.

 

What can a dog do to defeat a ghost/demon? Dogs may very well be the most pure creatures on this Earth, but the utility of a horror movie based around them is their comparative powerlessness, physically, emotionally and intellectually. I praised the Lynchian dreams before, but with those come questions about the true nature of what he is facing. The flashes of supernatural situations snapping back into the mundane, are they just visions, or does Indy, with the memory of a dog, merely forget fighting his way out, or is it Todd or Bandit saving him most of those times? Each of those means a different thing.

 

 

Going back into the film, the dialogue between Todd and his sister Vera would probably clarify more about what happened to their grandfather, and it is possible I might be able to find something more out about how much power Bandit has as a potential Big Good/Mentor character in this story, but there are deliberate holes here at least to my understanding. I have previously reviewed the atmospheric Noriaki Yuasa directed The Snake Girl And The Silver Haired Witch, which had a similar amount of supernatural and mundane wire crossing that led to logical questions about how the plot actually happens. The contradictions made Sayuri necessarily an unreliable narrator, but I posited that because it was the villain casting doubt on her perspective and Shojo manga (the source material’s genre) focuses on systemic lack of trust in women and girls, the decision was done to match supernatural events to mundane subtext (https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/09/plan9crunch-review-snake-girl-and.html). Whether or not that makes sense, we need to consider what else this movie is saying than just “here’s a dog and his owner and a Shadow Man trying to kill them.”

 

Alright if you’re still here, you get to read the ending now (I just can’t shake you, huh). Indy survives, but Todd does not. Todd finally understands the full scope of what is happening to him as he melts into the goopy skeletonized Shadow Man, praising Indy as a good boy but telling him he can’t save him. Vera arrives and finds Indy, with the implication that she takes him with her. I still have not spoiled that much about the individual scenes and set-pieces, but I genuinely cannot help myself trying to at least pose some interpretations for this movie. (It was really jarring to see Indy fail to save Todd, but I think it makes sense and also might hint at deeper subtext.)

 

Now, I am pretty sure the Shadow Man was in the cold open, and, even if he weren’t, the physical symptoms of Todd and his grandfather match as well as their ultimate fates. The affliction, whatever it is, affects Todd young, as many of his relatives in the graveyard have died young. There is also a non-zero chance that his grandfather is the Shadow Man, and the idea of Todd becoming his grandfather symbolically has some directorial merit to it. The grandfather predominantly appears through his VHS tapes in the television screen, but there is a notable scene framing Todd’s anguished head in the screen where his grandfather’s would be. Up until that point in the movie, that is technically the clearest view of Todd’s face. (Until the end, no human character gets to really show their face, which matches the Shadow Man in aesthetic.)

 

These similarities mean something, and, though this is a supernatural movie, pending a rewatch, I think it is a valid interpretation that the reason this film has an unreliable narrator that cannot save the day might be because any inheritable affliction that causes Todd to die young would be horrific for a dog to see. Indy grew up as Todd’s dog and now has to witness this dramatic decline of mental and physical health. As I write this, I am having difficulty locating what would necessarily change if this film were just an artistic depiction of a dog’s perspective on his owner’s decline and death. Let me put it this way. Lynchian works meld the mundane and macabre into a surreal dreamlike existence that makes you question how much of what you are witnessing is actually a dream. That mechanism would also work in the inverse; how much of these supernatural happenings are just the way that a dog sees the mundane events?

 

Throughout the movie, Todd coughs up blood, but he also takes unspecified damage to his arm (Indy notices a bandage), sleepwalks, bangs his head on the wall, stops breathing, witnesses himself sleeping and merges in and out with the violent Shadow Man. This is a verifiable cacophony of physical and mental symptoms to where I would not even attempt a diagnosis, but a hereditary illness is killing him and robbing him of his sanity, with his last moment being declarative clarity that nothing can save him. Can you really tell me that I am wrong for wondering if there is a more literal meaning for all of this?

 

Conclusion

In summation, this is a very moving and suspenseful movie positioning us with the dog while also maybe having some kind of deeper meaning that further discourse can help us arrive at. You may find the movie tired and repetitive for just how much of it lathers on that suspense, but this is an experiment from an indie filmmaker (and I also think the execution makes it a masterpiece). Please support this movie’s theatrical run; I do not really know where else you can see something like this movie except if you vote with your dollar that this kind of tense captivating experience is an aspect to modern horror. Let us know your thoughts on the movie in a comment, and thank you all for reading but curses if you read this far without watching the movie first.

