William Malone gets META in a cool Creature TITAN FIND

 I love finding out what books people are reading in my cheap horror and action films!  The recent directors release of CREATURE as THE TITAN FIND features a doozy.  I've always been sweet on the movies directed by William Malone, but never noticed that in deep space it's not just fun to be in a Malone film, but to read a novelization of an earlier one.  Check out this paperback edition of SCARED TO DEATH traveling the galaxy! 

And here is the poster they built it from.  Pretty snazzy stuff!

Bibliotheque Terrors! CHAINSAW TERROR!

I have not read a ton of Shaun Hutson novels, but I've enjoyed each one that has crossed my path over the years. But I was reminded of CHAINSAW TERROR when I was recently pulling through some old Deep Red fanzines.  Never read a book called Chainsaw Terror? By Shaun Hutson using a pseudonym???  Well, that had to change.  Sadly, all the copies I found were quite expensive and I left it on my wish list at Amazon as a "someday" type of item.
And then it popped up for FOUR DOLLARS! 
So, I ordered and waited, fearing that I was going to get CHAINSAW TERRA or something completely incorrect, but that didn't happen. Finally...here I come "Nick Drake!"  Rip me with your best shot.

Chainsaw Terror does not dissapoint in any way, it does exactly what it says it will do in a fairly short period of time, and indeed it does have a lot of chainsawing going on within a sick little framework that hinges gore sequences together without getting boring.  And I also learned the power of a title. If you promise to terrorize with a shredding implement and deliver on that promise, every page that mentions cutlery, tools or even heavy dishes feels like a prelude to something wild.  It just works like a well oiled...nah, that is too easy.  It just rips your literary horror hound senses apar...nah.  OK. It is is simple, dirty, nasty, smelly and tastes like the kind of rotten nectar that every budding gorehound seeks out in the next film they rent.  Delicious.

 

Edward Briggs is downright nuts.  His father is a handyman with a wife that doesn't want to be with him anymore.  So, he kills the crap out of her and kills himself in nasty fashion as well. Of course, Edward witnesses this and it sours him on relationships. Except for the one he has with his sister Maureen.  Skipping ahead, the pair are now a little more balanced. This means Maureen is sane and Edward is insane, which puts them square in the middle on the teeter totter of doom.  Add a chainsaw and things tip awfully wrong to the insane side!  When Maureen decides to leave the (luckily) soundproofed house the siblings share to be with her boyfriend it is time for Edward to snap. And does he ever.  After demolishing her into bits, he saves her head and goes on a short but grisly rampage against women that he imagines have wronged him, and men who love or pimp out the women that he targets. The workbench in the soundproof house gets one hell of a workout!! 

There are lots of elements in a straight line from witnessing a grisly homicide to becoming a grisly body pile of a self inflicted accidental homicide for Edward.  We get a little romance, some pimp and whore drama, some reporter saving kindly prostitute drama, some explicit lesbian orgasming, some explicit all entry sex scenes and even a bit of rambling from Edward.  But where Hutson goes nuts is where it counts. When the title lives up to the name.  These suckers aren't just gore scenes by and large, they make the "entrails spaghetti" and clicking castanets of Crustacean domination seem like an fruit cocktail appetizer set to the tune of a baby rattle.

"Now he wrenched it free, briefly hearing the drone of metal on bone as it crunched her pelvis and lower ribs in to a thousand splinters. Entrails seemed to snake upwards like the bleeding tentacles of some stricken octopus and a stench so rank it made him sick, wafted up from the riven cavity of her stomach."

And that is just the end of a scene...

Chainsaw Terror is the exploding barbed wire deathmatch of horror fiction.  While it isn't an every day type of read, and it isn't written with any particularly outstanding craft in the plotting area, this is what we occasionally find ourselves as horror and exploitation fans looking for. You says TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and you go in with open eyes and hopes on having the title live up to what it promises.  Hutson pulls that off here. Given my interests I can only describe it as a heady (har har) stew of Pieces, Buio Omega and Erotic Nights of the Living Dead.  You may scratch your head, but that is pretty high praise from me.  I wanted, searched and found what I hoped would be a fast paced and splattery read and this fits the bill to a bloody saw link.  

