Tales of Terror. Nuns. They’re scary.
Broadcast on The Mike Malloy Show August 13, 2008. Listen to Mike exclusively on the non-profit Progressive Voices Radio network LIVE at 9PM ET here: http://www.progressivevoices.com/
Below is an excerpt. To read the rest of the words go here: Permalink: http://www.voicesinourheads.com/2008/08/13/tales-of-terror/
When I was a kid I read the horror comics that were supposed to rot my brain. This could explain everything.
William Gaines, publisher of the infamous E.C. Comics and Mad magazine, presented to young, impressionable minds, Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, and The Haunt of Fear. Each Terror Tale was introduced by The Vault Keeper, The Old Witch, or my favorite, The Crypt Keeper.
As Stephen King recounts in his book Danse Macabre:
“One typical E.C. screamer goes like this: The hero’s wife and her boyfriend determine to do away with the hero so they can run away together and get married. … These two heels, who might have stepped whole and breathing from a James M. Cain novel, take the poor slob of a husband for a ride and the boyfriend puts a bullet between his eyes. They wire a cement block to the corpse’s leg and toss him over a bridge into the river.
Two or three weeks later, our hero, a living corpse, emerges from the river, rotted and eaten by the fish. He shambles after wifey and her friend …and not to invite them back to his place for a few drinks, either, one feels. One piece of dialogue from this story which I’ve never forgotten is, “I am coming, Marie, but I have to come slowly … because little pieces of me keep falling off …”
Scary stuff for little kids growing up in the 50’s. Almost as bad as Duck and Cover.
But for sheer terror … The stories The Crypt Keeper told were harmless Fairy Tales when compared to what the insane Dominican Nuns told the young, impressionable minds under their care.
