For you halloween reading pleasure -- Frankenstein meets Frankenstein

[A Mippyville repost]

Dick Briefer always had fun playing with the line between the merely dark and the truly grotesque. In the Mippyville stories, he normally pulled back before things got quite as potentially gruesome as this 1946 tale.

Briefer also enjoyed parodying popular culture figures from Bing Crosby to Inner Sanctum host Raymond. Boris Karloff fit right in.

For your Halloween viewing pleasure -- Béla Lugosi in White Zombie

"Do you want to see something really scary?" --

With one exception, these are episodes of the Twilight Zone that creeped me out as a child and in some cases still do. The Grave doesn't quite fit in here, but it's awfully good anyway, written and directed by the great Montgomery Pittman and featuring one of the best casts you'll find on any half hour of television.

It's a Good Life


Perchance to Dream


The Grave



When the Sky Was Opened


Mirror Image

The After Hours




The Howling Man


The Invaders

For your Halloween viewing pleasure -- silents are golden

The Phantom of the Opera





Buster Keaton's "The Haunted House"





Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde withJohn Barrymore




Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler








The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

For you halloween reading pleasure -- Frankie, Raymond and the birth of EC

[A Mippyville repost]

At least the birth of EC's horror line which was inspired by what was thought of, even in the Fifties, as old time radio horror shows like Inner Sanctum (which featured the creepy, pun-loving host, Raymond) and Light's Out (which had stories every bit as violent and disturbing as anything EC ever published as well as a progressive political viewpoint similar to that of Gaines). Sanctum has dated badly but most of Light's Out remains effective to this day (listen for yourself here).

With that out of the way...

For your Halloween viewing pleasure -- Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr. in Route 66

 Lizard's Leg and Owlet's Wing

For your Halloween listening pleasure -- Orson Welles in Dracula

The debut production of the Mercury Theatre of the Air.