THRILLER
"The Grim Reaper" (1961; d. Herschel Daugherty, tp Robert Bloch)

Begins in 1848 France (mythical, Old-European remove) w/ man arriving at relative’s home, met by kooky old lady (spirit-guide into unknown world), flashing fwd to 1961 California w/ man arriving at relative’s home, where met by kooky old lady: time/trauma replaying self, eternal return of unresolved issues + dream’s reiteration of archaic events to satisfy soul; originating trauma $’d father discovering poor artist-son hanged (Death of Art/soul for materialistic man [last-name Radin "stingy"] + sleeper’s body-transcendence ["suspended" above earth] on way to dream self-obliviation; arriving approximately same time as death $/fame coming to artist only on expiration) after painting title figure (Art of Death): old man’s recognition of own mortality ("Perhaps the picture finished him" overpowering effect of knowledge of same, son sketching-at-night dream-agent of self-revelation, working "in graveyards" o/t unconscious) in backroom garret, son (future)’s body as own.

Restarts w/ greedy nephew Paul Graves visiting pulp-crimewriter (Art of Death + Death of Art again: eternal struggle btwn art + $/soul + materialism, all but father making $ off death + meeting violent end for it [cost of devaluing soul]) Aunt B(loch: author’s self-parody)ea + ends w/ reiteration of prolog + main-story opening, w/ cop-consciousness (as rich father + accountant nephew) met at door by now legitimately hysterical woman (Bea’s loyal secretary Dorothy Linden [fecundity, lastname abundant tree w/ heart-shaped leaves], her possible inheritance à la previous-yr Thriller-like Screaming Skull conclusion [written by occasional T contributor John Kneubuhl]) after Paul’s murder (painting/art’s retribution for avarice); arrives same time Bea acquires both painting + husband #5 Gerald Keller/Killer (fellow golddigger, $/greed "keller" of art), her childlessness after so many men unregeneracy of material world (no mothers in either past or present, her sardonic estate-name "Graves End" [w/ hearse in driveway of otherwise Edenic courtyard] its own resolution).

Bea wise to Gerald’s plot (thinking he in cahoots w/ Dorothy [illusory Electric desire to triumph over oppression by "marrying" oppressor also Erotic desire to ascend, impossible in world free of uplifting Agape love] distrusting own inner purity, self-negating drink desire for death already admitted into home), ignores Paul’s warnings about painting (which legendarily bleeds before death: menstruation, which healthy sex wd dispel for time) + pays price (stairway-death failure to ascend); when Dot leaves (departure of healing potential), Paul, awakened by Gerald (reiterating Dot’s rousing of Paul to discover dead Bea, "awakening" kindness in P replaced in world by similar avarice), divulges own plot (faked reaper-bleeding: lack of belief in supernatural power of art, baldness of his confession Death of Artifice) awa G’s imminent death by poison (he real reaper [actor Gerald only likewise representation of same]: finance true enemy of life/art) + setup as fall-guy (actor role, again).

On way out (alone now at house dreaming mind eliminating facets of personality until isolating errant quality), runs into Dorothy (conscience + emissary of returning consciousness) + confesses, she locking him in (forcing recognition of self/mortality, she unquestioning recording "secretary" of morbid writer/higher consc’ss) w/ unseen (interior) avenger having left picture (absent from both film + portrait frames: eponymous drama mechanism of similar revelation/reckoning); Dot returns w/ police (agents of conscious "authority") + finds dead Paul (body/soul cleansed thru dream-process) + painting’s bloody scythe (similar cleansing in likewise enclosed womb, he egg-potential for own avarice eliminated, she ironically likely heir as result of own virtuousness), cops locking up empty house (final isolation/obliviation dreamer/dead Radin’s evacuation of body/consciousness, leaving only skeleton in wooden coffin/room) returning world to dominion of Art, Gothic formula of crusading visitor arriving at ancestral mansion to eradicate false father-figure + free oppressed damsel so he can inherit fortune turned on ear, desiring things of not-the-mother aunt misdirected oedipal ambition in world ruled by mat[t]er.

Based on "The Black Madonna" by Harold Lawlor.