Boris Karloff's Thriller: Well of Doom

A welcome foray into gothic horror territory for Thriller, Well of Doom is fairly well crammed with atmosphere, from it's bleak foggy landscapes to it's torch-lit dungeon to it's otherworldly antagonists. Waylaid on route to his wedding ceremony, a wealthy bachelor finds himself and bride to be captive of a pair of highwaymen, the ghastly Squire Moloch (Henry Daniell) and his hulking stooge Master Styx (played by Richard"Jaws" Kiel in a very early role). After taking the hapless groom to a dungeon on his own late father's estate, Moloch claims to be the father's murder victim and demands, if he wishes to escape torture, he sign over the deed to all of his holdings in recompense. Threatened with the murder of his bride, the hero finally agrees to the extorter's demand and is subjected to Moloch's final treachery before discovering that all is not as it seems.

On the plus side of Well of Doom, at the top of the list might be the brilliantly ominous Jerry Goldmith score, which mimics the lumbering zombie-like gate of Kiel's Master Styx. Aside from the score and excellent set decoration, the episode also boasts the unnerving performance of callow-faced Thriller-regular Henry Danielle as the diabolical Squire Moloch, whose vampiric appearance resembles that of Lon Chaney's in Todd Browning's London After Midnight (beaver hat and all) which this episode of Thriller brings to mind in more ways than one. 7/10

Boris Karloff's Thriller: The Hungry Glass

William Shatner's pre-Star Trek work doesn't get as much attention, obviously, but the Shat made a staggering number of television appearances leading up to his career-defining role of James T. Kirk, in a wide variety of shows such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents, 77 Sunset Strip, The Man from Uncle, Gunsmoke, The Twilight Zone and Boris Karloff's Thriller. The casual Shatner fan is probably aware of the classic Twilight Zone episode Nightmare at 20,000 feet, about a man with a little "problem" who no one will believe (even his wife) when he witnesses a monster on the wing of the jetliner they are all passengers on. One of my favorite episodes of the Twilight Zone, Nick of Time, has Shatner under the thrall of a fortune-vending napkin dispenser in a a small-town diner. In both episodes, Shatner's character is suggested to have some nebulous sort of mental issue and has a doting wife to help restrain his destructive self. For a time, apparently, Shatner endured being typecast as this edgy, bewildered emo-type, mothered by a stereotypical, staid television spouse.

Shatner's character in The Hungry Glass, Gil Thrasher, falls roughly into this category: a Korean-war veteran with PTSD (and possible junkie--it's left a bit vague) who moves into a creepy seaside cliff-house with his alluring young wife. Though here, at least, the Shatner wife (played by Hungry Glass director Douglass Heyes' wife Joanna Heyes) is played with a little more dimension. It's intimated that Marcia Thrasher has a flaw of her own--a benevolent sort of vanity, the love of her own image--which conveniently plays into the central theme of The Hungry Glass. But this isn't posed very convincingly. She doesn't come across as particularly vain, we're just supposed to trust a clumsy charicterization. Her real flaw is in not being able to reassure her tormented husband with much conviction. Weariness is evident in her eyes as Gil begins to lose his grip on himself. She starts to come around to his way of thinking before it's over.

Unfortunately, an excess of the dialogue in The Hungry Glass is composed of other characters trying to reassure Shatner (or each other) that his new house isn't really haunted, while simultaneously trying to assure him that he isn't just going nuts. Not that this somewhat tiresome exposition prevents The Hungry Glass from being a classic Thriller episode. It just pads out the story, which is a bit sleight for an hour-long slot. Basically, the house was once inhabited by an extremely beautiful but vain woman (Donna Douglas--Elly May Clampett in the Beverly Hillbillies) who grew into an old hag enraptured with the sight of her own image in her gallery of mirrors, and finally died by crashing through one in her ardent self-admiration. Over the years, numerous people mysteriously died from broken glass at the house and naturally the locals think it's haunted. An old geezer cryptically mentions the house has no mirrors in it, setting the story to unfold. The story is traditional and the setting atmospheric. The scene where the wife finds the lost mirrors in the attic is especially effective. The ghosts are sufficiently spooky, given the low budget, and the climax is actually kind of shocking.

