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3.67 AVERAGE
3.67 AVERAGE
Along with The Twilight Zone and Tales from the Crypt, Alfred Hitchcock Presents is considered to be one of the best anthology series out there (and generally one of the best TV shows), and as a fan of all three I fully agree. I'm an anthology film enthusiast as well (especially horror), but unlike with films, a rotten apple or two in a TV show doesn't drag down the entire thing.
Usually in an anthology film there also tends to be a common theme, so you have to watch the whole thing at one sitting, but episodes you can save and watch one per day, month or year. The short running time (less than 30 minutes) is enough to make you invested in the story, but short enough so that there's always time for an episode here and there, no matter how busy you are.
As with Tales from the Crypt, part of the AHP's appeal is the opening (and closing) of the episode, where Hitchcock makes whimsical, dry, and slightly macabre jokes (like in the Christmas episode, where he traps Santa Claus in the chimney by building a brick wall in front of the fireplace). When it comes to the stories themselves, they range from dramas to thrillers, which keeps the show fresh, because you never know what the stories end up being.
Hitchcock's name has been involved with an extraordinary amount of titles. 16 Skeletons from My Closet is a part of Dell Publishing's series of anthologies that were published in the midst of the show's success. In the beginning of each story, there are a couple of lines of introductory words, usually cryptic enough that they don't reveal too much about what's coming. Like in other titles, the introductions have been ghostwritten, but I could still hear Hitchcock's voice in my head, so whoever wrote them did a good job.
Charles Mergendahl's Secret Recipe was both one of my favorite stories and the one with my favorite introduction:
Usually in an anthology film there also tends to be a common theme, so you have to watch the whole thing at one sitting, but episodes you can save and watch one per day, month or year. The short running time (less than 30 minutes) is enough to make you invested in the story, but short enough so that there's always time for an episode here and there, no matter how busy you are.
As with Tales from the Crypt, part of the AHP's appeal is the opening (and closing) of the episode, where Hitchcock makes whimsical, dry, and slightly macabre jokes (like in the Christmas episode, where he traps Santa Claus in the chimney by building a brick wall in front of the fireplace). When it comes to the stories themselves, they range from dramas to thrillers, which keeps the show fresh, because you never know what the stories end up being.
Hitchcock's name has been involved with an extraordinary amount of titles. 16 Skeletons from My Closet is a part of Dell Publishing's series of anthologies that were published in the midst of the show's success. In the beginning of each story, there are a couple of lines of introductory words, usually cryptic enough that they don't reveal too much about what's coming. Like in other titles, the introductions have been ghostwritten, but I could still hear Hitchcock's voice in my head, so whoever wrote them did a good job.
Charles Mergendahl's Secret Recipe was both one of my favorite stories and the one with my favorite introduction:
By way of introduction, may I present this bit of folklore. Among a small tribe of peace-loving cannibals, there was one more ingenious than all the rest. Not satisfied to merely eat the white man, he learned his ways. And so during one bountiful harvest season, he reduced his village's food supply to ashes, and placed the ashes in small jars labeled Instant People.
Apart from two underwhelming detective stories, the collection focuses on thrillers and suspense. There are a few duds here and there, and after a while the stories start bleeding into each other, but it can't really be helped, because they're all highly addictive, so it's impossible to read just one. Not a bad assortment by any means, even if the overall quality doesn't quite warrant four stars, and AHP fans will probably be satisfied.
In addition to Secret Recipe, which had a wonderful atmosphere full of paranoia, my favorites were C. B. Gilford's The Man at the Table (a poker player tries to stall a robber), Robert Bloch's Man with a Hobby (like Bloch's best known work, Psycho, this story left behind a lingering sense of dread), Robert Arthur's ...Said Jack the Ripper (wax figures are creepy by default, so when you add a carnival at night and a Chamber of Horrors maintained by a slightly demented man, that's guaranteed fun right there), and A Little Sororicide (a submissive and mild-mannered man imagines what it would be like to murder his domineering and mean spinster sister; I don't know what it says about me, but I love this kind of stuff).
None of the stories succeed in utter surprise endings, but the best ones entertain while they're getting to their inevitable destination. I wouldn't mind reading more of these anthologies, but in terms of choosing between two forms of Hitchcockian stories... I think I'll gladly continue watching the show. With a drop of arsenic in my tea.
dark
mysterious
medium-paced