Die Schreckenskammer. Kriminal- und Horrorstories.

by Robert Bloch

Short story collection.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Short Stories, Collections, Fantasy, Anthologies

126 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1981

About the author

Robert Albert Bloch was a prolific American writer. He was the son of Raphael "Ray" Bloch (1884, Chicago-1952, Chicago), a bank cashier, and his wife Stella Loeb (1880, Attica, Indiana-1944, Milwaukee, WI), a social worker, both of German-Jewish descent.

Bloch wrote hundreds of short stories and over twenty novels, usually crime fiction, science fiction, and, perhaps most influentially, horror fiction (Psycho). He was one of the youngest members of the Lovecraft Circle; Lovecraft was Bloch's mentor and one of the first to seriously encourage his talent.

He was a contributor to pulp magazines such as Weird Tales in his early career, and was also a prolific screenwriter. He was the recipient of the Hugo Award (for his story "That Hell-Bound Train"), the Bram Stoker Award, and the World Fantasy Award. He served a term as president of the Mystery Writers of America.

Robert Bloch was also a major contributor to science fiction fanzines and fandom in general. In the 1940s, he created the humorous character Lefty Feep in a story for Fantastic Adventures. He also worked for a time in local vaudeville, and tried to break into writing for nationally-known performers. He was a good friend of the science fiction writer Stanley G. Weinbaum. In the 1960's, he wrote 3 stories for Star Trek.

Reviews

[Alex Budris · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of pulp-crime stories from the late 50s and early 60s.

[Luke Bishop · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent story collection from horror master Robert Bloch. Most of the stories are rather short and usually based around some kind of punchline. Bloch can do better ("The Hungry House," "Notebook Found In An Abandoned House," "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper") but this is a fine story collection.

Highlights:
"Impractical Joker" - A fast-paced, somewhat stream-of-consciousness story that feels different that much of Bloch's regular fare.
"Two of a Kind" - A story that ends in punchline, but a rather amusing one with an interesting concept.
"Method for Murder" - A clever concept, although with a predictable ending.
"The Screaming People" and "Frozen Fear" - More traditional sci-fi/fantasy horror stories.

[Mark H · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some of these stories are noir thrillers, whereas I prefer his horror tales. Also, some of these are presumably from early in his career, and not as accomplished as his later work.

Still, very pleased to finally read two tales that were adapted for compendium, or ‘portmanteau’, horror movies...

Frozen Fear was filmed as part of Asylum (1972).

Method for Murder was filmed as the first tale in The House That Dripped Blood (1971).

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing much memorable here. Just a quick escapist read of short stories. He’s done better.

[Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Robert Bloch, although as yet I haven't read any of his novel-length works (including PSYCHO). Instead I adore his short stories, which I've found dotted throughout countless horror anthologies. Bloch was a pulp author, literally paid by the word, whose career spanned almost the whole of the 20th century. His short stories are well known for their wit, twist endings and darkly comic overtones and the quality only increased as the years went by.

This collection is a pretty standard selection of Bloch's work, selected from the middle of the century, when he moved away from writing lots of monster stories to focus on human horrors.

Some of the tales I didn't like much at all. THE SCREAMING PEOPLE is overlong and bogged down in psychoanalysis which seems to be there just to pad out the word count. TWO OF A KIND is a modern day Biblical story set aboard a cruise liner, but it's unremarkable and unexciting. BEELZEBUB, about a guy menaced by a bluebottle, is a story I wanted to like but couldn't - it just seems to have been churned out for a quick buck.

Other stories are more rewarding. THE LIVING END is an entertaining one about a misguided quest for immortality, and THE HEAD HUNTER is an extraordinarily ghoulish look into the mind of a Nazi executioner, and not one for the weak of heart. PRIDE GOES- is a short-short about adultery and benefits from a quick pace, while FAT CHANCE is the mundane tale of a poisoner that benefits from strong characters. METHOD FOR MURDER is yet another story about a husband and wife who hate each other, and is an interesting precursor toStephen King's novel THE DARK HALF.

Then there are the classics. THE UNPARDONABLE CRIME is one of Bloch's sleaziest, involving sadistic pornography filmed in the basement of a grotty bar and drug addiction. I've not seen Bloch with an edge this hard before, but it works. FROZEN FEAR is another classic, well known after it was filmed as part of the 1972 Amicus anthology film ASYLUM; it's the one where a husband chops his wife into little pieces and puts her in the freezer in the cellar. Great ghoulish stuff.

There are two standouts in this anthology for me: UNTOUCHABLE, a much-anthologised effort that marks one of Bloch's best twist endings, and IMPRACTICAL JOKER, about an insane bartender on his last night of work, which is very suspenseful and very fast paced.

And there you have it. There seem to be lots of lesser stories to pad out the length of this little book, but it's worth it for the good stories it contains.