“Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk.”

― Robert Bloch

Happy 100th Birthday to Master of Weird Fiction and Father of Psychos, Robert Bloch!

Born in Chicago in 1917, Robert Bloch got his first taste of blood when he saw the 1925 version of The Phantom of the Opera during its original run. He was, in his words, “terrified and fascinated by the face that glowered at me from the screen.” From then on, Mr. Bloch was drawn to the strange and eerie. In his teen years, Mr. Bloch began corresponding with ho-rror master H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft’s influence loomed large in Mr. Bloch’s early work and informed most of his fiction. In The Shambler from the Stars, Bloch included a Lovecraft-like character… and promptly murdered him in a brutal fashion. Lovecraft returned the favor by offing a Bloch stand-in in The Haunter in the Dark, which he also dedicated to Bloch.

Bloch eventually moved away from Lovecraftian pastiches and began to develop his own unique style. He enjoyed great success with Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper, a sinister tale with the kind of gleefully macabre punchline Bloch would become known for. Jack the Ripper would later become a recurring theme of his fiction, as well as lunatics in general. While others wrote mysteries that focused on heroic detectives, Bloch preferred maniacs and fiends. In 1959, his knack for writing of the disturbed mind resulted in a novel that would secure his place in horror history: Psycho. The novel was famously adapted to film by Alfred Hitchcock and further established Bloch as a master of terror.

After the unfathomable success of Psycho, Bloch took a stab at screenwriting. For television, he penned 10 episodes of Boris Karloff’s Thriller (several based on his own stories), 3 episodes of Star Trek (one being a Jack the Ripper story) and 10 episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. With site favorite William Castle, he crafted Strait-Jacket and The Night Walker, both among Castle’s best thrillers. Following The Skull (based on Bloch’s The Skull of the Marquis de Sade), Bloch would lend his ghoulish talents to Amicus by writing screenplays for The Psychopath, The Deadly Bees, Torture Garden, The House That Dripped Blood and Asylum.

Strait-Jacket

For a career chocka-Bloch with fright classics, we salute Robert Bloch! Thanks for making us go Psycho! xoxo