While I doubt Shaun Hutson would proclaim it his finest, though the above omnibus does showcase the censored version along with two other novels that used a pen name, it shows off his skill at the basics of storytelling that lie under his later novels.  The dialog works, the characters may be two dimensional, but they do get enough flesh for us to see when it is suddenly shredded away by a power tool and the level of descriptiveness be it internal gore or the description of a womanly "cleft" is charmingly over the top.  Also, the term "powerful erection" gets as much play as it does in Guy N. Smith's Bamboo Guerrillas.  

Come to think of it, the two novels are sort of watersheds for me as a reader. I like the hacked out novels, the ones that are quick, dirty and direct. 

Chainsaw Terror is notoriously difficult to get, but it has a fairly interesting story of publication as well.  After it was released the title alone caused a bit of a stir, never mind the contents.  So, the same publisher, Star, re-issued it heavily edited as Come The Night.  That must be one hell of a weird read!  Essentially, I figure if you cut out the hardest violence and sex scenes you end up with a pulpy semi-giallo with a prostitute and a journalist chasing after a murderer.   Still, it is curious and equally hard to find!  

Also, the persistent rumor that even the final release was censored is something Hutson says has no merit.  The scene in question is supposedly a "violation by chainsaw" but that pretty much happens in every scene with a saw anyways.  However, if I was a betting man that wore a tinfoil hat of conspiracy loving I'd be more interested in what happens at page 105.  Edward gets a second prostitute, that has already figured out that he murdered the earlier victim, and brings to bear his favorite drill.  The scene jumps and reading it made me think of the advent of Japanese Laserdisc prints being sold and passed around filling in lots of splattery breaks in Italian horror films.  Check it out...

He stood mere inches from her, his swollen penis throbbing between his legs, the drill hummed loudly on low gear, then he flicked a switch and pitch intensified as he turned the lethal tool up to full speed.  He levelled it, the bit-spinning at over 3500 RPM-aimed at her right eye...

Edward switched off the drill and dropped to his knees before Amy's now lifeless remains.

There are a few guns on the table for the author here...and given that NOTHING has been held back it is a rather jarring jump past some obvious bad behavior.  A case of an author just figuring that they had already done enough? I wonder... not that I'm complaining, because it is pretty damned nasty, and again, this is just part of a scene.

For a bit of insight into the cuts / manuscript issues from the man himself-check out this tidbit from the 2008 questions page on The Shaun Hutson website found HERE.  The question asks about the supposed censoring and Clive Barkers reported reaction to Chainsaw Terror.  Bonus points to Shaun for being exactly the guy he is here...you have to love an author like this...  I know I do!  

There was an original (as in typed and coffee stained) copy of CHAINSAW TERROR around a while ago but that's it, Colum, I'm afraid. Where did you hear of this edition by the way, on another website? I'm curious...The scene you refer to caused Clive Barker to call me irresponsible at a fucking convention many moons ago. My reply; "Irresponsible? That's rich coming from the cunt who made a piece of shit like Hellraiser.." Not the usual literary response I think he'd been used to...but there again, don't question me if you can't take an honest answer...Neil Gaiman got the same thing many years ago when taking the piss out of SLUGS late one night in a hotel bar. I warned him I'd tip him out of his chair..he kept on..I tipped him out of his chair...He wasn't happy...twat. Good luck finding CHAINSAW TERROR.. 

Find it. Buy it. Get tipped out of your chair.  You won't see it win any awards, but it joins Eat Them Alive, Bamboo Guerrillas and Ninja Master: The Skin Swindle on my short list of triumphantly sleazy novels that I love.

Bibliotheque Terrors! Brides of the Impaler

What would October be without horror novels to supplement my Halloween Horrors??  And who better to turn to than Edward Lee, the ultimate in BUZZ YOUR FUCKING HEAD OFF horror?  Nobody.  Add in that he is taking on the Vampires in his novel Brides of the Impaler and it just screams "Jab my prose through your eyelids Mr. Z."  So I did...and what I found was pretty damn great, both as a novel and as a European Trash Cinema drinking game!!