The Haunting - An Excellent Haunted House, Supernatural Thriller

Review by Steve D. Stones

 

Based on the 1959 novel – The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, The Haunting (1963) ranks as one of the best haunted house-ghost story films in the genre. The film really packs a punch of scares and will make you want to sleep with a light on after you see it. It's a perfect film for the Halloween season. 

Built in a remote area of New England by a man named Hugh Crane in the early 1870s, Hill House has a reputation for being evil and haunted because of a series of unfortunate accidents that took place there. Ninety years ago, the carriage of Crane's young wife crashes into a tree, killing her, before she even sets eyes on Hill House. 

After the accident, Crane stays in the house and remarries while raising his daughter Abigail. Shortly after the marriage, his second wife falls down stairs in the house and is killed instantly. Crane is accused by locals of killing his second wife, so he flees to England, leaving Abigail in the house with a maid servant. 

Abigail stays in the same nursery room of the house for her entire life until reaching old age as a bed ridden invalid. One night while calling for the maid, Abigail dies in the nursery room. The maid inherits the house, but years later goes insane and hangs herself at the top of a spiral staircase in the library. The spiral staircase proves to be one of the creepiest features of the house, as we see in two separate incidences later in the film. 

Being intrigued by all the stories and misery surrounding Hill House, Dr. John Markway, played by distinguished British actor Richard Johnson, decides to conduct a supernatural experiment in Hill House with carefully selected human subjects. 

A distant relative in Boston of the maid rents the house to Markway, but warns him that everyone who ever stayed in the house never stayed there more than a few days. Luke (Russ Tamblyn), whose aunt now owns Hill House, is one of the group of four staying in the house during Markway's experiment. He is a skeptic of Markway's investigations and beliefs in the supernatural. 

Eleanor (Julie Harris) and Theodora (Claire Bloom) arrive at the house as test subjects. Eleanor has spent the last eleven years taking care of her ailing mother, so she is anxious to be a part of the group. Theodora was selected by Markway because of her skill of extra sensory perception. Eleanor was selected for experiencing a poltergeist as a child. 

During the first night at Hill House, Eleanor and Theodora hear loud pounding sounds in the walls that get progressively louder. The pounding transitions into a loud laughter of a female voice. While passing Eleanor and Theodora's room that night, Luke and Markway claim they did not hear any pounding in the walls. The two women laugh off their experience as something unexplained. 

At breakfast the next morning, Luke is asked if there is anything that frightens him. He mentions something in the hallway leading to the dining room that frightened him, so he takes the group to the hallway. On the hall wall written in chalk it says: Help Eleanor Come Home. 

Already fragile, Eleanor has a complete breakdown after seeing her name written in chalk. Down the hall from the chalk writing, Dr. Markway discovers a “cold spot” in the hallway near the nursery where occupants standing in the spot can see their breath and feel cold chills. 

Markway's wife Grace (Lois Maxwell) arrives at Hill House to warn her husband that a reporter has learned of his investigations at Hill House despite his attempts to keep the investigations a secret. Markway asks his wife to leave immediately, but she insists that she stay in the house with the group, even though she is a skeptic of the supernatural, much like Luke. She wants to stay in the nursery where Abigail spent most of her life. 

Markway tells her the room is locked and he does not have a key, but the door is wide open as the group approaches the room. Loud banging in the walls and high-pitched wind sounds penetrate the halls of the house the night Grace arrives. Markway runs from the parlor to go check on Grace in the nursery. Grace has disappeared and cannot be found. 

While the group searches for Grace, Eleanor climbs the spiral staircase in the library and is frightened by Grace when she appears through a trap door at the top of the stairs. 

On the DVD audio commentary for The Haunting, actress Julie Harris, who plays Eleanor, mentions that she felt very isolated and distant from the other actors during the production of the film. Her feelings reflect and enhance the great performance she gives on screen because she is the outcast of the group who is always emotionally fragile and distant from all the other actors on screen. On the DVD audio commentary, Actor Russ Tamblyn confirms that Harris was very distant from the other actors during the entire production. 

 Perhaps the biggest star of the film is the richly ornate, Rococo interiors of the house. The richly detailed relief wall carvings and sculptures in the house are a visual treat. A close up shot of a wall relief in Eleanor's room gives the chilling appearance of the face of a monster. 

The stark black-and-white photography greatly enhances the scary and foreboding feeling of the film, which is one of many reasons why the 1999 color remake fails viewers. The 1963 film relies on the psychological impact of not showing any horror on the screen, but instead allowing the viewer to anticipate the horrors that might appear. 

