Do you all know how much your King Mongoose loves you? I care for all of you defective darlings so much that I sat through this stinker of a film just to tell you, no, warn you to stay away, far away!

The dog of a movie in question is 1958’s The Screaming Skull. You know a movie has to suck (and I don’t mean blood) if it has to start out offering free funeral services to those who may die of fright in the audience. Oh, please! You could show this to your cardiopathic granny or your nine-year-old niece or nephew and the only fear generated would be that of your guests kicking your shins for showing them this tedious film! Its only real saving grace is that it’s just over an hour (01:08:00), “free burial services” sequence included. I can’t help question if it had been filmed hoping to be included in one of the anthology shows popular at the time such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents but ultimately rejected. Clumsily edited, dread factor zero, bare minimum production values, mediocre acting, trite script with the “clues” being dribbled as if from an eyedropper.

There’s the haunted portrait of the departed wife created by someone from a beginner art class, painted not on canvas but posterboard!—there is a scene where the cursed painting is to be burned on a pyre and it curves under its own weight! There’s a screaming skull, yes, but there are actually two—one is a stand-in, I suppose?—and you can see the difference! There’s a shot of the titular skull on the staircase and you can see the stick that makes it “leap” from the step! One laughably “ominous” shot of perched birds flying away from their branch…not because of some ghostly force but because someone threw a rock at them clearly visible in the shot!

Run, my children, run away! Watch whatever else is “suggested for you” or next on the playlist! Or better yet, put down your cellphones, go outside and get some fresh air…and maybe some Halloween candy too, while you’re at it!