The Road to Bloch, by Nicholas Montelongo

I’ve been harping on this subject for over ten years now and it never ceases to annoy me, that most of Robert Bloch’s writings are out of print. Who was this guy? For one thing, Bloch was a member of the legendary Lovecraft Circle (a who’s who of pulp writers who corresponded with H.P. Lovecraft). With Lovecraft’s encouragement he became a seminal contributor to Weird Tales and penned many classics (such as “Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper,” “Enoch,” as well as Cthulhu Mythos tales like “The Shambler from the Stars” and “Notebook Found in a Deserted House.”) In the late forties, Bloch moved onto writing novels that were usually an odd mixture of mystery, suspense, and horror.

His first novel, The Scarf, is about a psychotic strangler who bases his “fictional” writings on the women he kills. Another notable book is The Kidnapper, about a sociopath who abducts a child to disastrous results. In 1959, Bloch was inspired by the Ed Gein case to write his most famous novel, Psycho, a modern classic. The movie is true to the book for the most part and many of the original elements of the film that Hitchcock was credited with came from the novel. Hitch even said so himself. The one major exception was that Norman Bates was casted as younger and more sympathetic than the novel’s version. Around the same time that he sold the rights to Psycho, Bloch moved to California and became a screenwriter. He wrote several movies (The House that Dripped Blood, Straight Jacket, The Night Walker) and many teleplays (for TV shows such as Star Trek, Thriller, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents). In the 70s, he became the first author to receive the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement. He continued writing short stories and novels (Strange Eons, a Cthulhu Mythos novel, The Night of Ripper, a full length Jack the Ripper novel, and Lori). In the 90s, he received the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement. He died of cancer in 1994.

Bloch was an important figure in horror, fantasy, and science fiction for several reasons. One, he was one of the pioneers of the psychological horror story. Writing from the perspective of the psychopath is commonplace now but not so much during Bloch’s early forays into novel writing. Two, he brought a memorable sense of humor to horror. Attending his gallows humor were many puns (contrary to some people who like to generalize, he did not always employ them.) Three, he was one of the earliest spec fic writers to attend sci fi conventions since their inception. He not only gave a lot of his time for interviews but also support the fan community by making free contributions of his writing to fanzines. Four, he was immensely supportive of other writers. He encouraged and inspired countless writers including Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Peter Straub, Joe Lansdale, and Jack Ketchum. Most of the aforementioned people made their debt to Bloch clear in the memorial collection Appreciations of the Master. He is commonly remembered for not only being a hilarious man but also as a kind, caring individual.

I guess the best way to express how I feel about this man is to guide you through the process I underwent in familiarizing myself with his work.

Early 90s: I was no younger than ten when my interest in horror was first awakened. It manifested when I saw the covers of reprints to E.C. horror comics. The E.C.s remain the best horror comics of all time. They became noted for their innovations with storytelling and artwork that raised the bar for comic creators everywhere (although it wasn’t appreciated during its time.) One of the notable qualities of these stories were the surprise endings in which the characters die gruesomely and ironically. They brought a sense of humor and playfulness to the horror field. I learned later on that they lifted stories from the pulps. I saw a clear example of this around the end of 2007 when I read “Sweets to the Sweet” by Robert Bloch in which the elements of Bloch’s story were employed in The Vault of Horror. Bloch’s tale came out in 1947 and that particular Vault of Horror story came out in 1952. Some people like to say that Bloch wrote E.C. style stories but Bloch wrote them first. The truer statement is E.C. wrote Blochian stories. I became a Bloch fan at ten or eleven and didn’t even know it.

Early 2003: My first year in community college and it was a Friday night. To celebrate the official beginning of the weekend, I walked over to the city library that sat in the same block as my satellite campus. When I got there, I came across one movie that struck my fancy: Psycho, the classic movie by Hitchcock. I rented the film and watched it that night. I came away convinced that I just watched one of the best films I ever watched although I was surprised by how soon the heroine was killed off. It didn’t escape my notice that it was based on a novel by a guy named Robert Bloch. The following summer I bought a horror anthology at the same library that contained “The Man Who Collected Poe” by Bloch and it fired up my imagination. That same anthology introduced me to H.P. Lovecraft, August Derleth, E.F. Benson, and Manly Wade Wellman. Yes, it was a whopper.

October 2007: I attended a lecture at BYU about themes found in the works of Poe, Lovecraft, and Shirley Jackson. This lit a fire in me that has remained unquenched, nothing short of volcanic. I asked the professor is he recommended Robert Bloch among the masters he mentioned and he replied “Of course!” Throughout the rest of the year, I read The Haunting of Hill House, more of Lovecraft, I am Legend, and Psycho. My lengthy intro into horror would have been incomplete without Bloch. I explored more of Bloch’s fiction at the BYU library when I couldn’t afford it (I even checked out the original Arkham House edition of Bloch’s first collection The Opener of the Way.) Since that fall eleven years ago, I’ve read Bloch’s autobiography, a total of 16 novels, and 29 short story collections (which adds up to 238 short stories). Reading horror and Bloch has been an immensely fun and rewarding experience. To me Bloch is horror and horror is Bloch.

Bloch was the primary reason I got into writing short stories and the glue that held together my research into the horror field. He was my mainstay. He also brought a sense of realism to a budding writing who realized that writing is work. It is blood, sweat, and tears. I didn’t see this so much while writing fantasy novels (inspired by Tolkien) but it is through Bloch and the pulps that I got a grittier feel for writing. There is the realization that sometimes you have to write crap in order to produce something amazing. All writers write crap but it was the pulp writers who sold their crap for a pittance without any shame. Bloch knew that not all of his stories were winners but significant number of them are and even the ones that aren’t are still fun. You win some, you lose some. He was also a great example of how a professional should act. Patience, kindness, civility. These are lessons worth learning from a master of storytelling.

P.S. I have made a habit of writing little postscripts and there is no exception here. Bloch wrote excellent vampire stories and all of his vampire fiction is being assembled into one volume by Haffner Press. The Vampire Stories of Robert Bloch is supposed to be released sometime this year with hopefully more volumes in the future if this one sells well. Give it a shot.

Written by Nicholas Montelongo