Midnight Pleasures

by Robert Bloch, Bill Gillard (Introduction)

Fourteen classic tales of terror by the author of Psycho

Midnight Dreams (1987) collects some of Robert Bloch's best tales from later in his career, featuring his trademark blend of spine-chilling terror and gallows humor and an eclectic mix that includes three Halloween-themed stories, a Christmas horror story, and a previously uncollected tale first published in Weird Tales in 1939.

In "Pumpkin," a boy wanting to carve a Halloween jack-o'-lantern finds the perfect pumpkin in an unkempt garden, not suspecting whose garden it is or the horror that will follow. In "The Night Before Christmas," an adulterous couple looks forward to a quiet evening decorating the tree, but the woman's sadistic husband has other plans. And in "Pranks," trick-or-treaters get more than they bargained for when they visit the house of a kindly old couple with a dark and deadly secret. These and eleven other stories represent some of the best of the prolific Bloch's later work. This new edition, the first in decades, features a new introduction by Bloch scholar Bill Gillard.

"Just the thing to while away a sleepless night." - The Washington Post Book World

"A hundred years from now, devotees of this genre will still be reading Robert Bloch." - Richard Matheson

"Robert Bloch has become part of the popular psyche. A dark part, to be sure, but a permanent one." - Gahan Wilson

"Any time devoted to studying this master is time well spent." - Fangoria

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Collections, Halloween, Pulp, Mystery

191 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Robert Albert Bloch was a prolific American writer. He was the son of Raphael "Ray" Bloch (1884, Chicago-1952, Chicago), a bank cashier, and his wife Stella Loeb (1880, Attica, Indiana-1944, Milwaukee, WI), a social worker, both of German-Jewish descent.

Bloch wrote hundreds of short stories and over twenty novels, usually crime fiction, science fiction, and, perhaps most influentially, horror fiction (Psycho). He was one of the youngest members of the Lovecraft Circle; Lovecraft was Bloch's mentor and one of the first to seriously encourage his talent.

He was a contributor to pulp magazines such as Weird Tales in his early career, and was also a prolific screenwriter. He was the recipient of the Hugo Award (for his story "That Hell-Bound Train"), the Bram Stoker Award, and the World Fantasy Award. He served a term as president of the Mystery Writers of America.

Robert Bloch was also a major contributor to science fiction fanzines and fandom in general. In the 1940s, he created the humorous character Lefty Feep in a story for Fantastic Adventures. He also worked for a time in local vaudeville, and tried to break into writing for nationally-known performers. He was a good friend of the science fiction writer Stanley G. Weinbaum. In the 1960's, he wrote 3 stories for Star Trek.

Reviews

[Kurt Reichenbaugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

When pressed about who my favorite horror writer is I inevitably say it's Robert Bloch. His stories are not the scariest and probably many of them are too corny and out of date to modern horror fans. Some of them don't stick the landing and some are hopelessly old fashioned. But I've been reading Robert Bloch stories for as long as I've been reading Ray Bradbury stories, meaning since I was a pre-teen. The ones in this collection are mostly from the 70s and 80s with "The Totem Pole" being the exception. That one goes way back to 1939 from Weird Tales. Many of the stories go for a humorous satirical look at 70s and 80s culture: TV, advertising, rock music, consumerism. A handful are short enough to be on old shows like The Night Gallery. One, "Die-Nasty" is an extended riff on public execution. "The Night Before Christmas" is a classic. "Pumpkin" and "Pranks" are both excellent Halloween horror tales. "Picture" is a "deal-with-the-devil" tale. So, all in all, a fun collection for the season.

[Nandakishore Mridula · Rating 3 out of 5]

I only remember one story in this book - "The Night Before Christmas" - and it is one of the most chilling stories I have ever read, with a devastating last line.

[Austin Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

A rather just OKAY collection of stories by Robert Bloch (he has much better) - with the only stories in here I cared for being: Pumpkin, Pranks, and The Spoiled Wife.
So, less than half of the stories. Most of the others were just okay or even forgettable/kind of bad.

2.5⭐ overall.

[Scott Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

The title of this volume is apt. It’s highly enjoyable. This selection of stories demonstrates Bloch’s dark sense of humour. I also love the cover illustration.

[Thomas Gaffney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I see overall, this collection didn't get the best reviews. But it's been a while since I've read some short stories, and I've never read anything by Bloch before, so this book hit the spot for me. Obviously, not all the stories were winners, but when Bloch nailed the creepiness with the good ones, he really crushed it. Overall, I'm giving it 5 stars, but I think that's because this was the right book at the right time for me. If I reread it in the future, that rating might come down when I'm more objective.

