The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959)

Are there many more movies about shrunken heads?  9 September 2019

The Quick Pitch:  Over 100 years ago, a South American witch-doctor placed a curse on the male members of the Drake family.  Each will die at the age of 60 and each will have his head mysteriously removed prior to burial. Jonathan Drake’s fear of the curse is justified when his brother’s head disappears shortly after death.

The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake could easily be dismissed as a low-budget throwaway, except for its rather unique subject matter.  I’m not sure I can remember seeing a film (at least from this time period) with shrunken heads as a central theme. To the film’s credit, it treats the subject seriously without ever getting too silly.  The decapitation scenes, while handled off-screen, are about as gruesome as anything you’ll find in a 1950s era film. And the special effects involving the decapitated and shrunken heads are better than I expected.  The acting is fairly atrocious from the entire cast. Henry Daniell’s overacting as the main baddie might be the lone bright sport - and that’s probably for all the wrong reasons. Budgetary limitations really show up in the sets.  Nothing looks real and it’s painfully obvious everything is stage-bound. I’m guessing the movie was filmed on a set no bigger than my living room. My favorite examples of the low budget nature of the film are the repeated scenes where cars are driven on the small set to the front of the Drake estate.  Each time, the car goes about 10 feet from right-to-left, hard 180 degree turn, through the tiny gate, coming to a stop 5 feet later within touching distance of the front door. This scene occurs so often that it really got amusing. 

5/10