Algernon Blackwood Review: Faith Cure on the Channel

The last couple of stories in Algernon Blackwood’s collection Ten-Minute Stories were humor pieces based on dated material (the equivalent of car phones or Spiro Agnew). “Faith Cure on the Channel” is somewhat like the last three stories but with a few twists.

A scatter-brained man mocked his friend, the first-person narrator, when seasick medication failed to work for him (the narrator). But it turned our, he (the friend) had accidentally drank the wrong medicine.

That’s a thin premise but “Faith Cure on the Channel” holds up much better than “Up and Down,” “The Lease,” or “The Secret.” I can’t see Hollywood adapting the story anytime soon but it’s the best of Blackwood’s short comic pieces so far.

I don’t believe many horror fans would react well to “Faith Cure on the Channel” but for someone curious about Blackwood’s humorous stories, this would be the one to pick.