Tales That Witness Madness

The four principal characters are patients at a clinic, and all have terrifying stories to tell about why they are there. The clinic is run by wacky Pleasence, who is trying to sway his colleague, Hawkins, to his psychiatric theories. In the first tale, Lewis is a boy who is bothered by his parents' fighting, so he invents an imaginary tiger to kill them. In the second, an old bicycle enables McEnery to travel backward in time. He assumes the identity of one of his Victorian-era relatives and is doomed to the man's fate as well. In the third, Collins' husband, Jayston, brings home a tree that is more human than plant. She tells him that it is either her or his new-...