With a prologue we meet a professor and his hot younger assistant doing a little digging around the grave of the "true" Dracula.  Lee right off the bat shows that he is going to bring his violent aesthetic to that old fangnut of horror as the young lady lustily brings up the details of the legendary impalers activities...and then BLAM, he drops a wall on the pair, unearthing something mysterious.  Trapped, our archeologist watches as some mysterious figures zip away with something that may be important.  Oh, it is...
Christina Nichols and her step sister Britt bring us to present day as a pair of ladies living the high life in New York City. They are married to a pair of rich lawyers and have it all.  They earned this karmic swing thanks to a horrific shared past where they were drugged and raped by their stepparents--so no wonder Christina has reason to doubt herself as a strange influence comes over her.  She is a designer of costume kewpies, and has hit the big time with gothic horror dolls (that would fall right out of the Infernal series if you ask me)--and her latest creation, The Noxious Nun, may be closer than she thinks.  Their husbands try to be understanding as the girls become embroiled in odd behavior that has them both confused...but as lawyers they get to be wonderfully shifty throughout.  The police?  Well, they have their hands full too.
Detective Howard Vernon is trying to solve a series of mysterious murders committed under strange circumstances...impaling to put a fine point on it!  But the victims are impaled on Christmas Tree stands and with old broom handles... 
The nun is there...she is very real, and nobody is safe from having not just their mind ripped up, but their flesh will be torn, sucked, shredded, slurped and devoured along the way. 
Ah, Ed Lee, I love your work sir.

Lee has taken the time to step away from the crowd and create a really hypersexualized and violent vampire lore here that casts aside the "Dracula" stuff and replaces it with a lot of elements that you would find in a weird late night Eurotrash horror flick.  I highly doubt vampire fans will be left wanting by the wanton ways of the vicious Kanesae and her homeless squadron of vampire whores, never mind the urban gothic vision of Lee that eschews all the stuff you would expect from an NYC setting, instead he builds a world as grungy and unsettling as any Backwoods Bighead excursion he has forged before.  This is the books strongest suit in my opinion.  While you may feel like logic gets cloudy on occasion, it is obvious to me that this is possibly the most atmospheric horror novel Lee has written.

You want vampires with a twist of ultraviolence and near malicious masturbation?  You want to find yourself rushing to the finish to find out how this could possibly all end (and it actually does work)...get this book.

Now, I have to do a secondary review, because I was greatly thrilled to see that Edward Lee thanks Jess Franco, Amando De Ossorio, Paul Naschy and Jean Rollin right up front.  Any reader of this blog knows how high my regard is for that line up!  The book is riddled with Eurotrash stars and references that kept me turning the page. Howard Vernon is simple, but having a woman named Laura having sex with a guy named Gemser is very cool.  Better yet, husbands Paul Nasher ("he was stocky, broad shouldered--like a power lifter") and Jess Franklin (a heavy smoker with "unruly brown hair and pointy goatee that seemed perpetually in need of a trim") are even more fun.  My favorite though?  Cristina and her sister Britt. Cristina is THE PRINCESS OF EROTICISM if you like that title of A Virgin Among The Living Dead.  And one of the hottest starlets of that one? Britt Nichols.  Cristina goes on the voyage here and gets the erotic treatment along the way of course!! 
Sadly, no scissors scene Franco fans...
Very clever indeed, and there are many many more!  I had to chuckle at CINZIA as well, seeing as I just did a Casual (un)dress Friday on that lady as well.
So, a really solid horror novel and a Eurotrash Fetish Pole.  Yeah, you need it.  While at times I was thinking that this was definitely Leisure Lee, a bit more mellow it also speaks volumes about Edward Lee.
This is mellow when a homeless woman is performing fellatio on a man that has been impaled ass to mouth as he dies.
Ed Lee? Hell yeah.

What is KENNY SCUM Presents??

THE greatest covers I've seen in ages were something I stumbled across and just can't get enough of. If anyone has information on these...PLEASE share. If I can't read these, I'd love to just WRITE something around these covers. Seriously, this is amazing!

Kung Fu Paperbacks article

I have been trying to remember where I read this great article on 70's Kung Fu paperbacks for quite some time when WHAM...it hit me. The amazing DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU contained tons of good bits by members of the Marvel Team-and this one from #8 is still valuable to fans of 70's pulp. Enjoy!
As always, click the picture for full size images.

