“Sardonicus” (1961)

Ray Russell was an editor for Playboy in the ‘50s and ‘60s who specialized in acquiring horror and mystery stories, by which he kept a lot of bright lights going, including Charles Beaumont, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Henry Slesar, and others. That Playboy anthology below is remarkably good. Russell’s 1962 novel The Case Against Satan is considered an important forerunner to William Peter Blatty’s 1971 The Exorcist, but otherwise “Sardonicus” is probably his best-known story, the first part of an informal “gothic unholy trinity,” with two more long stories, “Sagittarius” and “Sanguinarius.” No continuing characters or plot threads, but they are all similarly filled with aristocrats, castles, and unspeakable cruelties. “Sardonicus” is the best of a very good bunch. In this long story, “Sardonicus” is the name taken by a strange and tormented reclusive rich guy suffering from the condition risus sardonicus, also called “rictus grin.” Inevitably it reminded me of Batman’s nemesis, the Joker, but not sure whether Russell was a comic book reader in the 1940s, when the original versions leaned toward the psychotic before going antiseptic prankster in the ‘50s. At any rate, risus sardonicus is real but normally associated with tetanus or strychnine poisoning. Here it is all abnormal psychology. The grotesque face and the backstory for how it got that way are inspired. Russell has selected his gothic details well—the very name, the “S” monogram used by Sardonicus, the castle where he lives in Bohemia, the grave that he disturbs, his cold manipulations involving his wife and a doctor he thinks can help him. This story was originally published in Playboy in January 1961 and Russell went on to write the screenplay for a William Castle movie based on it that same year, Mr. Sardonicus. The most familiar player in it now is probably the Igor-type sidekick Krull, played by hey-that-guy character actor Oskar Homolka (Ball of Fire, I Remember Mama, The Seven Year Itch). The picture suffers for its inability to create a realistic rictus grin, but makes up for it ingeniously with a pale mask Sardonicus wears in company that covers his whole face and makes his presence infinitely disturbing. I’ve seen a few Castles, The Tingler, House on Haunted Hill, Rosemary’s Baby—not to mention the Joe Dante valentine from the ‘90s, Matinee—and typically enough Mr. Sardonicus appears to have an in-theater promotional gimmick attached to it, long gone of course since the original release, with only a strange artifact ending to remind us of what it might have been. The picture evidently learned some useful lessons from Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Twilight Zone, and The Outer Limits in turn may have learned some useful lessons from them all. The era of horror stories transmuting into television episodes was well upon us by 1961. “Sardonicus” the story is a throwback way back all the way to 19th-century gothics, but with a kind of 1960s Madison Avenue sheen that makes it unique. Only other stories by Ray Russell are very much like Ray Russell stories, and here’s a great place to start.

The Playboy Book of Horror and the Supernatural, ed. Ray Russell (out of print)
Ray Russell, Haunted Castles: The Complete Gothic Stories
Story not available online.