Author
life and inspiration
Robert Bloch was born on April 4th, 1917 in Chicago, IL, to parents of German-Jewish descent: a bank cashier, Rapheal, and social worker, Stella Loeb. His interest in horror and terror came early to him, with the films of Lon Chaney, specifically The Phantom of the Operah, and with his first purchased copy in 1927 of the pulp magazine Weird Tales, which specialized in supernatural fiction. There he first discovered the works of H.P. Lovecraft, who is credited to the start of Bloch's writing career: "There's something about the way you write that makes me think that perhaps you'd be interested in doing the same thing." Lovecraft wrote in a letter to Bloch in his teens, "Would you like to write some stories? I'd be glad to comment on them." With Lovecraft's encouragement of Bloch's early short stories, at seventeen, fresh out of high school, he sat down with a second hand typewriter and wrote. His first story was published six weeks later in the very same Weird Tales, called "The Secret in the Tomb". Throughout the years Bloch has published various short stories and novels and has taken part in other horror themed works, such as screen plays and radio shows. However, he is best known for his novel Psycho. The context for this repudiated novel can be found in Bloch's early childhood, where his imagination and interests both leaned to horror and terror.
As a child, Bloch was interested in "the mysteries of death, age and cruelty." He puzzled over why people could commit murder and other atrocities. He wondered how, like many other children exposed, cruelty and miseries could be permitted to happen in the world. Bloch associates the horror genre as "taking a rollercoaster ride" where "you can have your thrills, letting all the screams out of your system and feeling a good cathartic effect, and you return safely to the place that you started." The combined thrill of heightened adrenaline and feeling of nearby danger is exciting, only because you know at the end of the ride, there really was no danger; and as Bloch believes, "all of us have in the backs of our minds, whether we're really imaginative or not, a wonderment about death, pain, cruelty, the unknown mysterious forces that not only govern the supernatural, but govern you and me." The explorations horror and terror gives us into these unknown forces are what draws us in and entertains us. The possibilities of the things we cannot see are what terrify us the most. Bloch feels relatable characters and a developed plot are what gives classic horror stories their strength: "real terror consists of acquainting the audience with a character that will be cared about, and then putting that character in jeopardy. The suspense comes from whether or not that character will escape or be done in." He disregards special effects and gore, in favor of empathy for character's misfortunes and the suspense of keeping an air of mystery for the killer/danger.
Other notable works of Bloch:
- Novels The Scarf (1947), Psycho II (1982), Mysteries of the Worm (1981), Night of the Ripper (1984), Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper (1943)
- Short Stories Sea-Kissed (1945), The Opener Of The Way (1945), Terror In The Night And Other Stories (1958), Pleasant Dreams (1960), Blood Runs Cold (1961), Nightmares (1961), Yours Truly, Jack The Ripper (1962)
- Radio Scripts for series Stay Tuned for Terror
- Partial or full screen-writer for Straight-Jacket (1963), The Night Walker (1964), The Psychopath (1966), Torture Garden (1967), The House That Dripped Blood (1970), Asylum (1972), The Dead Don't Die (1974)