Killer B's on DVD: The Skull

I'm not certain that this DVD's release was intentionally planned to come so quickly on the heels of the latest Indiana Jones film, but this horror flick from 1965 (just out from Legend Films) does deal with skulls and stars not one, but two future denizens of the Star Wars universe (anyone recognize Grand Moff Tarkin and Count Dooku in the picture above?). I suspect it's more coincidence than anything, but there are enough elements present to make fans of classic horror utter "why, what have we here?" The Skull was directed by Freddie Francis and stars Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, with a brief appearance by Michael Gough (Alfred from the Tim Burton Batman movies), all of whom were veterans of Britain's Hammer Films, the studio that set the standard for gothic horror from the mid 1950s through the early 70s. This is not a Hammer film, but is in fact a product of Amicus Productions, another British studio that is best known today for its anthology horror films like Tales From the Crypt and The House That Dripped Blood.

The film opens in the early 1800s with a scene worthy of any Hammer film. A phrenologist named Pierre has hired two unsavory types to unearth a coffin in the dead of night. He removes the head of the long dead corpse and takes it home where he uses acid to remove the remaining flesh. Pierre seems pleased with his smiley new acquisition, but he soon meets an unpleasant (though unseen) end at the hands (or rather, teeth) of the newly disinterred noggin.

I had hoped this was going to be a period piece, so I was disappointed when the setting shifted to modern times. We meet Christopher Maitland (Cushing) and Sir Matthew Phillips (Lee), rival collectors of occult antiquities. A set of demonic statues raises both their interests, but Phillips outbids Maitland with a ridiculously high sum, though when asked he doesn't know why he wanted them so badly. Both men have had dealings with a man named Marco (Patrick Wymark), a disreputable dealer in items both men find of interest. Marco sells Maitland a book by the Marquis de Sade, a volume that is bound in human skin and offers to sell him the skull unearthed at the beginning of the film, which we now learn belonged to the Marquis.

Maitland discusses the offer with Phillips, from whom it turns out Marco stole the skull. Phillips doesn't want the skull back and he advises Maitland to stay away from it too. The Marquis de Sade was not just insane, it seems, but possessed by an evil spirit which lives on in the disembodied skull. It's the skull's influence that caused Phillips to buy the demonic statues. Maitland is soon feeling the effects of the skull and he experiences some bizarre hallucinations. Marco soon turns up murdered, his throat bitten out by something. Phillips offers Maitland a crucifix to keep the skull's evil at bay, but it may already be too late.

Lee and Cushing always had great chemistry, and it's nice to see them together. Lee is especially fun to watch as he just radiates the sinister, even when he's playing a non-villain role like he is here. Sadly, even though this film contains many of the ingredients that made for successful Hammer films (the stars, the graverobbing, the cemetery set built on what is obviously an indoor studio) this film doesn't compare favorably even to Hammer's minor efforts. The fact that the script is based on a short story by prolific horror writer Robert Bloch, who also wrote the novel upon which Psycho was based, gave me hope, but the film just doesn't work. While I can enjoy a film that employs an old school spookiness, skulls and floating books just seem silly by today's standards. The skull influences those it possesses to kill, but it's apparently an indiscriminate urge, and frankly I like my evil forces to have some kind of motivation other than "kill anything with a pulse."