Despite the fact that this tale was first published in 1906, it’s a wonderfully cinematic examination of a notoriously haunted house. Blackwood wastes no time, jumping in immediately with a paragraph that defines what a haunted house is and describes the effect it has on anyone brave, ignorant, or foolish enough to enter it.
“And, perhaps, with houses the same principle is operative, and it is the aroma of evil deeds committed under a particular roof, long after the actual doers have passed away, that makes the gooseflesh come and the hair rise. Something of the original passion of the evil-doer, and of the horror felt by his victim, enters the heart of the innocent watcher, and he becomes suddenly conscious of tingling nerves, creeping skin, and a chilling of the blood. He is terror-stricken without apparent cause.”
That, to coin a phrase, says it all.
In the story, Jim Shorthouse receives what appears to be a semi-urgent request from his Aunt Julia that he come to visit her at once. She’s acquired the keys to an infamously haunted house on the other side of town and she wants Shorthouse to accompany her while she goes exploring. She makes him promise that he will not leave her side even for a minute because “persons who had spent some time in the house, knowing nothing of the facts, had declared positively that certain rooms were so disagreeable they would rather die than enter them again.”
As the two ghosthunters enter the old house, Aunt Julia relates a brief history of the brutal crime that initiated the haunting.“’It has to do with a murder committed by a jealous stableman who had some affair with a servant in the house. One night he managed to secrete himself in the cellar, and when everyone was asleep, he crept upstairs to the servants' quarters, chased the girl down to the next landing, and before anyone could come to the rescue threw her bodily over the banisters into the hall below.’"
’And the stableman—?’
"’Was caught, I believe, and hanged for murder.’”
Blackwood then takes us on a regulated tour of the house, first downstairs and then up. He is an absolute master at describing everyday items in such a way that they assume personalities, and none too pleasant ones at that. He evokes that feeling that things change as soon as you look away from them—“There was the inevitable sense that operations which went on when the room was empty had been temporarily suspended till they were well out of the way again.”
The tension continues to build as Shorthouse and Julia are certain they hear a man sneeze next to them. Shadows are cast when there is nothing there to cast a shadow. Every time they turn a corner or move from one room to another, you wonder what they are about to encounter. Shorthouse “felt as if his spine had suddenly become hollow and someone had filled it with particles of ice.” The aptness of the simile is dazzling.
Then it happens, with a sudden jolt as powerful as the one that accompanies the first appearance of the old woman in “House on Haunted Hill,” a movie moment which may very well have been inspired by this story.“Facing them, directly in their way between the doorposts, stood the figure of a woman. She had dishevelled hair and wildly staring eyes, and her face was terrified and white as death.
“She stood there motionless for the space of a single second. Then the candle flickered and she was gone—gone utterly— and the door framed nothing but empty darkness.”
This is one of the most effective old school haunted house stories you will ever read. Take a look at it here -- http://www.litgothic.com/Authors/authors.html -- and you’ll know why Algernon Blackwood was one of H.P. Lovecraft’s favorite writers.
Showing posts with label horror stories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label horror stories. Show all posts
Monday, October 1, 2007
“The Monkey’s Paw” (W.W. Jacobs, 1902)
I couldn’t guess how many times I’ve read “The Monkey’s Paw,” W.W. Jacobs’ brilliant and chilling short story, but I can tell you how often it’s cast a dark spell over me—every time.
Originally published in 1902 (and available now online at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12122/12122-h/12122-h.htm, among other places), TMP is the essence of the classic horror story—unhappy people bring more misery upon themselves, and their attempts to escape their fate opens the way for things best left alone.
Mr. and Mrs. White live with their adult son Herbert in Laburnam Villa on a quiet and deserted road. The old couple apparently does no work, leaving the breadwinning to Herbert, who is employed at a mill.One night they are visited by an old friend of Mr. White’s, Sergeant-Major Morris, who is coaxed into telling them the story behind an odd talisman he carries in his pocket, “what you might call magic, perhaps,” “an ordinary little [monkey’s] paw, dried to a mummy."
The weird object had had a spell put on it by an Indian fakir. For three owners, the paw would grant three wishes each. Morris admits to having made three wishes himself, but he grows nervous and doesn’t tell what he wished for. When asked how the first owner used the charm, the sergeant-major replies, "The first man had his three wishes. . . I don't know what the first two were, but the third was for death. That's how I got the paw."