Crustacean Domination! Guy N. Smith's CRABS Part 2

The Crabs and their giant cutlery claws skitter on in the second (of three) installments of CRUSTACEAN DOMINATION (also called a far less than scholarly take on six fine novels that deal with the important man and sea dweller relationship).
With this entry we reach the apex of the series, one of the most entertaining nature running amok novels I've ever encountered... CRABS ON THE RAMPAGE (1981). Just say that title out loud when nobody is listening. See? It makes you smile doesn't it? It does. Ahead lie some big spoilers, so I'm warning you right now. Before I look at the book though, I have to stress that this one is not only the most fun in the series, but it really benefits from reading the previous three entries first. Rampage ties them all together neatly, and even manages to take my second favorite character of all the books and give him a surprisingly good epilogue. So, no matter how exciting this one sounds, I can't stress enough that you'll get more from it if you go in order. But if you can't resist trying one, this should satisfy as well.

"The big one came first, a waving pincer checking the others. This was human--regal meat!"
"And now the hour of vengeance was nigh. For the big one told them so!"

Who knew that crabs could use the word "nigh?" Amazing!!
So, what we have in Crabs On The Rampage is the most violent entry into the series, but Smith is no longer content to simply tri-sect his human victims. He isn't even content to let them hurl tanks about anymore! Nope, they need to invade London! But Smith also needs a motive for our clickity-clickers, and he finds it by giving them a killer cancer that is simply causing them to drop dead. No crab will go down without a fight, so our man Cliff Davenport is called back to action by Old Grizzly Grisedale. They can't poison the crabs for fear of destroying the populated areas they are targeting, so it is battle upon battle as not just single victims of their own stupidity get dropped, but scores of folks going plopping into the ocean to make a bloody Crab Chowder as the beasts go for the bigger targets such as bridges. We return to Shell Island, we battle at Barmouth and it all comes to a screaming conclusion that features the de-clawing of one of our human friends. What irony eh? Cliff gets a little more crabby as a parting shot from the nemesis of his family.
But Smith doesn't simply focus on the large scale mayhem thankfully, I am always impressed by his ability to draw up characters in a short time that actually make you at least understand them before they end up getting killed. While my favorite scene of this kind remains the "human joint of meat cooking in a makeshift oven" in Thirst, ...Rampage contains a stunning chapter about a real prick of a dad who just won't relent until his son goes fishing with him. It does not go well at all, but Smith has created the characters, with all their flaws for better or worse, so clearly that when panic and unavoidable death strike it really makes an impact on the reader. One really clever use of a characters Crab-O-Phobia is so well done that it becomes both memorable and hysterical at the same time. I never thought I'd read a story that had a deputy sheriff plagued by nightmares of monster crabs mentally screaming the line "Let it suffer-fuck the Protection Of Animals Act Of 1911!"
Nope, never thought I'd read that.
This is the kind of book that tells me I've chosen the correct path to entertaining and enlightenment...the Guy N. Smith way. It isn't anything more than a spectacular monster tale splattered with over the top gore and loaded with characters that are memorable even if they do end up chomped down within 15 pages. It is funny, it is fun and I love it.
Besides, just say CRABS ON THE RAMPAGE out loud one more time.
Feel yer face...

That is a smile!

Next up, I'll tackle the final two books, Crabs Moon and the hard to find, but utterly unique in the series... CRABS-THE HUMAN SACRIFICE! Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go write another letter to Santa for Crabs Fury...

