Seemingly happy gun enthusiast Bobby Thompson (Tim O’Kelly) tells his wife Ilene (Tanya Morgan) that he’s feeling disturbed, but she hasn’t time to hear him out. Aging horror film star Byron Orlock (Boris Karloff) reluctantly agrees to a public appearance at a drive-in, even though he’s bitter and has announced his retirement. Their paths will eventually cross, as Tommy embarks on a wave of modern horror that outpaces anything in Orlock’s old movies.Read More »
Down-on-his-luck John Ellman is framed for a judge’s murder. After he’s convicted and sentenced to death, witnesses come forth and prove his innocence. But it was too late for a stay to be granted and Ellman is executed. A doctor uses an experimental procedure to restore him to life, though the full outcome is other than expected.Read More »
Behind the Mask is a typically virile Jack Holt vehicle, with the hero at one point shooting himself in the arm to establish an alibi! Holt plays a federal agent named Hart who has himself planted in jail as a convict to get the goods on a drug syndicate. Befriending small-time gangster Henderson (Boris Karloff), Hart follows the trail of clues to unmask the head of the syndicate, who turns out to be the supposedly respectable Dr. Steiner (Edward Van Sloan). In the rip-roaring climax, Steiner prepares to perform an “operation” on Hart, gleefully informing his victim that his chances for recovery are next to nil. Because of the presence of Boris Karloff and Edward Van Sloan in the cast, Behind the Mask was included in Screen Gems’ “Shock Theater” TV package, even though there’s nothing really horrific in the film.Read More »
A blind sculptor works on his magnum opus, unaware that the skeletons that he has been using for armatures are the remains of the victims of his evil wife and that he is her next target.Read More »
Thriller (aka. Boris Karloff’s Thriller) was an hour-long TV Horror anthology series that originally aired on NBC from 1960 to 1962. Horror fans who grew up in the 1960’s and 1970’s were nearly enraptured with the content and structure of this show. Indeed, in his non-fiction book on horror, Danse Macabre, Stephen King calls Thriller “the best horror series ever put on TV” (224; 1983 ed). At the beginning of each hour, Hollywood’s master of the macabre himself, Boris Karloff, would set the tone and prime the viewers for frightful and chilling dramatizations based on the works of some of the era’s greatest writers in the genre – writers like Robert E Howard, Cornell Woolrich, Richard Matheson, and Robert Bloch. Each episode was shot in eerie black and white and offered at least one story, with a few episodes dividing the hour between two or three shorter plays.Read More »
Thriller (aka. Boris Karloff’s Thriller) was an hour-long TV Horror anthology series that originally aired on NBC from 1960 to 1962. Horror fans who grew up in the 1960’s and 1970’s were nearly enraptured with the content and structure of this show. Indeed, in his non-fiction book on horror, Danse Macabre, Stephen King calls Thriller “the best horror series ever put on TV” (224; 1983 ed). At the beginning of each hour, Hollywood’s master of the macabre himself, Boris Karloff, would set the tone and prime the viewers for frightful and chilling dramatizations based on the works of some of the era’s greatest writers in the genre – writers like Robert E Howard, Cornell Woolrich, Richard Matheson, and Robert Bloch. Each episode was shot in eerie black and white and offered at least one story, with a few episodes dividing the hour between two or three shorter plays.Read More »
Quote:
Boris Karloff is Valder, the creepy looking but trusted French refugee butler of British cabinet minister Arthur Bennett (Holmes Herbert). Valder might be a German spy, but is posing as a British spy. Also sent to the Bennett household as a guest is Frances Hautry (Margaret Lindsay), who is posing as a German spy but might be a British spy. She was previously seen as nurse Helene von Lorbeer, working in a French hospital to treat Frank Bennett (Bruce Lester).Read More »
Victor Sartorius (Karloff) is an ailing doctor working in Morocco. He teams up with Lady Yvonne Clifford (Mona Goya) in a plot to poison her husband, Sir Charles Clifford (Morton Selten), so he can collect the 20,000 pounds necessary to save his experiments and his funding. Roger Clifford (Arthur Margetson), the son of Sir Charles has also been marked for death. The only one who can stop the murder plot of Sartorius is Nurse Eve Rowe (Joan Wyndham).Read More »
When his brother disappears, Robert Manning (Mark Eden) pays a visit to the remote country house he was last heard from. While his host Squire Morley (Christopher Lee, The Oblong Box) is welcoming, Manning detects a feeling of menace in the air with the legend of Lavinia (Barbara Steele, Black Sunday), the Black Witch of Greymarsh, hanging over everything. Will the village`s renowned expert on witchcraft, Professor John Marsh (Boris Karloff, Black Sabbath), be able to shed light on the wicked going-ons at The Craxted Lodge? Vernon Sewell (Ghost Ship) directs this nightmarish horror classic based on H.P. Lovecraft’s Dream in the Witch House.Read More »