The Rubber Room - Started with a story that seems, unfortunately, more relevant today about a Neo-Nazi striking out on his own to murder a Jewish girl and then wonder why people would arrest him for it. The twisty ending set the tone for the rest of the collection and let me know this was going to be a ride. 3.5 stars.
The Night Before Christmas - One of the best of the collection about an artist hired to paint the portrait of a rich man's wife. Creepy, atmospheric, killer ending. Perfect short story. 5 stars.
Pumpkin - The other cream of the crop. To be fair, putting The Night Before Christmas and Pumpkin back to back in the beginning of this book did a great disservice to the other stories. Nothing tops these two. Pumpkin is about a family that moves back to the old farm house where the husband grew up and had terrible nightmares. Again, killer ending and perfect short story. 5 stars.
The Spoiled Wife - Not amazing but clever. About a man who pays to thaw out centuries-old, cryogenicly frozen women looking for a wife. I could see this really happening in the future. I did like the twist ending, calling back to the story's title. 3 stars.
Oh Say Can You See - Sci-fi story about aliens infiltrating Earth and coming to the conclusion that the Mafia controls the planet. One of the weak ones, it all feels like a setup for the last line and wasn't that twisty. 2 stars.
But First These Words - My least favorite about God trying to get his message to humanity to change their ways, but we ignore him for TV and entertainment. Even the ending was blah. 1 star.
Picture - Now we're back to the good, creepy stories with this one. A deal with the devil for one night with the girl our protagonist lusted after since school. Perfect ending for a Satan story. 4.5 stars.
The Undead - I liked this one a lot. Not perfect, like some of the others, but good and creepy in a short amount of words. A man is looking to buy an original copy of Stoker's Dracula manuscript. 4 stars.
Comeback - An old man who worked in the Golden Age of Hollywood throws a Halloween party. Pretty straightforward foreshadowing, and an ending that could be seen a mile away. But decent. 3 stars.
Nocturne - Not terrible. Gets creepier as the story goes on about a man talking to a woman he's been obsessed with. I feel like Bloch had the last sentence thought up and worked backwards. Again, it's all just a setup for the final sentence. 2 stars.
Die-Nasty - A 'what if' America televised executions and we devolved into a bloodthirsty society. Nothing great. No twists, per se. Totally skippable. 1 star.
Pranks - An old couple get prepared for trick or treaters on Halloween night. Holy Fuck. You could see it coming, but I couldn't stop reading. You know basically what's coming, but not how. After some iffy stories, this came out of nowhere like a sucker punch. 5 stars.
Everybody Needs A Little Love - A lonely guy starts talking to a manikin. Ending was predictable. 2 stars.
The Totem Pole - This was, about an expedition from Alaska that brought back a totem pole, was written in the 1920s and you can tell. Still, decent. And I can see how this would've put Bloch on people's radars as a writer. 3 stars.

[Brooklynne Todd · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love a good short story collection, and this one is fantastic. Bloch's writing is so compelling that it's hard to put down. I think my favorite story out of all of them is called "Pranks," where a bunch of children go missing on a Halloween night in the same neighborhood. Wasn't expecting the ending to that one at all. i definitely recommend this book if you are looking for a quick, spooky read.

[Ryan Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's just silly fun...

[John Collins · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic collection that every horror fan should read.

[Alan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Midnight Pleasures features several of Robert Bloch's short fiction from the 70s and 80s as well as one story, "The Totem Pole," from 1939. Most of the tales are horror, three of which taking place on Halloween, with a few sci-fi, comical and other stories that feature a heavy dose of social commentary. While I recently read a collection of Bloch's earlier works, mainly from the late 40s through the 60s, I wasn't as fond of that era of storytelling. In this collection most of the entries were much better, although, curiously, several of them were written in, and take place in the 70s and 80s, but feel like they could have been penned and/or taken place a couple of decades earlier. Of all those tales in this book, I found "The Totem Pole" to be the most classic and horrific, and it was definitely my favorite of the bunch.

[Jesse · Rating 3 out of 5]

Expert, professional weird tales and horror stories from late-career Bloch, mostly showing mastery of point of view and narration, and relying far too often on shock endings that you can mostly see coming. The introduction makes a number of interesting points, none of which, unfortunately, are borne out by the actual stories inside: that Bloch's Jewishness registered in his conversion from Lovecraft pastiches (but which, it must be said from the two earlier collections of his I've read, did not do much in the way of giving him scruples about deploying outrageously racist imagery, especially of African and Asian people and settings) to more real-world stories, with Nazism showing him that the true horror did not require any sort of supernatural entities.