Morris tosses the thing into the fireplace but it is retrieved by White who asks if he can retain it as an odd keepsake. Mrs. White playfully wishes she had four arms so her house work would be easier for her, and Morris hastily warns her that if the Whites are going to do any wishing, they better be sensible about it.
After Morris leaves, the Whites wish for 200 pounds to pay off their mortgage, and everything begins going downhill from there.
Jacobs’ yarn is a variation of the old tale story about trying to outsmart the devil with your wishes, but his take on the basic story has become the dominant one for over 100 years. “The Monkey’s Paw” has been dramatized for stage and screen, radio and comic books—you name the medium and it’s a good bet some version of TMP can be found there.
So familiar has the story become, even if you’ve never read it before you’re likely to get a feeling of literary déjà vu. Ignore it and read to the end. You’ll never find a better evocation of unseen horror than you will from “The Monkey’s Paw.”
Originally published in 1902 (and available now online at http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12122/12122-h/12122-h.htm, among other places), TMP is the essence of the classic horror story—unhappy people bring more misery upon themselves, and their attempts to escape their fate opens the way for things best left alone.
Mr. and Mrs. White live with their adult son Herbert in Laburnam Villa on a quiet and deserted road. The old couple apparently does no work, leaving the breadwinning to Herbert, who is employed at a mill.One night they are visited by an old friend of Mr. White’s, Sergeant-Major Morris, who is coaxed into telling them the story behind an odd talisman he carries in his pocket, “what you might call magic, perhaps,” “an ordinary little [monkey’s] paw, dried to a mummy."
The weird object had had a spell put on it by an Indian fakir. For three owners, the paw would grant three wishes each. Morris admits to having made three wishes himself, but he grows nervous and doesn’t tell what he wished for. When asked how the first owner used the charm, the sergeant-major replies, "The first man had his three wishes. . . I don't know what the first two were, but the third was for death. That's how I got the paw."
Morris tosses the thing into the fireplace but it is retrieved by White who asks if he can retain it as an odd keepsake. Mrs. White playfully wishes she had four arms so her house work would be easier for her, and Morris hastily warns her that if the Whites are going to do any wishing, they better be sensible about it.
After Morris leaves, the Whites wish for 200 pounds to pay off their mortgage, and everything begins going downhill from there.
Jacobs’ yarn is a variation of the old tale story about trying to outsmart the devil with your wishes, but his take on the basic story has become the dominant one for over 100 years. “The Monkey’s Paw” has been dramatized for stage and screen, radio and comic books—you name the medium and it’s a good bet some version of TMP can be found there.
So familiar has the story become, even if you’ve never read it before you’re likely to get a feeling of literary déjà vu. Ignore it and read to the end. You’ll never find a better evocation of unseen horror than you will from “The Monkey’s Paw.”
Friday, September 14, 2007
“Uncle Silas” by Joseph Sheridan LeFanu (1865)
We forget sometimes that writers were producing popular literature hundreds of years ago, especially when a novel that’s been around for a century or two is still in print. Longevity makes it a “classic,” but readability and a thumping good narrative are what give it longevity.
Joseph Sheridan LeFanu’s “Uncle Silas” was one of the last significant attempts at a full-blooded gothic novel after Maturin’s “Melmoth the Wanderer” in 1820 and before the phenomenal revival of the form with Stoker’s “Dracula” in 1897.
As the story opens, young Maud Ruthyn is living a blandly idyllic life (you figure it out) with her wealthy father. When he dies suddenly, she is told by his odd Swedenborgian friend Dr. Bryerly that she must go to live at the run-down estate Bartram-Haugh, the home of her paternal Uncle Silas. Silas will care for her until she reaches her majority, at which time she will inherit her father’s money. In the intervening years, Silas will be paid out of the estate for her upkeep.
One problem: if her own father was eccentric, Maud’s uncle is nuttier than a rest stop at Stuckey’s. In fact, most of his neighbors think that, years before, he slaughtered a Mr. Clark, to whom he owed money, as Clark slept in one of Bartram’s guest rooms.
Two problem: if Maud dies before she gets her inheritance, Silas gets it all. If she marries Silas’ repulsive son Dudley, Silas gets it all by taking it away from Dudley.