This Halloween season, I highly recommend the original 1963 chiller – The Haunting, directed by Robert Wise. Happy viewing and Happy Halloween!

Cat and the Canary an early haunted house film

By Doug Gibson

“The Cat and the Canary,” a 1927 silent from Universal, directed by Paul Leni, a student of the German expressionist school, is a fun spooky/silly horror/comedy. It’s based on stage plays of that era — the 1920s — that were popular, with spooky forbidding mansions, red herrings, young lovelies in peril, bumbling cops, and homicidal maniacs. While “The Cat and the Canary” is a reaction to what was popular 85 years ago, it also over time is the genesis of many of the cliches that horror film viewers expect from haunted houses for at least two generations after the film.

There’s the forbidding mansion in a state of decay, the ominous housekeeper, the deceased, crazy-in-life owner who has gathered his heirs to the mansion for a reading of his crazed will. There’s the collection of eccentric relatives, including a young lovely and a bumbling good guy who has a crush on the lady. There’s the stereotypical murder, a killer on the loose, and escaped madman, a bumbling cop or two, a sinister doctor, a creepy lawyer, and a couple of other oddballs thrown in for good measure.

That’s essentially the plot of “The Cat and the Canary.” Twenty years after crazy old rich Cyrus West dies, he gathers, by his command, his heirs to the mansion. They include the young lovely Annabelle West (Laura LaPlanche), and her cousins, bumbling Paul Jones, (Creighton Hale), and more forbidding Charlie Wilder (Forrest Stanley). Hale’s Jones, by the way, looks just like a befuddled “Harry Potter,” complete with the glasses and unkept hair. How ironic that generations earlier, we had a “Harry Potter-ish” character in cinema. Of course, he’s not a wizard, although he ends up being the hero in this tale.

Not surprisingly, young lovely Annabelle is the heir and will keep her riches as long as the doctor is assured she is not insane. If she’s proven insane, an unnamed person, whose name is in the lawyer’s pocket, will inherit all the cash. (I forgot to mention that the envelope with that name was apparently opened up.) Such are the convoluted but fun plots. It isn’t long before the lawyer is murdered and a murderous fiend is haunting the mansion, trying to bump people off and harm our heroine.

As mentioned, director Leni incorporates much of the silent German expressionist film style. Expressionist thought puts feelings, inner particularly, above the action that is being portrayed. We feel the haunted house through the prism of the actors, more so than through the action we are seeing. The haunted mansion is almost dream-like in its many hallways, stairs, curtains and claustrophobic atmosphere.

I particularly like one of Leni’s touches at the beginning, where he portrays Cyrus West’s madness by portraying him as a “canary” surrounded by cats eager to feast on him. It is important to recall that this is a spoof, and there is very witty comedy throughout. Hale in particular plays the wimpy-turned-heroic hero as well as many silent comedians such as Lloyd and Chaplin. Also providing very strong acting chops is Martha Mattox, who plays the forbidding, gloomy housekeeper, Mammy Pleasant.

“The Cat and the Canary” was a big hit and was remade in 1930 as “The Cat Creeps,” which was Universal’s first sound horror film. A Spanish version was made as well. Unfortunately, “... Cat Creeps” is believed lost. In 1939, it was remade as a comedy vehicle for Bob Hope. There was a 1961 Swedish version made and in 1970, Richard Gordon produced a British version. However, the 1927 version remains the best version. The film was, as mentioned, based on a popular play of the same name.

The classic haunted house setting, the expressionist horror mixed with laughs provides a nice atmosphere fit for a Halloween viewing. The film is often shown on Turner Classic Movies.

The Conjuring – Familiar, But Scary Horror Story

By Steve D. Stones

If you’re familiar with classic haunted house movies such as The Haunting, Burnt Offerings, Poltergeist and The Amityville Horror – The Conjuring may not have anything new to offer. However, director James Wan manages to create a retro 1970s atmosphere without trying to rehash too much of these old classics. There are enough scares in this film to fill an entire mansion.

World renowned paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, are contacted by Carolyn Perron, played by Lili Taylor, to investigate her farmhouse in Harrisville, Road Island. The farmhouse was once the scene of an accused witch named Bathsheba who hanged herself from a tree in the 1863 after having sacrificed her week old child to the devil. Her spirit possesses Perron to try and murder her children.

The first sign that something is wrong with the house comes when the clocks in the house have stopped at 3:07 am - the time the mother hanged herself. The family dog Sadie is also found dead outside the house.  Perron finds bruises on her body, and her children smell a foul odor in their rooms while being touched by something in their beds at night.