First, I'm still looking to see if there's any strong Jewish weird tradition in this period; the dominant writers (besides HPL, Bradbury, Matheson, Beaumont, Jackson; later, King, Straub, Cook, Koontz) presented normative WASP protagonists, often in mid-American small-town settings. I suppose Singer counts, though literally nobody classifies him as a "weird-fiction" author despite the demons and ghosts all over his short stories and longer fiction; what is Enemies: A Love Story but a tale of haunting? There's a bit in a few of the EC stories, and maybe the point is that, more broadly, memoirs and Holocaust histories provided all the experience anyone Jewish needed of evil forces. (Rght? This is the dominant realist era--Roth and Bellow and my beloved Grace Paley, of course, and most of Malamud. I suppose Cynthia Ozick counts as more in the fantastic realm.) And nothing in any of these stories sounds the least bit even coded as Jewish, aside from some minor psychiatrist characters.

Second, pretty much every one of these stories has a supernatural twist to it, with the only one not featuring a standard horror element perhaps the world's only Mafia/SF crossover, though I guess we have to give pride of place to Star Trek doing "A Piece of the Action" in 1968. So I would love for the intro to describe the book we're actually reading, but alas, it does not. Taken one at a time, these are often delightful in, as I note above (a phrase I've just dropped some variant of into, I dunno, 30+ student progress reports, because I am great at writing) an expert-craftsman way: sharp lines, witty descriptions, crazy situations we just amble right into before we know what we're in for.

It's just that, reading all of them, you note the endless male anxiety about women at their core (how do I feel about the one where the postapocalypse guy, in a world where everything has been automated and optimized for environmental efficiency, pays for a defrosted hippie chick from 1972 and is sorely disappointed? is it parody or the thing itself? When I finished it, I felt the more charitable reading, but now I'm not sure) and the lack of deep emotional content. The point really is to set you up for the final line to whack you, which tends to make you suspicious of every story really early once you twig to the trick. These are professional, excellently professional, proficiently professional...but not really anything beyond. It's a book I probably would have liked a lot more, if not loved, if I'd read a story a week.

[Zachary Owen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid collection of stories, including "old fashioned" horror and humorously satirical pieces. Yes, some of these stories have a high predictability factor, but they are written with a strong, breezy voice and an eagle eye for a good turn-of-phrase and reams of wit. The first three entries are the most disturbing on the horror front, with my favorite probably being "Pumpkin." Bloch's warning of growing antisemitism in "The Rubber Room" is still sadly relevant as ever. "Pranks" offers some eerie and unexplained supernatural horror involving children abducted on Halloween night.

Of course, Bloch was in his own right a great comedian (which I think puts some people off of his work) and "But First These Words-" and "Die-Nasty" offer hilarious observations and damning criticism about the human condition. Many of the stories operate as an extended joke with the climax serving as an absurd and brutal punchline. Modern readers might not have much use for this style of horror and humor, but I find it easily readable and boundlessly entertaining.

[Robin Dickert · Rating 4 out of 5]

'In Midnight Pleasures, you’ll meet murderous spouses, demonic (literally) psychiatrists, perhaps the world’s only alien invasion/ mafia story, restless and murderous spirits, and a host of other thrills, all mixed with Bloch’s trademark gallows humor.' - from the Introduction by Bill Gillard

Robert Bloch knew how to end a story! The last sentences in these shorts hit just right; they're either delightfully devious or ironic or surprising enough to induce an eyebrow raise and a Dayum! This collection was written mostly in the 70s and 80s and brought me the same joy as watching some of the popular anthology films from that era, like Creepshow and Tales From the Crypt. This was my first experience reading Bloch, and I'm already eyeballing my next pick from him.

'Farley found the devil through the Yellow Pages.'

[Brian Sammons · Rating 3 out of 5]

Robert Bloch is like pizza, even when he's not great he's still pretty damn good, and that is the case for this collection of short stories by the master. None of them completely fall flat with me and some I really enjoyed. If you like Bloch's usual mix of horror and black as night humor, you'll like this book.

[Samantha Woodward · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 stars.

I enjoyed these spooky short stories a lot and I'm so glad that I got the new edition paperback before it sold out. The few Halloween themed stories were perfect for late September/October. Right off the bat, the first couple of stories gripped my attention. Block writes very engaging dialog and inner monologs. I only found one or two of the shorter stories uninteresting.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Robert Bloch started out in the Lovecraft Circle, but after WW2, he realized that people were far greater monsters than anything in the Cthulhu Mythos. This collection of stories displays his dark humor and keen observations about human nature. Thanks to Valancourt Books for reprinting it.

[Alex Budris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as good as his early stories, but Robert Bloch is always a pleasure.