The novel is an interesting blend of the gothic—detailed landscape description, characters who wear evil the way Paris Hilton wears stupid, and a crumbling, near-ruin of a country house—and the more popular for the time sensation novel—a domestic setting, mysteries to be solved, and a sinister servant in the person of the French tutor Madame de la Rougierre. LeFanu plays with the supernatural—he is the author of the wonderful vampire story “Carmilla,” so he could play with the best of ‘em—but the book is really a study in psychological suspense.
Yes, the dialogue can get pretty stilted in that patented second-tier mid-Victorian author sort of way, and the three-volume stretching is all too obvious when Maud and Silas have confrontation after confrontation that are all cut from the same pattern: Maud accuses someone in the house of tormenting her, Silas listens and then dismisses her complaint as coming from just a silly little girl, she becomes angry, he becomes sullen and insulting, she rushes from the room. It’s the sort of thing that comes with the territory, but it is more than made up for in the parts that LeFanu could really get into to—those subtle hints that the mold and rot of the house and grounds have infested the souls of Silas and his household.
Or maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe the corruption and madness that have been growing in Silas all his life have tainted his physical surroundings.
Every fan of modern horror owes it to him/herself to look backward now and again to see where the contemporary genre came from. Many of the original gothic novels are deadly slow and about as chilling as a midday hike across Death Valley, but “Uncle Silas” isn’t one of them. Many of today’s go-for-the-jugular grossout-a-paloozas aren’t near as creepy.
Joseph Sheridan LeFanu’s “Uncle Silas” was one of the last significant attempts at a full-blooded gothic novel after Maturin’s “Melmoth the Wanderer” in 1820 and before the phenomenal revival of the form with Stoker’s “Dracula” in 1897.
As the story opens, young Maud Ruthyn is living a blandly idyllic life (you figure it out) with her wealthy father. When he dies suddenly, she is told by his odd Swedenborgian friend Dr. Bryerly that she must go to live at the run-down estate Bartram-Haugh, the home of her paternal Uncle Silas. Silas will care for her until she reaches her majority, at which time she will inherit her father’s money. In the intervening years, Silas will be paid out of the estate for her upkeep.
One problem: if her own father was eccentric, Maud’s uncle is nuttier than a rest stop at Stuckey’s. In fact, most of his neighbors think that, years before, he slaughtered a Mr. Clark, to whom he owed money, as Clark slept in one of Bartram’s guest rooms.
Two problem: if Maud dies before she gets her inheritance, Silas gets it all. If she marries Silas’ repulsive son Dudley, Silas gets it all by taking it away from Dudley.
The novel is an interesting blend of the gothic—detailed landscape description, characters who wear evil the way Paris Hilton wears stupid, and a crumbling, near-ruin of a country house—and the more popular for the time sensation novel—a domestic setting, mysteries to be solved, and a sinister servant in the person of the French tutor Madame de la Rougierre. LeFanu plays with the supernatural—he is the author of the wonderful vampire story “Carmilla,” so he could play with the best of ‘em—but the book is really a study in psychological suspense.
Yes, the dialogue can get pretty stilted in that patented second-tier mid-Victorian author sort of way, and the three-volume stretching is all too obvious when Maud and Silas have confrontation after confrontation that are all cut from the same pattern: Maud accuses someone in the house of tormenting her, Silas listens and then dismisses her complaint as coming from just a silly little girl, she becomes angry, he becomes sullen and insulting, she rushes from the room. It’s the sort of thing that comes with the territory, but it is more than made up for in the parts that LeFanu could really get into to—those subtle hints that the mold and rot of the house and grounds have infested the souls of Silas and his household.
Or maybe it’s the other way around. Maybe the corruption and madness that have been growing in Silas all his life have tainted his physical surroundings.
Every fan of modern horror owes it to him/herself to look backward now and again to see where the contemporary genre came from. Many of the original gothic novels are deadly slow and about as chilling as a midday hike across Death Valley, but “Uncle Silas” isn’t one of them. Many of today’s go-for-the-jugular grossout-a-paloozas aren’t near as creepy.
“Suburban Legends: True Tales of Murder, Mayhem, and Minivans” by Sam Stall (2007)
One of the surprise movie hits of early 2007 is a teen variation on Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window called Disturbia. The title is a hybrid of “disturb” and “suburbia,” and the picture’s tagline is: “Every killer lives next door to someone.”
