Billy’s response in the last Horror Roundtable, where he insisted on naming a dead Master of Horror despite my instructions specifying living directors, got me thinking. Was I being prejudiced? Could the dead actually contribute to the series?

One of my favourite authors is Cornell Woolrich, one of the greatest suspense writers who ever lived. He’s the literary equivalent to Alfred Hitchcock, a point which is reinforced by Hitchock’s use of Woolrich’s stories for his films. Rear Window is the most famous of these adaptations, with at least four other stories having been used for television under Hitchcock’s supervision. One of these adaptations was Three O’Clock, which, unlike the other pieces made for T.V., was actually directed by Hitchcock and may be one of his more suspenseful works. So far as I can tell it has never been released legally on video in its full form.

Which leads to the idea that maybe they can have the deceased pitch into the Masters of Horror series. Just how cool would it be to dig up some nearly-forgotten horror gem from famous directors of days gone by? How about Jim Henson’s trippy teleplay The Cube, Serling’s Requiem For A Heavyweight, or Mario Bava’s final work La Venere d’Ille? I would love to see some neglected piece of genre television dusted off and presented side-by-side with contemporary directors in a package with all the bells and whistles. It would certainly make for a refreshing change of pace.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 27th, 2006 at 10:19 am and is filed under Television. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.