The Picture of Dorian Gray

Next For Art Frights

I've long thought that Oscar Wilde is a writer that is seriously underrated as a horror writer.  The Picture of Dorian Gray is a fine example of Wilde's prowess as spook master in the gothic genre.   Although, the story plays a bit of lip service to how it is that Dorian gets his wish for the painting to age, instead of himself (some slight mumbo-jumbo about an Egyptian goddess), the real horror in the story (and film of 1945) lies in the boyish whim on which Dorian makes such a simple-minded indulgent wish in the first place.  There is quite something fundamentally very wrong with him to begin with; he's simply no really there.   Leave it to Wilde to produce a work of horror fiction based on runaway hedonism.

Ivan Albright's painting produced for the 1945 film