The Warrens keep items in their home that come from possessed places they have investigated. The items are blessed by a priest to keep them from becoming active again.

While doing research on the Harrisville farmhouse, the Warrens discover that the property was once over 200 acres and later subdivided and sold. A number of murders and suicides have occurred in homes built on the divided properties.

Ed Warren suggests to the Perron family that the house should have a cleansing - an exorcism. The Catholic Church has to first grant permission to Warren for an exorcism after evidence of a possession is presented. A priest and friend of the Warren’s, father Gordon, tries to push through the request to have the house exorcised.

The Perron family leaves the house to stay in a motel. Carolyn kidnaps two of her children to take them back to the house for a sacrifice. Carolyn’s transformation into a possessed witch is not nearly as effective as Linda Blair’s in The Exorcist, but it still manages to scare the viewer intensely.

Ed Warren performs an exorcism in front of Carolyn as thousands of birds hit the house – a scene straight out of Hitchcock’s The Birds. Carolyn returns to normal.

Many sequences in The Conjuring have a documentary feel to them, as if they are really happening at the moment.  The film manages to scare without any use of extreme violence and gore. The most effective scare is when Loraine sees an illusion of her daughter Judy moving in the water near where Bathsheba hung herself.

The Conjuring cost only 20 million to produce, and has gone on to gross 318 million worldwide – making it one of the highest grossing horror films of all time.  The film is based on a “true story.”

The only “true” aspect of the film may be the characters. They are all based on real life people. The end sequence shows actual photographs of the Perron family and Ed and Lorraine Warren.

For genuine scares and thrills, see The Conjuring. Happy viewing!

The Screaming Skull -- Fred Olen Ray's favorite low-budget, five-actor, one-location thriller

By Steve D. Stones

Director Fred Olen Ray once said that The Screaming Skull is perhaps the greatest low budget film made with only five actors and one location. If it wasn’t for Roger Corman’s 1961 classic The Pit and The Pendulum, I would agree with Ray. The Screaming Skull has my vote as second best for a film limited to less than six actors and one location.

The film opens with an interesting gimmick of a coffin opening with a sign inside that says: Reserved For You. The narrator insures viewers that the producers promise a free burial for anyone who dies of fright while watching The Screaming Skull. I wonder if they ever had to follow through with their promise?

Next, a boiling stream of water is shown with fog as a skull floats to the surface and a loud screaming of a wild bird is heard. The bold letters of THE SCREAMING SKULL dash out in front of the floating skull.

Eric Whitlock brings his new bride named Jenny, played by Peggy Webber, who later was a frequent actress on Jack Webb's TV show "Dragnet," to his mansion in the countryside after having been gone for two years. Eric lived there with his former wife Marion, who died in the garden when she slipped and fell on a concrete wall, banging her head.

The reverend Snow and his wife arrive to meet Jenny and to bring the couple some groceries for the night. Eric informs reverend Snow in private that Jenny’s parents had died many years ago in a drowning accident, making her emotionally unstable, but also inheriting their wealth.

That night while in bed, Jenny hears a constant banging sound, which she discovers to be the wind banging some window shudders against the house. The next morning she tries to make friends with the shy, introverted gardener named Mickey by suggesting they take some flowers to Marion’s gave.

The following night Jenny has nightmares as the sound of screaming peacocks haunts her dreams. She wakes to the sound of a loud knocking on the front door. She opens the door to discover a skull on the doorsteps. What follows for the rest of the film is a series of Jenny finding the skull all over the mansion, driving her insane.

Eric suggests that Jenny is hallucinating, and that perhaps her nightmares are a result of a portrait in the house of Marion. Eric decides to burn the portrait as Jenny witnesses the destruction of the painting. As the couple rake over the hot coals from the fire, another skull emerges, causing Jenny to faint.

It turns out that Eric placed the skull in the ashes of the fire to frighten Jenny. His goal was to drive Jenny insane so that he could inherit her wealth.

By some supernatural force, the skull returns to haunt Eric, causing him to be struck by lightning and drown in his garden pond, the same pond where Marion was killed.

It’s unfortunate that many film encyclopedias give The Screaming Skull such a poor rating. I find it to be a fun little film worthy of any serious B-movie fan’s list of guilty pleasures. It’s a film that goes well with a large bucket of buttered popcorn and a soda drink at 1 in the morning. Who knows, perhaps the producers of The Screaming Skull may still promise you a free burial if you die of fright while watching the film? Happy viewing!