According to Sam Stall’s Suburban Legends, it’s not just killers that put the “br-r-r-r” in “suburban.” To hear him tell it, America’s small towns and bedroom communities are jam-packed with ghosts, disguised aliens, poltergeists, cryptozoological monsters, gardens/basements/walls hiding rotting corpses, and enough sickening depravity to make Eli Roth reach for a barf bag. Imagine Wally and the Beaver chopping Ward into manageable chucks and feeding them into a wood chipper, and then keeping June locked in the basement, only letting her out to be used as the sacrifice in a Black Mass. And then blaming their actions on the suspicion that their house was built on the site of an Indian burial ground.
And we escaped from the inner city for this?
Stall, who is a solid, amusing if not overwhelming professional writer, divides this collection of petit guignol anecdotes into seven sections, each one emphasizing a particular horror to suburban homeownership—“Inhumanly Bad Houseguests” (spooks), “The Ghoul Next Door” (murder), “Hellish Commutes” (haunted highways), “Backyard Beasts” (non-human spooks), “Really Desperate Housewives” (mad mamas), “Lawn of the Dead” (buried bodies), and “Sundry Cul-de-Sacrileges (everything else).
All of these stories are “true” and many of them are overly familiar from Travel Channel spookshows and A&E’s true crime lineup. In fact, some of Stall’s short chapters are so brief I suspect all the research he did was watch “Weird America” and “City Confidential.” That said, if you like this kind of thing, you may appreciate having these tales collected into one easily and quickly read volume. In the grand ol’ American way, there is far more violence here than sex so this is a pretty safe buy for kids who are passing through that love-the-macabre stage.
The biggest pleasure I got from the book was finding the source stories for some stuff that has been sold as fiction. For instance, there’s a tale here of a haunted windbreaker that was sold on eBay for $31.50, the obvious inspiration for Joe Hill’s first novel Heart Shaped Box. There are also several what-the-hell-is-going-on-here stories that appear to have been fed into Tobe Hooper’s movie Poltergeist. And the adventures of a man named John List, who murdered his entire family and then just moved on to wed and start another one, look like they may have had an influence on Donald E. Westlake’s screenplay for that terrific, underappreciated thriller The Stepfather.
My favorite, though, has to be the tale of poor, sad Philip Schuth, who lived a Geinishly lonely existence with his home-bound mother. When she died, he put her corpse in the freezer and kept it there for four-and-a-half years. She was discovered after Philip got in trouble with the neighbors for smacking a kid who was trespassing on his property. Schuth went to prison, where he acquired the nickname “Frosty.” He was immortalized when an entrepreneur began selling refrigerator magnets with the catch line “My Mom is Cooler Than Yours.”
The book is fun and Stall’s ironic narration lets you know that he doesn’t take all this stuff too seriously, nor does he buy every ghost story at face value. Reading the book is like sitting around the backyard grill when the sun is going down and Uncle Doug starts telling the kids why the old DeFeo house two streets over is said to be haunted. Everyone has a chuckle until Aunt Alice finds a fingernail in her burger.
According to Sam Stall’s Suburban Legends, it’s not just killers that put the “br-r-r-r” in “suburban.” To hear him tell it, America’s small towns and bedroom communities are jam-packed with ghosts, disguised aliens, poltergeists, cryptozoological monsters, gardens/basements/walls hiding rotting corpses, and enough sickening depravity to make Eli Roth reach for a barf bag. Imagine Wally and the Beaver chopping Ward into manageable chucks and feeding them into a wood chipper, and then keeping June locked in the basement, only letting her out to be used as the sacrifice in a Black Mass. And then blaming their actions on the suspicion that their house was built on the site of an Indian burial ground.
And we escaped from the inner city for this?
Stall, who is a solid, amusing if not overwhelming professional writer, divides this collection of petit guignol anecdotes into seven sections, each one emphasizing a particular horror to suburban homeownership—“Inhumanly Bad Houseguests” (spooks), “The Ghoul Next Door” (murder), “Hellish Commutes” (haunted highways), “Backyard Beasts” (non-human spooks), “Really Desperate Housewives” (mad mamas), “Lawn of the Dead” (buried bodies), and “Sundry Cul-de-Sacrileges (everything else).
