A collection of short, sharp shockers from Boris Karloff.
Are you one of the frightened? So asks Boris Karloff at the start of most – though, annoyingly if you like uniformity, not all – of the Tales of the Frightened, a disposable horror short story project that had a longer life than anyone might have expected.
Tales of the Frightened began life in 1957 as a gleam in the eye of book editor and concept packager Lyle Kenyon Engel, who hired Karloff to tell a series of brief horror stories written by the prolific Michael Avallone, author of everything from pulp novels to endless movie and TV novelisations. The stories were approximately five minutes in length, and took inspiration from folk tales, urban myths and Avallone’s own imagination, told with a twinkle in the voice by Karloff in a conversational style, making reference to the listener throughout and usually ending on a humorously macabre note. Karloff was perfect for this, sounding like an avuncular uncle with a twisted sense of humour, and he would bring a similar feel to the film Black Sabbath – not to mention the Thriller TV series – in later years. The stories were accompanied by sound effects and eerie music by the Electrosoniks, a pioneering electronic
The stories were syndicated to US radio stations where they ran as filler items on the Reader’s Digest show, a format that did it no good in the end as the stories were buried away amongst wider content – anyone tuning in especially for them would’ve had to wade through a lot of fluff to get there. Tales of the Frightened also appeared as a digest magazine in 1957 but only lasted for two editions. And that, you might reasonably think, would be the end of it.
But – presumably – egged on by the popularity of Thriller, the format was revived in 1963, with a pair of Belmont paperback short story collections by Avallone based on the series and two LP records on the Mercury label. The latter featured new versions of the original stories, enhanced with sound effects and eerie music by the Electrosoniks, a pioneering electronic combo consisting of Tom Dissevely and Kid Baltan, who issued The Fascinating World of Electronic Music in 1963 and had tracks adapted for use in this new version of Tales of the Frightened.
The stories are slight – maybe too slight to really work as horror, though there is a certain no-nonsense chilliness to them and Karloff gives it his all in the narration. The stories are a lot of fun, even if they are relatively inconsequential.
The original albums are highly sought-after by collectors but you can enjoy both here:
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