THE MAZE 1953
If you’re looking for a horror film that’s equal parts haunted house, Gothic romance, and full-throttle amphibian absurdity, The Maze (1953) is your ticket to the weirdest castle in Scotland. Directed by the legendary William Cameron Menzies—yes, the same mastermind behind the look of Gone with the Wind 1940. Menzies played a pivotal role in the making of that epic film. Producer David O. Selznick hired him as the film’s production designer—a term Selznick actually coined specifically to describe Menzies’s unprecedented level of creative control over the film’s visual style and atmosphere. He is also the guy behind the fantastical foundational sci-fi nightmare, a paranoid classic, and a technicolor fever dream of Cold War anxiety – Invaders from Mars 1953.
For The Maze, Menzies shot in moody black-and-white 3D by Harry Neumann, this is a movie that doesn’t just tiptoe into camp; it leaps in, webbed feet and all.
The story kicks off in the sun-drenched glamour of Cannes, where Kitty Murray (Veronica Hurst) is about to marry her Scottish-American dreamboat, Gerald MacTeam (Richard Carlson, always game for a genre twist). Suddenly, Gerald gets word that his uncle has croaked—pun intended—and he’s off to the family’s Castle Craven, deep in the Scottish highlands. Next thing you know, Kitty gets a cryptic telegram: engagement off, no explanation, best of luck. But Kitty is not the kind of gal to let a little Gothic melodrama spoil her honeymoon plans, so she grabs her Aunt Edith (Katherine Emery) and heads north, determined to get answers.
When they arrive, Gerald looks like he’s aged twenty years overnight and is about as warm as a castle dungeon. The castle itself is a gothic playground: looming stone pillars, endless corridors, and a hedge maze outside that seems to have a life of its own. The staff—led by the shifty William (Michael Pate) and the even shiftier Robert (Stanley Fraser)—lock the guests in their rooms at night, and there’s talk of a cleaning woman who died after venturing into the maze. Kitty and Edith hear strange shuffling sounds in the halls, spot muddy, webbed footprints, and catch glimpses of something large and shadowy being ushered through the corridors under a sheet. If you’re thinking “Scooby-Doo episode with a bigger budget,” you’re not far off.
Kitty, refusing to be outwitted by a bunch of men in tweed, calls in Gerald’s friends—including a doctor, Bert Dilling (John Dodsworth)—hoping a little intervention will snap her fiancé out of his fog-soaked funk. But the castle’s mysteries only deepen: secret doors, hidden stairwells, and a maze that’s strictly off-limits. Eventually, Kitty and Edith sneak out at night, following the candlelit procession into the maze. There, in a scene that’s equal parts gothic horror and creature-feature camp, they come face-to-face with the castle’s true master: a giant, man-sized frog, complete with rubber suit and tragic backstory.
Here’s where the film’s science (or, let’s say, B-movie biology) hops in. Gerald explains that the frog is actually Sir Roger MacTeam, the original laird, who, thanks to a freak twist of embryology, never developed beyond the amphibian stage. For two centuries, the MacTeam men have served this melancholy, swimming-obsessed frog, keeping his secret and tending to his every need. The poor creature, startled by the intrusion, makes a dramatic leap out a tower window to his doom, finally freeing Gerald from generations of servitude.
The cast—Carlson, Hurst, Emery, and a supporting crew of stiff-upper-lip Brits—play it all with just the right amount of straight-faced sincerity, which only makes the big reveal more deliciously ridiculous. The sets, designed by Menzies himself, are dripping with gothic atmosphere: fog, shadows, and enough looming architecture, even with all the uncanny camp, there’s just enough eerie charm in the air to keep things interesting. Marlin Skiles’ score is the wonderfully webbed footnote, leaping in with melodramatic flair whenever the plot demands a little extra suspense or a dash of swampy pathos.
The Maze 1953 is a film that knows exactly how bonkers it is, and it leans into every twist and turn with a wink. The ending is so infamous that it’s become a rite of passage for horror fans like me—equal parts jaw-drop and belly laugh. Is it a haunted house movie? A Gothic fairy tale? A cautionary tale about the dangers of a risky inheritance? Yes, all of it and gloriously so. If you’re in the mood for a horror flick that’s as atmospheric as it is outlandish, The Maze is a labyrinth well worth getting lost in!
THE SCREAMING SKULL 1958
If you’re still in the mood for a campy B-horror flick – and I have to say, I already am. These two films are an exquisite respite from the seriousness of life and a delicious double feature, if you’re game. The Screaming Skull 1958 is a combination of old-fashioned gaslight melodrama and haunted house hokum. The Screaming Skull is a must-see—preferably with friends, popcorn, and a healthy appreciation for prop department skulls and hysteria-laced suspense. Directed by Alex Nicol, who also plays the gardener, Mickie – tackling Mickie with all the subtlety of a community theater dropout auditioning for Of Mice and Men—it’s like someone handed Lennie a rake and told him to haunt and skulk around the grounds until further notice.
