Robert E. Lory - More Tales Of The Frightened

[dem bones]

Robert E. Lory - Boris Karloff Presents: More Tales Of The Frightened (Pyramid. 1975)

Heartthrob
Blood Will Tell
The Forbidden Page
Grains Of Death
The Terror Blend
Carafe Of A Corpse
The Flickering Candles
There's Something In The Soup
Don't Kill The Little Lamb
Chains
Keeper Of The Vault
Put On A Deadly Face
Blood Money
The Fishmonger
Dark Secret
The Masked Dolls
The Empty Closet
In The Graveyard One Night
The Beat Of Leather Wings
The Laughing Buddha
Death Can't Wait
Hanging House
A Small Trick
Down To the Sea In Screams
The Phantom Fiddler
The Dead Rest Uneasily Tonight

Blurb:

Don't be afraid... All you can lose is your mind!

The master of chills, horror and thrills is back to haunt you with a collection of tales that may indeed prove too terrifying for mortal men. Vengeful phantoms, corpses that refuse to remain buried, gourmet vampires, maniacal clowns, sacrificial victims, voodoo warlocks — these are just some of the ghoulish cast of characters destined to stalk your dreams. And let us not forget their grisly props .... their drams of poison, killer bats, creaking gallows, and things that go bump in the night.

So if you have a weak heart or a spine that is too easily chilled, perhaps you had better reconsider. We would not want to bear responsibility for anything unfortunate that might occur when BORIS KARLOFF PRESENTS MORE TALES OF THE FRIGHTENED!


Michael Avallone's original Tales Of The Frightened is a fave rave of mine, a master-class in gloriously clichéd, pared down horror hokum. Now here's the great Robert E. Lory to dispense more of same, beginning with a couple of vicious vampire offerings.

There's Something In The Soup: The servants know better than to cross the Rajah Bersiong. Displease him in any small way and he'll like as not have you tortured to death. So when he demands of the aged chef that he serve him a bowl of his tasty soup with the special ingredient every night for the rest of his life, the old boy can but miserably comply. And what is the special ingredient? The hapless old timer sliced his finger while preparing the dinner.

Eventually, the chef dies through loss of blood. Bad news for his master. Even worse news for the serving girls who bring the 'Rajah with fangs' his meals ...

The Beat Of Leather Wings: Walpurgisnacht in the Carpathian Mountains. The superstitious villagers festoon their homes with crosses and garlic bulbs to fend off the vampires, though in truth, they've not been troubled by the undead for generations. Young Petre has been shown a drawing of a vampire in a musty old book and very horrible it is too. But if nobody's seen a vampire, how would anyone know what they look like. Hearing the beat of wings in the night, Petre risks a sneaky peek out the window ...

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Heartthrob: Duane Winsome rates himself God's gift to women and persists and persists with the raven haired beauty in the office cafeteria until, exasperated, she invites him around to meet mother in their cobweb-festooned mausoleum of a home. He arrives just in time for dinner.

Blood Will Tell: Albert and Cora Winston are perfectly matched in that each is as boring as the other. Twenty-three years into their tedious marriage - childless, funny you should ask - Albert makes his first ever momentous decision - Cora must die! The big plan is to chop her to pieces and bury them in the garden. You just know he's going to make a bloody mess of it.

Keeper Of The Vault: Kid Blast and the Clement gang sure picked the wrong town for their first daring bank robbery!

Don't Kill The Little Lamb: The choice is simple. Either little Gareth and Libby Fletcher provide a substitute, or the New Hampshire Satanists will sacrifice their pet black lamb on Halloween. It's lucky the children never did think much of their parents.

Chains: The return of Hilliard and Giles Drew to their baronial manor in a quiet little English hamlet coincides with the murders of two young women on consecutive full moons. Constable Rufus Steed calls at Drew Manor to interview the brothers. Hilliard, a thoroughly pleasant, polite young man, explains that alas, poor Giles (hunched, cycloptic, recently released from a lunatic asylum, etc) is unavailable. Could he be out prowling for victims in werewolf form?

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Grains Of Death: Ever since he blew that last guy's face off, Frankie Ventura, professional hitman, has been feeling the strain. What he needs is a nice, relaxing day out at the beach, sunbathe some, maybe pick up a bikini broad for a little action. And if those little kids want to bury him in the sand, well, who's Frankie to spoil their fun? My pick of the Tales to date. I'm not sure that any of these were recorded (?), but I had Karloff's ghoulish tones lisping in my ear as I read.

In The Graveyard One Night: County Cork. After a fierce night's drink in The Green Bell, Murphy and O'Toole are waylaid by a cloaked, sodden man who imposes upon them to dig a grave, plant a headstone at a certain spot in the graveyard.

A Small Trick: Underwhelming stage magician Palmer the Great murders truly gifted rival performer Rosetti for the magic gold coin which enables him to shrink smaller and smaller by the instant. Palmer treats a Detroit audience to a performance they'll never forget.

