ROBERT BLOCH “The Chaney Legacy.” First published in Night Cry, Fall 1986. Reprinted many times, including Witches & Warlocks, edited by Marvin Kaye (SF Book Club, hardcover, 1990).

   How does an actor become a monster? What method does an actor have to utilize, what magic must they conjure up in order to become a cinematic fiend? Bela Lugosi didn’t just portray Dracula; he became Dracula. What about Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre? How did they become the characters they portrayed? And what of Lon Chaney, the famed silent film star who portrayed monsters, grotesque villains and strange looking men?

   That’s the obsession plaguing a character named Dale in Robert Bloch’s gripping and creepy little tale, “The Chaney Legacy.” Dale, a researcher of Hollywood lore, is faced with a choice: does he decide to live in a Hollywood Hills bungalow once inhabited by Chaney or does he maintain his romantic relationship with a local broadcaster named Debbie Curzon. True to his obsession with Chaney and the late actor’s films, Dale chooses the house.

   As any fable reminds us, it can be dangerous to pursue a question and a line of inquiry to its rightful conclusion. In his obsessive quest to understand how Chaney became the characters he portrayed, Dale stumbles upon a secret that would have better been left in the past. The secret comes in the form of a makeup kit with a mirror, the very makeup kit that Chaney apparently utilized to “become” the characters he portrayed in the silent films.

   But as any good student of horror fiction knows, sometimes secrets are dangerous. That’s definitely the case in this sublimely bizarre short story by Robert Bloch. Recommended for horror fiction and film fans alike.