Crustacean Domination! Guy N. Smith's CRABS Part 1

2007 is the year of my Guy N. Smith vision quest. I don't know what started me on this path, but I've been running along nicely, reading a GNS book between each other title I decide upon. I've met THE SLIME BEAST. Felt THE THIRST (and it's sequel no less). I've drowned in the sexual slime of THE SUCKING PIT! But after winning a down to the final seconds auction for the hardest to find Crabs title, CRABS-THE HUMAN SACRIFICE, I decided it was time to give that series a straight through read. All six books put together form an interesting tale of nymphomaniacs, crabs as big as cows (or donkeys or...whatever else comes to mind), tank battling beasts, a hero name Cliff Davenport and a whole lotta people getting bisected, tri-sected and devoured by tiny mouths that are linked to big claws.
I love these books.
Guy N. Smith has become my literary (??) equivalent of Jess Franco it feels like. I really believe that at the heart of my obsession with guys like Jess and Guy (or obscure eurotrash genres) is the fact that I missed my calling as a librarian. I need it ALL, I need to put it in order on a shelf-but best of all, I treasure not only the actual items I find, but the search is an equal thrill. So, lets get crabby. I will warn you gentle readers that plenty of bad words will be on show, and there will be spoilers-though I don't think I can really convey how dementedly fun these books are without you experiencing them as well. While some are hard to find, you can find Smith's books for a song with a little looking-and many of the Crabs will set you back less than a paperback off the stands even after shipping. By no means definitive, these are just my impressions of the books... you can find some excellent resources for Smith online. If you want to go to the man himself, simply go to GUY N. SMITH ONLINE and poke around. Order a book and he'll sign it! Another fine spot for sharing the bliss of not only GNS, but loads of other great topics, go and check out the VAULT OF EVIL. Also, be sure to join the VoE Forums of course!

From the top then-we start off on the Welsh coast on Shell Island as two young lovers go for a swim....

Night Of The Crabs (1976) After the opening sequence that screams JAWS WITH CLAWS as two young lovers are chowed upon while bathing on Shell Island, right next to a military base(!!), we meet series hero Cliff Davenport. Sad to say, the Crab Salad that started us off consisted of his nephew! Luckily, Cliff is a marine botanist and also very curious. Off we go to investigate the strange happenings. Along the way Cliff meets Pat Benson and the INSTANTLY fall in love! Phew! A strange sea comber appears during a moonlit jaunt for the pair and WHAMMO!! GIANT CRABS...yep, we know they are real and they spend a lot of time killing people in classic big monster ways. It also helps out that Cliff knows military man "Old Grizzly" Grisedale. Can you say "The Battle Of Barmouth is underway?" I bet you can. Tanks battle crabs, crabs hurl tanks... and you'll smile the whole ride through.
Night Of The Crabs plays like a classic horror film of the 50's, with a good helping of 70's gritty gore slathered on top. The prose is tight and words are not wasted-each detail furthering the story towards gory conclusions. There is the tendency in Smith's world (and it is a fairly unified place to my experience) for people to act utterly illogical. But it doesn't feel that way as you read along, instead it feels as if the writing is in fast forward. Guy meets girl, they fall in love. Crabs eat people...bring in the tanks. But this is what makes it exciting! Night starts the series out with a bang, laying the foundation of the monsters reign of terror with total precision. Is it flowery or pretty? Nope! Entertaining and engrossing? Absolutely. We know they are big and mean, now let the fun begin. Night contains some excellent set pieces, including an underwater seek and destroy mission that is equal parts Creature From The Black Lagoon and Jaws. Hell, it may be like other things, but nothing is like the CRABS!

Killer Crabs (1978) The Crabs are back, and this is a great entry into the series. This time we have the big beasts in Barbeque Bay to deal with. Interestingly, after the first crabs book, the world just accepts the big beasts-so we don't have to go through any scenes of convincing the locals and the like. Just bring on the claws. Of all the books, this is the one I'd choose to be adapted into a film. Cliff Davenport returns and joins up with local authorities and the memorable salty seaman, Klin. Best of all is the hub of all the local drama, the nympho Caroline du Brunner. Klin is giving her the reason I called him salty seaman, and she is ALSO horny for criminals on the run with tons of cash stashed aside as well. This one has it all. Sex, violence, intrigue, buried cash and lots of clickity-click. Hell, there is even a subplot about evil Japanese fish poachers! As fast and enthusiastic as Night Of The Crabs is, Smith really hits the sweet spot (and the wet ones) on every page here. Look for the scene where one poor fisherman reaches for a bit of driftwood in hope of escaping the crabs...and it turns out to be his own leg! Which he only recognizes when he sees his own SHOE on it!!
After reading Night Of The Crabs and Killer Crabs I've already become a Craboid Clickity Clicker for life. But the series would roll on and the crab action would get even more outlandish. Big as sheep? Big as Cows? CARRYING TANKS?? Let's move on.

