Tag Archives: ghost story

“The Screaming Skull” (1958) – Creepy for sure at 9 years old

This movie creeped me out when I was a kid. There are a few terrifying moments when a woman is being pursued through a garden by a genuine spook who is translucent and in a summer dress that somehow never reveals the face of the ghost. It is a minute or two later that you find out why.

This black and white chiller follows a married couple relocating to the estate of the husband’s dead wife. There then commence a series of unexplained events that make the new wife, herself having suffered a prior shock of the death of her parents and admission to a mental institute as a result, beginning to doubt her sanity again.

Spoiler Alert! Her husband isn’t exactly sympathetic to her well-being. Yeah. He is a Black Widow. It is never resolved whether or not he murdered his first wife.

Although his efforts to drive his current wife back over the edge fail, he himself experiences the mad effect of being pursued by a mobile skull which does him in.

Low budget, shot on location shocker that is a good Halloween view.

“The Upper Berth” – A Visual Adaptation

Very fine, very abridged visual retelling of the F. Marion Crawford classic ghost story, “The Upper Berth”. I first read this story in one of the old “Alfred Hitchcock Presents Stories to Keep You Awake At Night” or some such gaudy title. It was an excellent story and is well worth seeking out and getting the chills from. An adventurer finds that his cabinmate aboard a freighter may not be all he appears to be. He may not even be among the living. And there the fun really begins. Read the original story too!

This video takes a very cool, artistic approach to putting visuals to the words. There is a lot of material cut from the Crawford tale but this version truly captures the creepy atmosphere found in the latter part of the story. Nice black and white motion picture work with some frightening special and sound effects. Wellesian in appearance and maintains the haunted tone of Crawford.

“BELOW” TRAILER (2002)

leviathan image for web

“Below” is a nifty, submarine, World War II, ghost story all rolled into one.  A submarine on search and destroy patrol in the Atlantic Ocean seems to be itself a cursed, doomed vehicle.  Creepy events unfold and ghostly ambience abounds as the submarine meets with one disaster after another.  I’ve watched it a couple of times at night and creeped myself out!  Nice performance from Bruce Greenwood as the “new” captain of the boat.