Richard Burton Matheson — author, screenwriter, legend — was born on February 20, 1926, making 2026 the centennial of his birth. His books such as I Am Legend, Hell House, Bid Time Return, A Stir of Echoes, The Shrinking Man, and What Dreams May Come to name just a few, bore cinematic fruit that still tastes sweet today.
His short stories and teleplays helped form the “Fifth Dimension” of the Twilight Zone, the small screen terrors of Thriller, The Night Stalker, The Night Strangler, Night Gallery, Duel, Circle of Fear, Trilogy of Terror, Dead of Night, and many other Dan Curtis-helmed frights for the small screen as well as the strange, new worlds of Star Trek, The Martian Chronicles, and Amazing Stories.
As a screenwriter he contributed scripts for five Edgar Allan Poe adaptations for Roger Corman, films such as The Pit and the Pendulum, The Raven, and House of Usher, as well as The Comedy of Terrors, all of which we’ll be screening on 16mm film at Monsterama as part of our Mathesontennial Celebration. In addition, he wrote the screenplay for Fanatic! and The Devil Rides Out for Hammer films, and adapted his novels Bid Time Return and Hell House for the screen as Somewhere in Time and The Legend of Hell House, respectively.
Matheson’s work garnered numerous awards including the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement, The Bram Stoker Award For Lifetime Achievement, and the World Horror Convention Grand Master Award. In 2010, he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.
Richard Matheson spent his life creating worlds of imagination, and in doing so he became an architect of dreams for many of us. His works show us ways to be frightened, ways to be amused, ways to be wondrous, and, most of all, ways to be better and kinder to each other. His storytelling skills impart not only entertainment but lessons in humanity, as the greatest of stories do. His name ranks with his contemporaries and comrades Rod Serling, William F. Nolan, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, Charles Beaumont, and George Clayton Johnson as one of the best genre writers of the past hundred years, and Monsterama is happy and grateful to be able to host this celebration of his work and the man himself.
Join us for panels, screenings, discussions, and events in honor of one of speculative fiction’s grand masters the weekend of August 7-9th at the Atlanta Marriott Northeast/Emory Hotel.