THE FOUR SKULLS OF JONATHAN DRAKE 1959
Let’s take a delightfully campy, tongue-in-cheek stroll through two of the kookiest crypt-crawlers the 1950s ever coughed up: The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959) and The Thing That Wouldn’t Die (1958). Both are proof that sometimes the best chills come with a wink, a nudge, a pair of sandals made from 200-year-old skin from a walking dead tribal witch doctor, and a severed head in a box.
The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959), is a treasure brought to you by one of my favorite directors of the campy, the schlocky, and glorious B fare: Edward L. Cahn (Creature with the Atom Brain 1955, The She-Creature 1956, Invasion of the Saucer Men 1957, The Zombies of Mora Tau 1957, Invisible Invaders 1959 and my particular favorite It!, the Terror from Beyond Space 1958). The film stars Eduard Franz, Valerie French, Henry Daniell, Grant Richards, and Paul Wexler. It’s the macabre family tradition-every Drake man who hits sixty gets a complimentary disappearing head and a reserved spot in the crypt’s exclusive skull collection, all courtesy of a vengeful Jivaro shaman with a grudge that just won’t quit. A curse and a zombie with lips sewn shut (played by Paul Wexler, who looks like he had a run-in with an unoiled sewing machine).
Anthropologist Jonathan Drake (Eduard Franz, a man who’s seen one shrunken head too many) is next on the chopping block. After his brother’s head goes missing, in this family, losing your head isn’t just a figure of speech- it’s practically a rite of passage. Jonathan and his plucky daughter Alison (Valerie French) team up with a skeptical cop (Grant Richards) to unravel the mystery. The culprit? Dr. Emil Zurich (the wooden faced Henry Daniell, as sinister ever), who’s been keeping himself alive by swapping heads and dabbling in immortality, with the help of Zutai, the world’s surliest and most persistent zombie who makes vocalizations like Curly Howard of the Three Stooges when he’s hit with a bullet.
Key moments include Zutai’s stealthy rose-trellis climbs, heads turning up in crypts, and a police investigation where the only thing more suspicious than the deaths is the décor. The film’s atmosphere is pure Halloween fun: theremin music, foggy crypts, and enough skulls to make Hamlet jealous. In the end, The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake is less a whodunit and more a head-spinning carousel of curses, shrunken noggins, and stitched-lip zombies, all whirling around a family tree that’s overdue for some serious vengeful pruning.
Like a fever dream conjured by Edgar Allan Poe after a late-night binge on jungle adventure comics, the film barrels toward its climax with the subtlety of a headhunter at a flea market rummaging for skulls where immortality is just a stitch away, and the only thing more dangerous than the villain’s voodoo is the risk of losing your head before the credits roll.
THE THING THAT WOULDN’T DIE 1958
Directed by Will Cowan and starring William Reynolds, Carolyn Kearney, Robin Hughes, and Andra Martin. If you’ve ever wondered what would happen if a psychic ranch girl, a box of evil, and a 16th-century Satanist’s head walked into a California dude ranch, wonder no more. The Thing That Wouldn’t Die answers the question nobody asked: “How long can you keep a head in centuries-old, sealed wooden crate before things get weird?”
Jessica (Carolyn Kearney), who can find water with a stick and has trouble with her psychic powers, unearths a centuries-old box on her aunt’s ranch. Instead of Spanish doubloons, out pops the still-living head of Gideon Drew (Robin Hughes a low-budget svengali with hypnotic eyebrows). Yes, Robin Hughes is the actor who plays the Devil, credited as The Howling Man, in the Twilight Zone‘s “The Howling Man,” Season 2, Episode 5, which aired in 1960. He portrays the mysterious prisoner held by monks, who is revealed through a memorable transformation scene as Satan himself.
Back to the head – Drew’s head that is, separated from his body by Sir Francis Drake, proceeds to telepathically possess ranch guests and staff, who dutifully tote him around.
Highlights include the head’s uncanny ability to hypnotize with a glare, a parade of characters getting possessed faster than you can say “hilarious head in a box horror,” and a climax where the villain’s head is finally reunited with his body-only to be foiled by a fleur-de-lis amulet and a hero who apparently read the script’s last page. The ending is so abrupt you’ll wonder if the editor just got bored and left for lunch, but not before giving us the immortal lesson: The thing that wouldn’t die… actually could, and did, with a little help from some Catholic jewelry.
Both films are like haunted house rides at a county fair- creaky, a little rickety, but full of charm and the kind of scares that are best enjoyed with a bowl of popcorn and a group of wisecracking friends. Whether you’re dodging shrunken heads or ducking a telepathic noggin, these B-movie gems prove that in the world of 1950s horror, the only thing more dangerous than a curse is the set decorator’s imagination!
