Thriller (1960 series)

As sure as his name is Boris Karloff, this is a Thriller!

Thriller, AKA Boris Karloff's Thriller (1960 TV series); The Veil (1958 "mini-series" of episodes never released for TV), AKA

Summary

"As sure as my name is Boris Karloff, this is a Thriller!" Fright-film favorite Boris Karloff introduces and occasionally appears in this eerie anthology series' tales of people thrust into strange and usually terrifying situations, enacted by a different ensemble cast of character-actors each episode, with many of the more memorable supernatural stories written by such authors as Robert Bloch, August Derleth, Robert E. Howard, and Henry Kuttner.

"Good evening. Tonight I'm going to tell you another strange and unusual story of the unexplainable which lies behind The Veil!" An obscure and technically unrelated 1958 anthology horror series called The Veil and hosted by (and starring) Karloff, was filmed but never released as a television show, and might be thought of as a predecessor to Thriller; its purportedly true stories generally dealt with crime, suspense, mystery, and the unexplained (usually in the form of precognition and warnings from beyond the grave), with very little (if any) of the more purely fictional themes of Weird and supernatural horror that Thriller would occasionally explore.

Out of this World was a 1962 science fiction anthology spin-off of the British Armchair Theatre series; most episodes are believed to now be lost, but a couple surviving episode descriptions are tantalizing; I'm including references to it here because it, too, is a genre anthology series hosted by Boris Karloff at roughly the same time.

Details

• Release Date: 1958 (The Veil), 1960-1962 (Thriller), 1962 (Out of this World)
• Country/Language: USA/UK, English
• Genres/Technical: Crime, Suspense, Horror, Fantasy, Science Fiction, black-and-white, anthology
• Runtime: (Thriller generally formatted for a 1-hour commercial television slot; The Veil for a 30-minute slot)
• Starring: host Boris Karloff and an ensemble of guest stars (often including Karloff)
• Director: (various)
• Writer: (various)
• Producer/Production Co: Hubbell Robinson Productions, Revue Studios; (Hal Roach Studios produced The Veil, and BBC and ABC Weekend Television produced Out of this World)
• Watch Episodes: Thriller (link); The Veil (link)

Ratings

MPAA Ratings

• Rated: (none) (equivalent of a "G" or "PG")

Thriller had a reputation in its day for being violent, gory, and scary, though today's audiences might find it hard to imagine; Boris Karloff's grandfatherly presence in the stories' prologues and epilogues tends to take the edge ff the horror a bit, too; still, it might not be considered a particularly "kid friendly" series even by today's standards....

Tentacle Ratings

A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:

• S____ (One Tentacle: Debateably Lovecraftian; has almost no direct connection to Lovecraft's work)

The Thriller anthology series veers wildly between crime stories and supernatural horror, with varying degrees of quality to the results ranging from quite boring (especially for the crime stories), to remarkably creepy and effective. A few of the better supernatural horror stories were adaptations of stories by authors from the Lovecraft circle....

The Veil appears to have been almost completely non-Lovecraftian, but Out of this World, though lost when BBC wiped video tapes of the show a few decades ago, does seem to have a couple of promising episode descriptions.

Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.

Reviews

Review Links:

• (review needed!)

