Theatre Macabre

Poorly acted and scripted. It does have a certain creepiness but this is dissipated by attempts at silly humor.

I'm not a quitter, or at least I like to think I'm not. I have struggled myself through deadly dull and exaggeratedly long movies and tedious TV-series. However, I did quit watching "Theater Macabre" after ten (out of a total of 24) episodes. Every single story I watched was indescribably boring and, even though they only have a running time of 25 minutes each, they all felt much longer and like an incredible waste of my (not-so-precious) time.

The probably sole reason why this obscure and originally Polish series is still available on DVD, is because the producers somehow managed to contract none other than Sir Christopher Lee as the host. Like Rod Serling in the magnificent "The Twilight Zone", Mr. Lee briefly introduces every episode and mentions the authors of whose work the tales are based on. He begins every intro with "I'm Christopher Lee, how do you do?" and sits in an ugly décor. The difference with Rod Serling, or any other host, is that I'm 100% convinced that Lee never actually watched any of the episodes and only read a random text aloud. It was just a routine job for him.

What I dislike the most about "Theater Macabre" is how unbelievably pretentious it is. Every tale is supposedly adapted from the writings of acclaimed (and mostly Eastern European or Russian) authors, and Lee sophisticatedly emphasizes their names at the start. Are there many horror fanatics interested half-hour adaptations of practically unreadable books by people like Nikolai Gogol, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Ivan Turgenev, or Aleksey Tolstoy? It's just namedropping for the sake of namedropping, while the short stories are abstract and pseudo-intellectual nonsense. When I feel really courageous one day, I might pick up where I left off, or perhaps start with the stories that are based on writers I'm more familiar with (there's an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe and Robert Louis Stevenson) but I'm not in a hurry.

Finding copies of this strangely overlooked series is unusually difficult especially considering the opening narration was by horror film star Christopher Lee and the theme was written by well known British composer Ron Goodwin. Background music for each episode was played by the Warsaw Symphony Orchestra and the series was directed by Andre Wajda of Film Polski. Apart from several American newspaper articles, when purchase of the series by NBC was first announced in 1971, publicity was minimal with many times not even the episode title given and the order of episodes broadcast changed considerably between individual stations.

By collecting information from various European and American newspapers published during the years 1972 and 1976 I have found the titles for all 26 episodes and, because the broadcast order was so changeable, these are given alphabetically. When a story authors name was mentioned in the newspaper description this has been added.

A Matter Of Conscience, A Song of Triumphant Love by ivan Sturgenev, A Swashbuckler, A Terribly Strange Bed, Decameron No 40, Lord Savill's Crime by Oscar Wilde , Markheim by R L Stevenson, Mate Flacone, Pavolcello, The Actress, The Barrel Organ, The Boarded Window , The Canterbury Ghost by Oscar Wilde, The Cask of Montillado by Edgar Allan Poe], The Fatalist, The First Love, The Husband Under The Bed, The Man Who Corrupted Hadleburg by Mark Ttwain, The Nose, The Postmaster , The Rajar's Diamond by R.L Stevenson, The Resurrection of Oftland, The System Of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether by Edgar Allan Poe, The Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, The Torture Of Hope, The Vampire.

A polish TV series which received some exposure in the UK and America in the early 1970s. The re-edited, English language version of the series appears to have been a 'hands across the water' affair, with the producing side being American, and the Christopher Lee hosted intros and outros, Ron Goodwin theme music and the dubbing representing the UK side. Information suggests the series was shown on late night ITV in 1973 and 1974 but I'm not aware if it was ever repeated. Despite Lee's presence and the Theatre Macabre title, the series doesn't limit itself to horror, with episodes spanning romance, tragedy and bawdy comedy. If you want to skip to the red meat, the horror themed episodes are The Tortures of Hope, The Vampire, The System of Dr Tarr and Professor Fether, Tell-Tale Hearts and The Resurrection of Offland. I've also enjoyed Mateo Falcone, The Husband Under the Bed, Decameron, Markheim, and Pavoncello. I can't tell a lie though, a few episodes of this are a bore, but even when they are a chore to get through, the costumes and polish scenery ensures that Theatre Macabre is always a thing of beauty...as they are fond of saying in highbrow circles..."every shot is suitable for framing, darling"

I was really surprised that this had so few ratings on IMDB and none of the episodes had individual ratings. It seems like not many people have seen this despite Christopher Lee being a big name when this series was made.

There are a few ok episodes, but nothing I'd watch twice. Some were pretty awful.

The acting is quite bad, many of the episodes are very slow and boring, and unfortunately not even Christopher Lee introducing the episodes can save this series.

Give it a watch if you can't find anything else, but don't expect much.

I should have known it was going to be bad when Christopher Lee introduced the very first episode and spoke of the character 'Valdemar', and then it turned out that the character's name was actually 'Vladimir'. Lee didn't even get the main character in that stories name right, and no one corrected him or bothered to edit it. That's just lazy!!