All of these stories are “true” and many of them are overly familiar from Travel Channel spookshows and A&E’s true crime lineup. In fact, some of Stall’s short chapters are so brief I suspect all the research he did was watch “Weird America” and “City Confidential.” That said, if you like this kind of thing, you may appreciate having these tales collected into one easily and quickly read volume. In the grand ol’ American way, there is far more violence here than sex so this is a pretty safe buy for kids who are passing through that love-the-macabre stage.
The biggest pleasure I got from the book was finding the source stories for some stuff that has been sold as fiction. For instance, there’s a tale here of a haunted windbreaker that was sold on eBay for $31.50, the obvious inspiration for Joe Hill’s first novel Heart Shaped Box. There are also several what-the-hell-is-going-on-here stories that appear to have been fed into Tobe Hooper’s movie Poltergeist. And the adventures of a man named John List, who murdered his entire family and then just moved on to wed and start another one, look like they may have had an influence on Donald E. Westlake’s screenplay for that terrific, underappreciated thriller The Stepfather.
My favorite, though, has to be the tale of poor, sad Philip Schuth, who lived a Geinishly lonely existence with his home-bound mother. When she died, he put her corpse in the freezer and kept it there for four-and-a-half years. She was discovered after Philip got in trouble with the neighbors for smacking a kid who was trespassing on his property. Schuth went to prison, where he acquired the nickname “Frosty.” He was immortalized when an entrepreneur began selling refrigerator magnets with the catch line “My Mom is Cooler Than Yours.”
The book is fun and Stall’s ironic narration lets you know that he doesn’t take all this stuff too seriously, nor does he buy every ghost story at face value. Reading the book is like sitting around the backyard grill when the sun is going down and Uncle Doug starts telling the kids why the old DeFeo house two streets over is said to be haunted. Everyone has a chuckle until Aunt Alice finds a fingernail in her burger.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Playing With Bloch's
In the coven made up of the mothers in my neighborhood when I was a kid, my mom was the only one who allowed copies of "Famous Monsters of Filmland" magazine into the house. This made me very popular — and it was the only thing that did — at least on the Saturdays after the new issue hit the street.
My pals and I loved looking at pictures from monster movies, and it didn’t matter whether or not we’d seen the flick, or ever would. In those pre-home-video days in that small town, we had no hope that we’d ever be in a position to see films like the silent "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" or even the Lon Chaney "Phantom of the Opera."
Which brings us at last to Robert Bloch, who frequently used FM as a bully pulpit to introduce us kids to the fading grandeur of silent horror films — or those pictures that passed for horror films before sound. I had no idea at that time that Bloch wrote fiction. I don’t remember now how I found out, but it was probably at the time Hitchcock’s "Psycho" came out and suddenly Bloch’s books were on every paperback spin rack in town.
Okay, here’s where I embarrass myself by admitting that I was too scared to see PSYCHO on it first run. Here’s why: I’d read Bloch's novel on the assumption that no book could be as scary as a movie. Word circulated around the horror-movie fan underground in town that this movie was the goods, more terrifying than a William Castle picture, and that would make it scarier than all hell on a rainy weekend.
So my plan was to read the book so I’d know what the story was and I could bluff my friends into thinking I’d seen the movie, just in case I wasn’t, you know, able to see it. Damn good plan for an 11-year old, except for one thing: Bloch’s novel is not the standard mystery/thriller, like Hitch’s film is not the standard horror movie.
The book scared me. Badly. Profoundly. Everlastingly. So much, I was even more afraid to go to the movie than I had been in the first place.
I’ve cleared my conscience.
So, this Bloch guy pulls the plow, huh? Oh, yeah. By 1960, he had been sharpening his blade since he published his first "Weird Tales" short story, “The Secret in the Tomb,” at age 17 in 1934. He had been on the fringes of the H.P. Lovecraft circle since 1933, when he initiated a correspondence with the old gent that lasted until Lovecraft’s death in 1937.
Honestly, in those early stories, derivative of HPL’s concepts and frequently overwrought style, Bloch didn’t show much promise that he would ever be anything more than a precocious acolyte.
If stories like “The Feast in the Abbey“ and “The Shambler from the Stars“ rely too heavily on Lovecraftian themes and atmospherics, Bloch soon found his own voice. More than one, actually. After all, what kind of schizophrenic has only one voice whispering in his ear?
