Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee team up in the doom-laden 1965 British supernatural shocker, The Skull, which gets a first-time HD restoration in the UK.
Veteran Hammer horror director Freddie Francis endows the Amicus-produced frightener, penned by Psycho writer Robert Bloch, with a chilly sense of menace and provides an eerily effective dream sequence, seen through the eyes of the skull of the Marquis de Sade that Cushing’s obsessive collector of occult objects procures. Cushing gives an excellent study in bewildered terror as the skull exerts it's malign influence, resulting in murder and madness; and gets solid support from ‘guest star’ Lee as the skull’s previous owner and Patrick Wymark as the sleazy dealer who steals it from him. The film's almost wordless final 25-minutes is a surreal waking dream that still has power to unnerve.
The Skull gets an exclusively restored 1080p presentation on Blu-ray from Eureka! Entertainment just in time for Halloween (26 October) in Dual Format (DVD/Blu-ray).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojxm0369dIw
