Format: Streaming video from Kanopy on Fire!
So much of old-school horror is a collection of Gothic tales. You have to think that at some point, part of the fun of making horror movies wasn’t specifically trying to scare people but getting to dress up in fancy costumes. The Skull is a film that takes place in the present of when it was made, but has some fun flashbacks to the past. We’re also going to be dealing with people who have a good deal of money, which means many of the trappings of Gothic style and a lot of Peter Cushing walking around in a smoking jacket.
The Skull is also a film in the long subgenre of “cursed item” horror. In this case, that cursed item is the skull of the Marquis de Sade, the guy for whom the term “sadism” was coined. The conceit of the movie is that de Sade was possessed during his lifetime and that this possession has carried on after his death, the skull being the focus. Essentially, everyone who comes into possession of the skull (at least most of the time) will end up themselves possessed by it.
We start with the skull being unearthed and the man who comes into possession of it having some terrible, unknown accident. After some credits, we move to the present day where we witness an auction of occult items. The two men we are going to concern ourselves with are Dr. Christopher Maitland (Peter Cushing) and Sir Matthew Phillips (Christopher Lee). The two battle back and forth over some items, with a set of demonic statues ultimately being the point of greatest contention. Phillips wildly overpays for them, and is not really sure why he did.
We are also introduced to Anthony Marco (Patrick Wymark), who works as a procurer of this kind of item for Maitland, who is a researcher and author of the occult. Marco shows up to Maitland’s house, offering him a sort of history of de Sade bound in human skin, which Maitland purchases for his research. Soon after, Marco shows up with the skull that he claims is that of the Marquis de Sade. This comes with the tale of its provenance, even though he doesn’t have actual proof of it. Maitland thinks about it and ultimately confers with Phillips.
It is Phillips who convinces Maitland that the skull is the real thing—essentially, Marco stole it from him, and Phillips has a number of experiences that he can’t really explain because of the skull. In fact, he is convinced that he overpaid for the occult statues because the spirits that use the skull as a sort of focus for their powers wanted the statues. He doesn’t want the skull back and urges Maitland to avoid it as well.
But, researchers being researchers, Maitland needs to see the skull, and when he goes to get it from Marco, Marco is naturally dead. And, naturally enough, the skull comes into Maitland’s possession, and the third act follows from that.
There are a few really interesting and noteworthy things about The Skull. One is that the last third of the film is essentially without dialogue. Most of this is the acid trip that Maitland falls into once he has possession of the cursed skull. We get to watch more or less in real time as his world crumbles into terrifying visions and irresistible desires to murder his wife (Jill Bennett). While there’s plenty of sound in this section, it is almost an homage to silent film. Another fun thing is that we are going to get a ton of shots throughout the film from inside the skull, almost always framing one person in one of the eye sockets, and sometimes framing one person in one and another in the other one. I started calling this “Skull-o-vision,” and it’s one of the more inventive parts of the film.
The downside is that this is really just another “cursed item” film, and there’s not a lot of surprises where this is going to go. It takes a lot of work to make this genre into anything new or different, and The Skull doesn’t really try to do so. It’s the same thing that we’ve seen before—the same “this item is cursed” speeches, the same warnings, the same evidence that the item actually is cursed being ignored, and the same inevitable results.
It's hard not to like The Skull for what it is, but it’s also easy to forget once you’ve seen it, outside of the Skull-o-vision shots. Still, any movie with Cushing and Lee, especially one where Lee is not the villain, is one worth finding.
Why to watch The Skull: So many shots in what can only be called “Skull-o-vision.”
Why not to watch: Where it goes isn’t surprising, even if getting there is.
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