And Bloch’s best imaginary friends were schizos, serial killers, mass murderers and just all-around boy-or-girl-next-door psychopaths. They dispatched their victims with butcher knives, scarves, axes, saws, shoves off of cliffs, and even the unimaginative handgun. He more than made up for that last with a death by gorilla costume. Of course I’m serious. Joe R. Lansdale selected Bloch’s “The Animal Fair” for the 2004 anthology "My Favorite Horror Story." Check it out.
Bloch never lost his affection for Lovecraft, and even as late as 1978, his novel "Strange Eons" was in honor of his mentor, but after the publication of his first novel, 1947’s "The Scarf," he was wedded to psychological horror in the public’s mind. Short stories like “Lucy Comes to Stay” and “Final Performance” – which is wonderfully ghastly and receives a tip of the hat in the current horror film "Dead Silence," showing up regularly in everything from the crime pulps to "Playboy" – kept that association alive.
He missed out on the screenplay assignment for "Psycho," but Bloch scripted for radio, films (including two for Castle), and television. He finally linked up with Hitchcock, sort of, by writing 17 episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." In all, Bloch provided scripts for 19 series, including "Star Trek," "Thriller," and "Night Gallery."
Many of his best post-"Scarf" stories are a blend of supernatural and psychological horror. “The Cheaters” is about a pair of eyeglasses that allow the wearer to read people’s minds, and what they think is scarred by greed and lust. “Catnip” is about a high school punk who accidentally burns down an old woman’s house and is then stalked by her cat. I’ve always been a big fan of “Sweets to the Sweet,” about a little girl and her favorite voodoo doll. Very nasty ending to this one. Yummy.
He wasn’t a perfect writer. Having published more than 200 stories and two dozen novels means there are several clinkers in the bunch, but when he was clicking, he was as good as anyone.
One more thing I have to mention: Bloch was one of the funniest horror writers ever. He was a popular emcee for science fiction and horror conventions, and in print, his stuff is littered with sick in-jokes and unexpected puns. Remember all those sick gags in the movie version of "Psycho"? “Mother isn’t herself tonight” and “A boy’s best friend is his mother” both originated in the novel. I still remember the pleasant chill I felt the first time I re-read the book and Mrs. Bates accuses the effete Norman of being “only half a man.” Heh, heh, heh.
Bloch once famously said of himself, “People think I must be a monster, but really I have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk.”
But my all-time favorite Bloch moment comes in an otherwise disposable British film from 1966 called "The Psychopath," in which a sick, aging German war widow who collects dolls sends her feeble-minded but physically strong son out to murder the men she thinks killed her husband. In the film’s climax, the son injures his back while being pursued but manages to get home. The police show up to arrest him and his mother. Mom puts up a small struggle and the son, who is hiding in the attic, hears what is going on and begins howling. The police open the door and we are faced with the now-paralyzed young man seated in a chair. His fruitcake mother has powdered his face to remove his natural coloring, and rouged his lips and cheeks to make him look like a giant Kewpie doll. A tear runs down his cheek as he sobs, “Momma. Momma.”
Comic shocks don’t come any sicker than that.
Robert Bloch died of cancer on Sept. 23, 1994. Every time a new anthology of horror or crime stories is published, I look to see if it includes a new story by him. It’s a silly habit I don’t want to break.
dgb
My pals and I loved looking at pictures from monster movies, and it didn’t matter whether or not we’d seen the flick, or ever would. In those pre-home-video days in that small town, we had no hope that we’d ever be in a position to see films like the silent "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" or even the Lon Chaney "Phantom of the Opera."
Which brings us at last to Robert Bloch, who frequently used FM as a bully pulpit to introduce us kids to the fading grandeur of silent horror films — or those pictures that passed for horror films before sound. I had no idea at that time that Bloch wrote fiction. I don’t remember now how I found out, but it was probably at the time Hitchcock’s "Psycho" came out and suddenly Bloch’s books were on every paperback spin rack in town.
Okay, here’s where I embarrass myself by admitting that I was too scared to see PSYCHO on it first run. Here’s why: I’d read Bloch's novel on the assumption that no book could be as scary as a movie. Word circulated around the horror-movie fan underground in town that this movie was the goods, more terrifying than a William Castle picture, and that would make it scarier than all hell on a rainy weekend.
So my plan was to read the book so I’d know what the story was and I could bluff my friends into thinking I’d seen the movie, just in case I wasn’t, you know, able to see it. Damn good plan for an 11-year old, except for one thing: Bloch’s novel is not the standard mystery/thriller, like Hitch’s film is not the standard horror movie.
