THE SCREAMING SKULL (1958; d. Alex Nicol, w. John Kneubuhl)

Newlyweds (un/conscious in seeming harmony, to deteriorate as dreamer w/draws further into self) arrive at widowed (separation from Powerful Woman in past aka Mother, her ghost his ma-lingering attachment) hubby Eric Whitlock’s empty, rundown mansion (the unconscious dream theatre, housing only two cots [sexual dysfunction, and division btwn consc states] + 1st-wife Marion’s portrait [pairing suggesting relation btwn her + sex-lives]) inherited from Marion’s family (the boy having never left mommy’s influence), in futuristic gull-wing Mercedes (present taking residence in past mind revisiting memory + unresolved issues there), he only remembering after fact to carry her over threshold (traditional allusion to deflowering, he no Romeo); Marion sold all her parents’ furniture (she successfully matured, having broken from family-past) but apparently didn’t live long enuf to reappoint house (Eric’s own stillborn graduation to sexual adulthood + bride Jenny’s barren womb w/ loveless mate, portrait reminding her of own mother inability to associate adult self-img w/o husbandly attentions).

Meets slow-witted groundsman Mickey (mind at ½-power in sleep + semi-conscious caretaker of mental properties, his limp the hero’s own stunted self + heroine’s debilitated "regressive masculinity," or archaic sense of own "masc" agency in world), who grew up w/ + loved Marion (fanciful union of masc + fem selves for Jenny+Mickey both, M+M simultaneously bro+sis, husband+wife and boy+mother, his attachment to house persistence of vestigial eternal-child puer), + surrogate parents Reverend + Mrs Snow (spiritual adult self-imgs + not-the-parents for orphaned J; surname both purity + austerity for wmn desiring less of both); Eric fills Mrs in on wife’s psychohistory (spent a yr In after witnessing parents drown: 1, period of dreamless sleep [drowned folks own submersion of consciousness on advent of sleep; cf similar backstory in ’63 Outer Limits "It Crawled Out of the Woodwork"] while mind assimilates facts + reformulates into dream-analogues; 2, latency period after transcending own family-connection, leaving in end w/ Snows united w/ their spiritual essence) while cleric recounts Marion’s death to J (slipped in rain [J’s grief] + fell in garden pool [drowning in sorrow (reiterating parents' fate), her visitations J’s own resurrected Self after hospitalization]) running down from greenhouse (fecundity: reminder of own lack thereof).

Jenny reads Henry James’s BEAST IN THE JUNGLE (about man waiting life for great thing to happen, realizing at grave of wmn w/ whom he’d confided that she was it: Jenny’s desire for Eric/all men to recognize her/all wmn’s value, answered by following action) + commiserating w/ protagonist (sensing connection to hubby who unconvincingly choruses her sentiment: his disconnection from own insight), Eric making love w/ her in response (ostensible appreciation to be contradicted soon after); wakes to banging window (own recently opened "aperture") + E gone (lack of commitment to bedroom), mtg him in portrait rm w/ lily pad on floor (seen in picture bkgd: room ambiguous 1/2-world btwn art/death + life, à la dream, signaling Her lingering presence in his mind), he assuring her its Mickey-source wd be banished from house (bkwds manchild ejected now marriage consummated).

Next day, Eric goes to meet never-seen + oft-referenced lawyer Mr Maurer (governing consciousness conspicuous in absence [dreaming self visible only in constituent parts]; w/ Mickey + Marion 3rd M/ind to her spirit-Soul + his handyman-Body) whose "clutches" he trying to get out of (retreat from rational consc’ss, he also mature father figure, identification w/ whom E trying to avoid), so J makes friends w/ Mickey (she not-Marion/soul anima, or men’s feeling-self [her + Marion’s personal wealth anima’s value to males, often exploited by misguided ones], acquainting self w/ outward manifestation of pathology so to understand) + puts flowers on grave (grown by Mc in greenhouse he maintains, he similarly soulful custodian of inner fecundity, reverence for mother/Goddess [Gaia + wmn’s sacred aspect] source of same), told by him "she cries at night" (à la title object: femininity not being honored – in man or wmn – her sorrow finding voice instead in vengefulness), which she attributes to peacocks on grounds (pride – both husband’s destructive + wmn’s wounded); that night (Eric’s several + continued absences 50s men’s lack of involvement in family + her own tenuous relationship w/ rationality), finds skull in closet (repressed intellectualism – cf James book – for her awa Yale-educated playwright/scripter Kneubuhl) + flings it out window (rejected consc’ss – bare-bones analogue for dreamer Maurer, POV on house as skull rights self the Self regarding self in drms) + answers knock at door to find it at her feet (persistence of symbol – own desire to be acknowledged by ego/husband/society) then fainting, blood on hand guilt over parents’ death ("can still hear [mother] screaming" [as Marion's "cries"]: incarceration as of all similarly drowned wmn in "mad" culture) + sexual entendre, wound from cabinet loss of innocence on seeing self revealed there).

Eric burns portrait (of Marion by lilypond where she found dead: eliminating assoc btwn mother/womb + death) as grave-flowers wilt (similar resolution of fealty twd lost ideal), he finding skull in ashes (distilled remains of fixation confirming diagnosis: behind mother-img was death [or intellect]) + hiding it in pond after spooking Jenny (plot to drive her back to sanatorium regression from lover to mother + returning fem self to repression), observed by Mickey (previously gone missing: surrogate-ego "caretaker" absented so truth may reveal self, revived once accomplished in order to register revelation); when skull disappears (Eric losing control of both fem intellect + own rationality), hounds Mc into greenhouse where told "Marion took it!" (wmn repossessing own ego in pre-dawn of Wmn’s Mvmt), he either lying, loony, or….

That night, Jenny sees ghost in greenhouse (own lost fecund wmnhood) chasing her out ("spirit" reborn from verdant womb, eerie leaping gaiety on release; genuine hauntings commencing on portrait-immolation destruction of fixed img yielding liberation of true spirit) + back to house where Eric strangles her (absenting of 2nd ego – à la earlier Mickey disappearance – leading to total abandonment of reality/reason) then met at door by skull-ghost (threshold he forgot to bring J across – introduction of femininity into own personality [men now at similar t’hold] and lack of sexual attention + its frightful yield), head now pursuing him across estate until biting throat + drowning him in pool (resolving "suffocation" – primarily of wmn – motifs in earlier drownings + J’s throttling; also, reuniting m+f in murky, watery unconscious); Snows arrive (return of spiritualized parental figures now Jenny made whole) + lead J away (home ironically asylum she saved from, film prophetic apotheosis for domesticated 50s wmn) + leaving Mc alone at house (subconscious now in charge [as previously "subservient" character actor Nicol, now director], J presumably moving back twd consciousness [earlier-professed love for father + hatred of mother/unconsc charting course for her character to follow thru film/dream]) + telling pond "They’re gone. Rest" resolution of unquiet issues in estate now cleansed of outsiders/conscious agents.

Title object folktale fixture most prominently represented by F. Marion Crawford’s story of same name involving slave exacting similar guilt-revenge on murderous master, emphasizing gender politics of AN/JK film.