This bargain basement chiller is a ghost story with training wheels or a Halloween prank with ambition – of creaky set pieces, moody shadows, and the kind of psychological torment that would make even Hitchcock roll his eyes.
The plot is a deliciously tangled web of suspicion, paranoia, and old-fashioned greed. Newlyweds Jenni (Peggy Webber, giving the only performance with a racing pulse) and Eric Whitlock (John Hudson, brother of actor William Hudson- channeling pure 1950s husband energy) arrive at Eric’s stately, if suspiciously under-furnished, country mansion. The catch? Eric’s first wife, Marion, died in a “freak accident” involving a decorative pond and a suspiciously convenient slip. Jenni, already fragile after losing her parents to drowning (seriously, water is the real villain here), is immediately on edge—especially when she meets Mickey, the intellectually challenged, shaggy gardner, who is eternally devoted to Marion and now seems to have a few screws loose and a penchant for lurking.
From the get-go, the house is alive with peacock screams, flickering shadows, and the ever-present, ever-ominous portrait of Marion in her eerie Edwardian style wide-brimmed Gainsborough hat.
The uncanny skull starts taunting and tormenting Jenni, who starts hearing things and seeing things, especially a skull that keeps popping up in the most inconvenient places, like a Gothic game of hide-and-seek. Eric, ever the supportive spouse, assures her it’s all in her head, or maybe it’s all Mickey’s doing, or maybe just the peacocks (who knew peacocks were so sinister?). But as the skull keeps reappearing, rolling across the floor with all the menace of a bowling ball and the budget of a high school prop closet. In one scene, it actually takes an apparent bite out of Jenni’s hand, leaving teeth marks! It becomes clear that someone is trying to drive her over the edge.
And that someone is Eric. Yes, our loving hubby is gaslighting Jenni with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, planting skulls, burning portraits, and generally making her question her sanity—all in a bid to get his hands on her inheritance. The gaslighting is relentless: when Jenni finds the skull in the ashes of Marion’s portrait, Eric denies it exists; when she faints, he hides the evidence. He even tries to convince the kindly Reverend Snow (Russ Conway) and his wife (Tony Johnson) that Jenni is on the verge of another breakdown, laying the groundwork for her “accidental” demise.
But this is a modern Gothic horror film, and you can’t keep a good ghost down. As Eric prepares to stage Jenni’s suicide, the real supernatural shenanigans kick in. Jenni is chased through the garden by a shrieking, ghostly, headless figure in Marion’s old dress, while visions of the titular screaming skull haunt Eric—now rolling, floating, and even biting with a vengeance. In a climax that’s as bonkers as it is satisfying, Marion’s ghost (or maybe just the vengeful skull of Marion) chases Eric to the pond and drowns him. Poetic justice for a man who thought gaslighting was a viable retirement plan.
All joking aside, visually, the film is a treat for fans of classic horror atmosphere. Oscar-winning cinematographer Floyd Crosby wrings every drop of mood out of the shadows, the moonlit pond, and the greenhouse where the ghostly Marion makes her most chilling appearance—thanks to some clever double exposure effects.
The set design is pure B-movie midcentury Gothic: with a mansion that feels hauntingly hollow and weirdly empty, as if the ghosts have already started packing for their next haunting.
Let’s not forget the film’s opening tongue-in-cheek Castlian gimmick: a voiceover warns us that the film is so terrifying, it might kill you—and if it does, the producers’ stunt promise a free burial. The score, by Ernest Gold, borrows from the “Dies Irae” and layers on the melodrama, just in case the plastic skulls and peacock shrieks weren’t enough.
The mythology behind The Screaming Skull is just as quirky as the movie itself. The screenplay is loosely inspired by a short story by F. Marion Crawford, itself based on the legend of Bettiscombe Manor’s screaming skull—a tale of curses, restless spirits, and, apparently, a skull that just won’t stay put. The film’s “science” is pure horror movie logic: if you gaslight your wife in a haunted house, don’t be shocked when the afterlife comes calling for some overdue revenge!
The Screaming Skull 1958 is a campy, atmospheric ride through the tropes of haunted house cinema, complete with gaslighting, ghostly revenge, and a skull that’s harder to shake than a pop song stuck in your head. It’s not high art, but it’s a blast—especially if you watch it with your tongue firmly in cheek and your expectations set to “delightfully silly.” Quite plainly, the movie is a scream!
