The Vault of Horror (comics) - Influences and Adaptations

Influences and Adaptations

As with the other EC comics edited by Feldstein, the stories in this comic were primarily based on Gaines reading a large number of horror stories and using them to develop "springboards" from which he and Feldstein could launch new stories. Specific story influences that have been identified include the following:

• "Portrait in Wax" (issue 12) – Michael Curtiz's The Mystery of the Wax Museum
• "Island of Death" (issue 13) – Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game"
• "Fitting Punishment" (issue 16) – H. P. Lovecraft's "In the Vault"
• "Terror on the Moors" (issue 17) – Clark Ashton Smith's "The Nameless Offspring"
• "Baby It's Cold Inside" (issue 17) – H. P. Lovecraft's "Cool Air"
• "Voodoo Horror" (issue 17) – Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray
• "The Jellyfish" (issue 19) – Ray Bradbury's "Skeleton"
• "Daddy Lost His Head" (issue 19) – Robert Bloch's "Sweets to the Sweet"
• "Grandma's Ghost" (issue 20) – Stephen Grendon's "Mr. George"
• "The Monster in the Ice" (issue 22) – Christian Nyby's The Thing from Another World
• "What the Dog Dragged In" (issue 22) – Ray Bradbury's "The Emissary"
• "We Ain't Got No Body" (issue 28) – Clark Ashton Smith's "The Return of the Sorcerer"
• "Star Light, Star Bright" (issue 34) – Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr

After their unauthorized adaptation of one of Ray Bradbury's stories in another magazine, Bradbury contacted EC about their plagiarism of his work. They reached an agreement for EC to do authorized versions of Bradbury's short fiction. These official adaptations include:

• "Let's Play Poison" (issue 29)
• "The Lake" (issue 31)