[Michaël Wertenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, tongue-in-cheek, macabre fun. Aptly titled, Midnight Pleasures

[Jacob Chipman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A variety of short stories, and a lot to enjoy. A lot of your standard paperback horror fare- which is not always a bad thing!

[Kathryn Grace Loves Horror · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review to come.

[Rusty Berr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good old school creepy stories. I can feel a lot of Steven King in his stories.

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great

[Brandon Mclaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

classic for his time.

[Brian Campbell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fine collection of ghastly stories from the Robert Bloch who had matured beyond his Lovecraftian stage to find his voice as a most engaging storyteller, a writer who seldom hesitated to sacrifice an earnest scene of horror on the altar of a good dark joke. You love it or you don’t. I love it.

[Conal Cochran · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh. It's hard to see how this book got a Stoker nomination, and if it didn't have ol' Bob Bloch's name on the front, I doubt it would have.
Granted, the one-two punch of "The Rubber Room" (a truly horrific story that goes all the way, although Bloch bolloxes it up with an unnecessary double-ending) and "The Night Before Christmas" is formidable. Actually, the first third of the book is great--"Pumpkin" is spooky as shit and "The Spoiled Wife" is a nasty piece of Bloch sci-fi. No, it's when we hit "Oh Say Can You See--" and "But First These Words--" that it all goes downhill. There are three stories in the collection with dashes in their titles, and each is an odd, mildly amusing but pointless sci-fi rant.

As for the rest:
"Picture" is wickedly funny with a helluva ending. "The Undead" is a craptastic piece about vampires that reads as though written by a grade-schooler; "Comeback" is a gem (and a very touching story, as well). "Nocturne" is yet another Ed Gein inspired story with an ending you see coming from the first line; it's engagingly written, though. "Everybody Needs A Little Love" is so-so. "The Totem Pole" is a vintage piece, and hasn't aged well--predictable beyond belief, although it would have made a killer story for an EC Comic.

The best story, for my money, is "Pranks." It's a wickedly clever treat of a trick that is one of the best Halloween stories of all time, up there with "The October Game" and "The Folding Man."

[Terri LH · Rating 3 out of 5]

Underwhelmed with this story collection. I'd say not all are horror. A few sci-fi are thrown into the mix, but that is not the issue. I felt much of it didn't age well and the endings were predictable and some really corny.
The first four in the book that I did enjoy and felt were best: The Rubber Room, the Night Before Christmas, Pumpkin, and The Spoiled Wife. The rest I read feeling like I knew what the next set of events would be and that I've heard the story before told a little differently. Someone took his ideas and retold it? Im not sure, and honestly they weren't that memorable to try to figure it out. Overall, it's "ok", but I was expecting more from the author of Psycho. I'm sure there must be better Robert Bloch comps out there. I just haven't found it yet.

[Jeff McIntosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Robert Bloch - probably best remembered for his short stories rather than his novels ("Psycho" being the exception)....I don't think I've read a single novel (The Scarf, Firebug etc) aside from "Psycho" and the novels after it.

"Midnight" is probably not the best collection - a halfhearted collection of fantasy, crime, and horror stories......I think Bloch's stories are dated when discussing "contemporary" societal mores, as in "The Spoiled Bride".

My favorite pieces were "Picture" - in which a man tries to outwit the Devil and finds himself outsmarted, and "The Night before Christmas"....you'll never look at decorating a Christmas tree the same way......

[Martha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nothing much new, innovative, or even scary here. I can tell Bloch is a good writer and I will try not to judge his work based on this book. I forced myself to finish it because it's short, but I didn't pick it up for days at a time. I'd compare this most to Matheson's collection Button, Button: Uncanny Stories which I enjoyed probably an equal amount. Matheson is an amazing horror writer and can't be judged from that stinky collection!

[Raeofdarkness · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Robert Bloch - he was witty in his writing. Visiting with his works is like revisitng the Twilight Zone or Night Gallery - some of which he wrote. He had a wonderful sense of humor mixed with the horror , which makes the more intense. My favorite story in this book was "Picture" where a man finds the Devil in the Yellow Pages.

He is THE author of choice when I want to be scared to death in a wonderful way. No one currently writing comes even close.

[Alyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was about eight when I first read this and though I was terribly impressed then, I wasn't the most discriminating reader. But I've picked it up a few times since and it's still a fun read even now that I'm more jaded and (slightly) less delighted by necrophilia and using body parts as Christmas ornaments (both of which were smashing and novel ideas to me at the time).

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

not a bad collection of stories. not really scary though. a couple of the stories were a little slow reading, a couple were pretty good though. i liked the last one about the totem pole i think probably the best.