When Thriller first came on TV I didn't pay much attention to it. Naturally I watched it because I heard that Boris Karloff would be the host and assumed these would be one hour mini movies of horror. Nothing could be farther from the truth! They were mystery shows, told in segments with Boris telling us a bit about the show before each episode began. Thriller was doomed from the start. It seemed it didn't know which direction to follow and each show was in no way related to the previous one; ranging from mystery to comedy. I soon grew tired of this and went back to Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Then came that fateful night. I decided to give it another try. After airing something like 14 episodes I tuned in to one titled The Cheaters. It started out grimly enough with a hanging and Boris, with that wonderful voice, assuring us that this would be a Thriller. Well, by the final episode when Harry Townes dons the special eyeglasses and looks into the mirror, what he sees sent me into total goosebump shock! I had nightmares for a week. It's all I could talk about at school. For a 12 year old boy this was the scariest thing I had ever seen. So I watched again the following week. This time it was an episode called The Hungry Glass with William Shatner. A creepy old house with images appearing in the windows, a really horrific ending, but still not as scary as last week. OK, I said to myself, this isn't so bad. Sure enough the next few episodes went back to murder and suspense and I again lost interest. But along comes Well of Doom which was a mystery in disguise. They tried to trick a wealthy man with magic and a giant hulk of a man to gain possession of his estate. At the end we discover all the horrors had been staged and the man ended up scaring his tormentors half to death! Directors on this show ranged from Ida Lupino to John Brahm, one of the finest TV and movie directors of all time. The rest of the season went back and forth between horror and mystery and again I stopped watching. But I did catch the last show of the season and I'm glad I did. Called "The Grim Reaper" it starred William Shatner. His wealthy aunt had purchased a painting of the grim reaper, a really horrid thing, and when Shatner comes for a visit he tells a tale of murder and intrigue and terror. Those who owned the painting all met violent deaths. As he tells his story to his aunt and guests he stops, looks at the painting, touches it, then turns toward his audience extending his hand. There's blood on his fingertips! At the end, his aunt dies and no one is left in the house except the secretary. Shatner explains the whole thing was a gag to scare the old lady and get her fortune. The secretary locks him in the room with the painting and goes for help. I shall never forget what happens next as long as I live. Alone in the room he taunts the painting, wallowing in his victory. But when he turns to see what made a noise he sees the character in the painting is gone! He looks around. There is no music, only deadly silence as the look on his face says it all. He is so terrified he can't even scream; no sound comes out. What does he see? Finally the police arrive and break down the door. The inspector and his partner find Shatner dead on the floor. Then someone says, "Oh my God. Look at the painting!" The camera slowly zooms in and we see blood dripping from the scythe. I thought that since I was so young yeah, that's why it scared me. I bought this episode on videotape and played it again. Knowing the plot, knowing what would happen, and being 58 years old, I still got chills at the end! Karloff himself appeared in several episodes, and to fans there's a top 20 list of the best shows. They include the ones I just mentioned of course plus The Incredible Doctor Markesan, A Wig for Miss Devore, Waxworks and more. Sadly the show went off the air that second year but it left it's mark on TV history. Stephen King was influenced by it, as was I. The one episode that scared both of us was Pigeons From Hell. He was inspired to write several stories watching this and I won a short story contest at that time. I also didn't sleep for weeks after seeing it. It was scarier than any horror movie of the time, and most of today! In fact, this episode would not even be allowed on TV today. The censors would not allow it. Critics hated it, fans were confused, so much behind the scenes bickering finally killed off Thriller. Yet Hitchcock was so envious of the show he expanded his own show to one hour, a terrible mistake. While his little stories worked well in the half hour format, the one hour shows did not. If you have never seen this classic horror fest by all means do so. It's black and white which adds to its air of suspense and terror. Sit back and prepare to see something you will never see on TV again!
Review of Thriller