William Shatner's performance is just fine, by the way. The plot certainly gives him plenty of opportunity to stretch his acting legs. Gil Thrasher is alternately brooding and severe but Shatner makes him likable, if not likely. The Shat went on to star in another Thriller episode, The Grim Reaper, which is frequently touted as the greatest episode of Thriller's brief two-season run.

Boris Karloff's Thriller: The Cheaters

In 1960, fans of horror got their own television show with the hour-long anthology series Boris Karloff's Thriller, hosted, appropriately, by the venerable bogeyman himself and produced by classic horror empire Universal Studios. Unfortunately, the show's producers were so keen to compete with the Alfred Hitchcock Hour, featuring mostly crime stories with a dark climactic twist, that the first 14 episodes of the show were listless imitations of Hitchcock's long-running television franchise--lacking even a hint of supernatural mayhem. It soon became apparent that audiences didn't want a show hosted by Boris Karloff to be just another hour of Hitchcockian storylines, and Universal was finally pressured to retool the show to feature stories of gothic horror, starting with episode #15 The Cheaters.

A story by Psycho author Robert Bloch, The Cheaters concerns a pair of old-fashioned spectacles with very special yellow-tinted lenses that allow the wearer to see "the truth" around them, and the strange tragic circumstances that invariably ensue. The story opens as the reclusive 19-th century inventor of the titular glasses, Dirk Vann Prin (played by Thriller regular Henry Daniell) puts them on for the first time--to his immediate regret. From there, the story continues to the present-day where junk-man Joe Henshaw (Paul Newlan, another Thriller regular) finds the Cheaters while cleaning out the ancient ruins of the Vann Prin house. When he puts on the glasses he finds that they clear up his vision in more ways than one, as the grim designs of his harpy wife (Linda Watkins) and young hired hand (Ed Nelson) are laid bare. The glasses change hands three more times in The Cheaters, until finally a scoundrel intellectual (Harry Townes), thinking he's unlocked the true purpose of the Cheaters, uses the deadly specs to view his own image in the mirror. What follows is a scene regarded by some as the scariest moment in 1960's network television--a category in which the show Thriller appears prominently.

As you might have guessed, the best part of The Cheaters are the moments where it's hapless owners are gazing through it's glass. The Cheaters effect is pulled off through a simple change in lighting and a voice-over to represent the inner dialogue of the viewed subject, but this works quite effectively. The performances of all involved are excellent, as well, and the story is taut enough to sustain interest until the terrifying conclusion at the wonderfully gloomy Vann Prin house. Thriller benefitted greatly by Universal's flair for spooky sets and horror lighting, as well as the vast pool of acting and writing talent it could draw on. Few of the Thriller episodes that followed are at the level of The Cheaters in overall execution, and sadly it only ran for two seasons, but there are enough memorable episodes to testify to it's untapped potential. 9/10

Jeanette Nolan--Tribute to a Witch

Veteran actress Jeanette Nolan (1911-1998) had a long and distinguished career, starting with the role of Lady Macbeth in Orson Welles supreme adaptation of Macbeth in 1948. Of most interest to horror fans, perhaps, is her role as the voice of Norman Bates' Mother in Psycho (why, I wouldn't even hurt a fly). But the woman seemed to have a knack for playing witches and it's just a pity she didn't do it more often. Here she is as (l to r) the vindictive villain Granny Herrod in a great episode of Boris Karloff's Thriller called Parasite Mansion, as the titular character of La Strega (also Thriller) and as Aunt Ada in the Night Gallery episode titled Since Aunt Ada Came to Stay. Props to a fabulous, unsung screen witch!