Interview Karloff on THRILLER: An Exclusive HTF Interview With Sara Karloff (1 Viewer)

[Roy Wall]

Sara....nobody....I mean nobody....could touch your dad as a host for a horror series....his presence alone as one poster put it...made the purchase of the set worth it. Nobody contributed more to the horror genre....nobody....although Chaney Sr certainly gets an honorable mention.

 

[RobertR]

I watched a number of episodes on Netflix and was frankly quite disappointed. Very few of the episodes achieved that fantasy/horror eerieness that TZ and OL had. Most were rather dull crime/murder stories.

 

[Joe Lugoff]

I watched a number of episodes on Netflix and was frankly quite disappointed. Very few of the episodes achieved that fantasy/horror eerieness that TZ and OL had. Most were rather dull crime/murder stories.

Those were the early episodes. It started off modeled more on "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" (which preceded it on NBC's Tuesday night schedule its first season), but during the first season it was decided to make the show more horror/fantasy than crime oriented.

 

[shoeshineboy]

Seek out the blog www.athrilleraday.blogspot.com it features an entertaining guide through the series, including some funny debates on what were the highlights and lowlights of this great series.

 

[RobertR]

Those were the early episodes. It started off modeled more on "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" (which preceded it on NBC's Tuesday night schedule its first season), but during the first season it was decided to make the show more horror/fantasy than crime oriented.

How early is "early"? I watched 23 episodes (I understand that the entire series had 67 episodes), and MAYBE 3 episodes had a horror/fantasy feel.

 

[Peter M Fitzgerald]

How early is "early"? I watched 23 episodes (I understand that the entire series had 67 episodes), and MAYBE 3 episodes had a horror/fantasy feel.

If the last episode you've watched was "Well of Doom", then you're about to get into the thick of the supernatural stuff. Not only did the series start out as an attempt at an ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS-style crime/suspense anthology, but it changed producers during the first half of the first season. The new producer, William Frye, was a driving force in shifting the series toward a more gothic/supernatural/horror tone, which is why you got a few episodes already ("The Purple Room", "The Cheaters", "The Hungry Glass") that were in that vein. In fact, from "The Ordeal of Dr. Cordell' to the last Season 1 entry, "The Grim Reaper", there are only two episodes that aren't either supernatual or horror (or both), "Late Date" and "A Good Imagination" (which is a pretty entertaining Hitchcock-like black comedy), and those are both much better (murder-oriented) crime episodes than those featured at the beginning of the season. Season 2 is mainly supernatural/horror, but there are always a few crime episodes mixed-in (again, better than the early Season One efforts) along the way... and the series wraps up with a few crime episodes, the last being apparently an unsold series pilot, "The Specialists", made by other people, that was burned-off as a THRILLER episode instead. One thing to bear in mind with THRILLER, when comparing it to TWILIGHT ZONE and THE OUTER LIMITS, is that its main focus, once it found its groove, was gothic horror and dark fantasy. You won't find very many out-and-out monsters on the show... mostly practitioners of the occult, ghosts, psychotic killers, Edgar Allan Poe-type material and occasional reanimated things, and I can count the quasi-science fiction episodes on one hand: "The Ordeal of Dr. Cordell", "Cousin Tundifer" and "The Incredible Doktor Markesan".

 

[RobertR]

Ok thanks, Peter. Sounds like I did indeed watch mostly the uninteresting stuff. You're obviously very familiar with the show, as the 3 episodes you mentioned ("The Purple Room", "The Cheaters", "The Hungry Glass"), were the eerie ones I was thinking of.

 

[Roy Wall]

Add..."Pigeons From Hell", "The Grim Reaper", "Well of Doom", "The Weird Tailor", "The Incredible Dr. Markesan" and "Waxworks". Other members on here will probably add a few more favorites.