The book scared me. Badly. Profoundly. Everlastingly. So much, I was even more afraid to go to the movie than I had been in the first place.
I’ve cleared my conscience.
So, this Bloch guy pulls the plow, huh? Oh, yeah. By 1960, he had been sharpening his blade since he published his first "Weird Tales" short story, “The Secret in the Tomb,” at age 17 in 1934. He had been on the fringes of the H.P. Lovecraft circle since 1933, when he initiated a correspondence with the old gent that lasted until Lovecraft’s death in 1937.
Honestly, in those early stories, derivative of HPL’s concepts and frequently overwrought style, Bloch didn’t show much promise that he would ever be anything more than a precocious acolyte.
If stories like “The Feast in the Abbey“ and “The Shambler from the Stars“ rely too heavily on Lovecraftian themes and atmospherics, Bloch soon found his own voice. More than one, actually. After all, what kind of schizophrenic has only one voice whispering in his ear?
And Bloch’s best imaginary friends were schizos, serial killers, mass murderers and just all-around boy-or-girl-next-door psychopaths. They dispatched their victims with butcher knives, scarves, axes, saws, shoves off of cliffs, and even the unimaginative handgun. He more than made up for that last with a death by gorilla costume. Of course I’m serious. Joe R. Lansdale selected Bloch’s “The Animal Fair” for the 2004 anthology "My Favorite Horror Story." Check it out.
Bloch never lost his affection for Lovecraft, and even as late as 1978, his novel "Strange Eons" was in honor of his mentor, but after the publication of his first novel, 1947’s "The Scarf," he was wedded to psychological horror in the public’s mind. Short stories like “Lucy Comes to Stay” and “Final Performance” – which is wonderfully ghastly and receives a tip of the hat in the current horror film "Dead Silence," showing up regularly in everything from the crime pulps to "Playboy" – kept that association alive.
He missed out on the screenplay assignment for "Psycho," but Bloch scripted for radio, films (including two for Castle), and television. He finally linked up with Hitchcock, sort of, by writing 17 episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." In all, Bloch provided scripts for 19 series, including "Star Trek," "Thriller," and "Night Gallery."
Many of his best post-"Scarf" stories are a blend of supernatural and psychological horror. “The Cheaters” is about a pair of eyeglasses that allow the wearer to read people’s minds, and what they think is scarred by greed and lust. “Catnip” is about a high school punk who accidentally burns down an old woman’s house and is then stalked by her cat. I’ve always been a big fan of “Sweets to the Sweet,” about a little girl and her favorite voodoo doll. Very nasty ending to this one. Yummy.
He wasn’t a perfect writer. Having published more than 200 stories and two dozen novels means there are several clinkers in the bunch, but when he was clicking, he was as good as anyone.
One more thing I have to mention: Bloch was one of the funniest horror writers ever. He was a popular emcee for science fiction and horror conventions, and in print, his stuff is littered with sick in-jokes and unexpected puns. Remember all those sick gags in the movie version of "Psycho"? “Mother isn’t herself tonight” and “A boy’s best friend is his mother” both originated in the novel. I still remember the pleasant chill I felt the first time I re-read the book and Mrs. Bates accuses the effete Norman of being “only half a man.” Heh, heh, heh.
Bloch once famously said of himself, “People think I must be a monster, but really I have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk.”
But my all-time favorite Bloch moment comes in an otherwise disposable British film from 1966 called "The Psychopath," in which a sick, aging German war widow who collects dolls sends her feeble-minded but physically strong son out to murder the men she thinks killed her husband. In the film’s climax, the son injures his back while being pursued but manages to get home. The police show up to arrest him and his mother. Mom puts up a small struggle and the son, who is hiding in the attic, hears what is going on and begins howling. The police open the door and we are faced with the now-paralyzed young man seated in a chair. His fruitcake mother has powdered his face to remove his natural coloring, and rouged his lips and cheeks to make him look like a giant Kewpie doll. A tear runs down his cheek as he sobs, “Momma. Momma.”
Comic shocks don’t come any sicker than that.
Robert Bloch died of cancer on Sept. 23, 1994. Every time a new anthology of horror or crime stories is published, I look to see if it includes a new story by him. It’s a silly habit I don’t want to break.
dgb
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