Tales Of The Frightened By Boris Karloff
When I was a child on lazy afternoons in early autumn my mom would sometimes play for us a special Halloween record. (You know…on a record player long before CD’s, iPods and Spotify existed). The record had two stories, the story of Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The best part of the experience was listening to the soothing voice of Boris Karloff as he narrated these tales. I hope his name rings a bell. It should because he is the iconic actor who played Frankenstein’s monster in the Universal classic monster movies. And did you know he is also the narrator in the Christmas classic “How The Grinch Stole Christmas”? Well he is. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to find out he had participated in a few more horror audio recordings, but I was. While listening to my Halloween playlist on Spotify, I came across a wonderful collection of horror stories narrated by Boris Karloff called Tales of the Frightened. I gave it a listen to on a very similar lazy weekend and was immediately reminded of those childhood afternoons listening to him tell spooky stories on the record player.
Apparently this started out as a radio program which were recorded and later put on an album for sale. The stories, written by Michael Avallone are short but fiendishly fun. Boris uses his ghoulishly good charm to set an eerie mood throughout the album. The stories are filled with fun subjects such as fortune tellers, vampires, ghosts, and hauntings. Boris begins each story with the catch phrase, “Are you…one of the frightened?”, and then proceeds to tell a wonderfully creepy story. If your a fan of ghost stories, then give it a listen to…if you dare!
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