Down To The Sea In Screams: "For this one week we do no crabbing, nor any other type of fishing. We honour the elder god by this, and none venture into the sea to ensnare his little brothers." So insists the superstitious old codger in the Angling store. Being sophisticated Bostonians, newly-weds John and Deborah Grover can cheerfully ignore this quaint New England custom. Dagon baits his hook.

The Dead Rest Uneasily Tonight: Why Thomas Tilden, property developer, finally decided against building a housing project on the site of an old cemetery.

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Hanging House: Cyril Sutton, the world's smuggest ghost investigator, believes he's solved the mystery behind a spate of alleged suicides at a supposed "haunted house" in Richmond, Virginia. Armed with a gun and tape-recorder, he broadcasts a live late night report for the benefit of his admiring audience. Reminiscent of H. R. Wakefield's Ghost Hunt but even shorter.

The Terror Blend: Determined as he was to quit smoking, maybe Malcolm Hatch should have steered clear of the explosive Valefar method.

Blood Money: Uncle Lester is in the habit of stealing the pennies from four-year-old nephew Clarence's piggy bank to fund his tobacco habit. Lester gets annoyed, but not half as much as Mr. Pig.

The Fishmonger: His speciality - fishes whose faces resemble those of eminent lawyers. Small wonder mediocre barrister Albert Able is such a regular customer!

Put On A Deadly Face: Meet Silas Friday, sad circus clown. His face makes everyone so miserable that his colleagues put pressure on the owner to sack him. Eddie Lot, on the other hand, has a proper, happy clown's face, and when Silas discovers his rival dead in the caravan, he decides to steal it.

The Flickering Candles: Alma and Eldon Glade, a young couple newly arrived in Atlanta, stop the night at an inn in the village of Remorse. The only guests, the landlady invites them to attend her little daughter Charlotte's hundredth birthday party ....

The Laughing Buddha: Vance Stillman, treasure stealer, purloins the three foot high statue from a temple high in the Himalayas, killing a Priest in the process. The evil anti-Buddha has the last laugh.

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Dark Secret: Razor-wielding, chain-whipping cosh boys the Knights of Hell take exception to the local simpleton's polite refusal to join their gang. Perhaps Big Juan has joined a rival JD outfit? Intent on doing him a grave mischief, the Knights follow Juan to the Spanish Harlem slum where he's arranged to meet a mysterious "friend" in the basement ....

The Masked Dolls: To my way of thinking, the closer the Tales Of The Frightened are to Tales Of The Crypt the better, so this is certainly among Mr. Lory's most successful efforts. Filthy rich Stanton Fry and his party of beautiful people cruise the Caribbean in a luxury yacht. Arriving off the coast of Haiti, Fry invites aboard a so-called adept in voodoo to provide entertainment. Stanton is keen to prove to his fawning hangers-on that the black arts are rubbish. Unperturbed by this insult, the white haired old man hangs a masked doll around each of their necks and suggests they stab it with a pin ...

The Phantom Fiddler: Meet twelve year old twin brothers Theodore and Thayer, the one musically gifted, the other tone deaf. When Theodore, the virtuoso, is tragically knocked down and killed on the eve of the big concert, his brother deputises on the understanding that he just sit among the orchestra and mime. You can guess the rest.

Carafe Of A Corpse: Lazy Durwood Beech is useless at his job, but that doesn't prevent him coveting the managing directorship. Oh, to have a massive desk, his own secretary, and, best of all, a slick silver carafe to pour his drinks from! Maybe he should fit up Mr. Mulgrave on an embezzlement rap?

Three to go. One last push should do it.

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"Perhaps it was in the room that an insane member of the family had been kept, perhaps chained to the wall, his or her hysterical screams cutting through the dark. Or perhaps the room had been used, long ago, for some dark rituals, the symbols of a trafficking in the Black Arts still upon the walls and floors. But perhaps wasn't good enough, of course. One simply had to know ...."

The Empty Closet Joshua Ward, 26, inherits, from a grand-uncle he's never heard of, a manor in the Scottish Highlands. A surly caretaker warns him against entering the triple-bolted room.

The Forbidden Page: Charles Dell, artist, rips off the work of obscure talents and sells it as his own, so when the strange man in the junk shop offers him a special bound folio of a forgotten Victorian watercolourist who specialised in horrors, Dell eagerly hands over the paltry asking price. But the folio comes with a warning. "Number 14, Mr. Dell. Do not under any circumstances look at that page."

Death Can't Wait: A midnight visitor for Henry Turner. He is informed by the Grim Reaper that he has three days to live. Henry, a thoroughly decent chap, protests that he can't die yet, he has two maiden aunts to care for, and they'd be lost without him! The Reaper knows this and sympathises, hence this personal appearance at Henry's bedside. Is it a dream, or has Death sought to do him a good turn?

Much as I love Mr. Lory, I think the Michael Avallone paperback is the more impressive of the 'Tales of the Frightened' if only because REL is over generous in the benign spirits/ happy endings dept. Would love to know if Boris Karloff actually recorded any from this book?