Suggested Episodes

• "The Cheaters" (Robert Bloch): An old pair of eyeglasses offers a unique gift to the wearer—the ability to see into the minds and souls of others. But there's a price to pay for such wonderful magic.
• "The Hungry Glass" (Robert Bloch): Ignoring local superstition and the stories of hauntings, a young photographer and his wife follow through on their plans to purchase a long-abandoned seaside home.
• "Hay-Fork and Bill-Hook": A rural English village is the site for murder, superstition, and accusations of witchcraft.
• "Well of Doom": An ostensibly powerful sorcerer and his colossal minion abduct a wealthy gentleman and attempt to frighten him into to signing over his property and other holdings.
• "Trio for Terror" (August Derleth and others): Our host presents a trifecta of trepidation: first, an occultist is murdered by his nephew; second, a gambler is forced to slumber in a strange bed; and third, a murder suspect eludes the police by hiding in a museum with a unique exhibit.
• "Parasite Mansion": Following an auto accident, a young woman is forced to convalesce in the home of a family of benighted misfits who are desperate to protect their dangerous secret.
• "Mr. George" (August Derleth): As avaricious relatives scheme to murder a little girl for her inheritance, their every attempt is foiled by an unseen force.
• "The Prisoner in the Mirror": After being trapped in an enchanted mirror for centuries, an evil sorcerer exchanges locales—as well as bodies—with a present-day historian and wreaks havoc on the streets of a modern city.
• "Dark Legacy": A two-bit stage magician inherits a book that enables him to summon demonic forces.
• "Pigeons from Hell" (Robert E. Howard): Car trouble forces two young brothers to spend a terrifying night in a dilapidated and seemingly abandoned Louisiana manor house.
• "The Grim Reaper" (Robert Bloch): Legend has it that a lurid painting of the Grim Reaper is cursed and will bring a violent demise to anyone who owns it.
• "The Premature Burial" (Edgar Allan Poe): A man who suffers from catalepsy becomes obsessed with ensuring that he is never buried alive during a seizure, but his cuckolding young wife has other plans.
• "The Weird Tailor" (Robert Bloch): In an attempt to revive his dead son, a man who dabbles in black magic commissions a tailor to make a very unusual suit of clothes.
• "Masquerade" (Henry Kuttner): Wry humor permeates this tale of a honeymooning couple forced to seek shelter in a dilapidated hotel operated by folks who claim to be vampires.
• "Dialogues with Death": This episode offers two tales of terror: First, a long-time employee of the local morgue has heartfelt conversations with the deceased. And second, a Cajun Colonel cleverly arranges the comeuppance of his greedy young nephew and the young man's wife.
• "The Return of Andrew Bentley" (August Derleth and Richard Matheson): An old man fears that upon his death, his soul will be possessed by an evil sorcerer and the sorcerer's cohorts.
• "The Remarkable Mrs. Hawk": The secret of Mrs. Hawk's ability to raise prize-winning pigs? She is Circe, the enchantress of Greek myth who once turned great warriors into swine.
• "The Incredible Doktor Markesan" (August Derleth): After financial circumstances force a man and his wife to reside with his uncle in the uncle's creepy old mansion, the couple soon stumbles across a terrifying secret.

Some episodes of Out of this World with suggestive descriptions:

• "Dumb Martian" (John Wyndham) - An Earthman on a solo tour of duty on one of Jupiter's moons buys a Martian woman as a companion. He mistreats her, assuming her to be just a "dumb martian", but learns, to his cost, that she has more intelligence than he gave her credit for.
• "Pictures Don't Lie" - A radio researcher picks up signals coming from a spaceship hovering near Earth and succeeds in communicating with his 'opposite number' aboard the ship. Speech and pictures are received showing that the occupants are humanoid - and friendly. But can they trust us? Disaster strikes when the spacecraft lands in a "safe" area and the aliens report betrayal when they are attacked by Earth's monsters....
• "Botany Bay" - A doctor believes that the patients at the criminally insane institute he works for are being controlled by aliens. After killing one of 'the possessed' he finds himself in the same institute, this time as a patient.
• "Vanishing Act" - A third-rate conjurer becomes a sensation after buying the vanishing trick box from the estate of the 'Great Vorg' a once famous magician. However, he can't explain exactly where his assistants or objects are going once they have entered the box- as they don't return.
• "The Dark Star" - A mysterious disease sweeps London, altering its victims and seemingly using them to target victims in increasingly greater positions of authority, forcing Scotland Yard and scientists to work fast to stop its spread before it infiltrates the highest ranks of the government.
• "Immigrant" - An investigator is sent to the planet Kimon, which selects only the brightest as immigrants, who then make great wealth to send back to their families, though the immigrants themselves are never seen again.
• "Target Generation" - On board an interstellar colony ship, now governed by an oppressive theocracy that forbids reading as heresy, an oral tradition handed down through the centuries by successive generations prophecies a tremor signifying the Beginning of the End, and a forgotten community guards an ancient letter marked 'to be opened only in an emergency'. When the tremor shakes the ship, these elements come together for a passenger who can read, and he must decide whether the End is enough of an emergency to confess to heresy and share the letter's contents with the rest of his society.