Eric (The Screaming Skull)

Eric is the villain of the horror B-movie The Screaming Skull, which has been featured in one episode of the TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000. He was played by John Hudson.

Newlyweds Jenni and Eric move into Eric's palatial country home. Jenni is Eric's second wife; his first wife Marion died when she accidentally slipped and hit her head on the edge of a decorative pond on the estate. At the home they meet Eric's friends, the Reverend Snow and his wife  as well as Mickey, the child-like developmentally disabled gardener. Eric privately mentions to the Snows that Jenni spent time in an asylum following the sudden death of both her parents, and Mrs. Snow reveals that Jenni is very wealthy.

Jenni is disturbed both by Mickey's belief that Marion's ghost wanders the estate and by Marion's self-portrait inside the house, which Jenni believes resembles her mother. When she begins to hear unexplained screaming noises and see skulls around her house, she believes that Marion is haunting her. Though Eric speculates to Jenni that Mickey, who was a childhood friend of Marion and thus dislikes Jenni, may be behind the trickery, Jenni worries that she is going insane. Eric then suggests to remove Marion's self-portrait from the home. Eric and Jenni take the painting outside and burn it. While they clean up the remains of the painting, a skull emerges from the ashes. While Jenni panics at the sight of the skull, Eric denies that the skull is there. Jenni faints and Eric withdraws the skull and hides it, revealing that he was responsible for the trickery all along in an effort to get hold of her wealth.

After attempting of killing Jenni by stangling her, Eric gets attacked by the real ghost of Marion and he's killed after a climatic struggle.