Taking a step back in time, Smith decides to fill us in on the Origin Of The Crabs (1979) next. An interesting move for the saga of the Crabs, because the first two books were loaded with undeniable giant crab attacks, there was an immediate reaction from the public AND the military. The crabs are smaller, and most of the book is dedicated to covering up their presence on Loch Merse. The laird of Cranlarich, Bruce McKechnie, has a problem. He runs hunting tours on his property and enjoys the heavy fees he takes from his rich clients. He doesn't plan on serving up his guests as Crab Salad, but that of course happens quickly. When two particular hunters refuse to be warned off taking midnight trips into the loch (clickity click my friends!!), they are devoured messily. This brings John Ryland, whose brother is sitting in the belly of several over sized crabs, into action. Luckily our laird ain't a lord with the ladies, and Ryland can hook up with oversexed and eager for love Christine Blacklaw... McKechnie's mistress. The pair investigate the monster in the loch tale... and lots of people die in the process.
Messily.
After the first two entries, this book is a welcome change-though it does fly in the face of expectation a bit. Slower paced, but the characters are typically fun Smith fare-and I was a bit surprised to see the author pull the trigger on the cast at the books end. Crab Gore fans won't be let down by the more deliberate pace, since the payoffs are quite large. As Origin Of The Crabs ends, the reader stands on the edge of the ultimate CRAB tale...the one that ties together the first three books with a giant pincer. After reading this book, you are warmed up for the magnificence of... CRABS ON THE RAMPAGE.

In part two... Rampaging Crabs, Corman styled Remakes and a crab side salad as Crustacean Domination wraps up!

Astounding Tales of Heroism! Nazi vs. Kung Fu!

Man, just look at that cover... don't forget that this limited edition chapbook has been released. Grab 'em while you can! Doug is planning a series based on these Astounding Tales-and there is a lot of promise! Nazis vs. Kung Fu is FUN! You can get the book by sending 10 dollars post paid to Douglas Waltz, 1915 Douglas Ave. Kalamazoo MI 49007.

Year End...THE DVD/Book/Soundtrack HOOK UP...XPLOITED!

In my mind there is only ONE shop for buying your import DVD selections, your books of the bizarre and your soundtracks of suspiriatical superbness. Xploited Cinema out of Ohio is far and away the best for service, price and overall excellence. No lie, they tolerate my shrieking need for all things Jess Franco with a smile and have provided me with more German splatter than most human minds could tolerate.
Never slow and always helpful, if you have tried them out you already know, and if not-I recommend that you do as soon as possible!
Click here and check out the horrific worlds of wonder they can provide.

Douglas Clegg Attacks Horror with ABANDON(ded)!

Ah, the joy of picking up a Douglas Clegg book that I haven't read-especially if it falls into his Harrow series. For those that don't know, Mr. Clegg is one of the best guys in the horror biz right now. His work bounces around in the genre (and outside as well) and he writes with a smooth pace and feel that propels his characters along their rocky roads and grabs me as a reader. I was very excited to see him going balls out (by his own admission before I'd read the book) and into splattery territory with The Abandoned. The series of Harrow stories intertwine and expand on each other very well-and this feels like it is almost the apocalypse of the tale...but you can't keep a good house down can you?
I'm not going to ruin the plot, but in broad strokes this book finds The Harrow House in a position to actually affect a wide radius of the town surrounding it. It has been a school, it has been a psychic magnet...but now it is spilling out and ripping at the souls of anyone it can find.
And man, does that house like to make people go berserk and kill kill kill (and then kill kill kill some more). The main characters are drawn to the house thanks to their psychic abilities (known or unknown) they have to find a way to stop the slaughter. Clegg always writes his tales to keep you guessing and this one certainly earns a "who will survive and what will be left of them" award.
Now, I don't particularly dig on Haunted Houses. No matter how popular other things get (ugh, the Zombie Glut for example), those damn spooky buildings just seem to keep on coming. Even Ed Lee couldn't get me into his haunted "Flesh Gothic," and I love reading his work...so I don't come out Clegg's Casa de Spook easily. The Abandoned reminded me more of James Herbert's outstanding tale of rampant naughtiness The Fog more than any haunting of any hellish house ever has. That works for it (I love Herbert's book) and against it (I love Herbert's book).
While the horror pours off the page in a torrent once the action starts, I found myself shocked to see that these moments are actually underwhelming in the tale when compared to the things that Doug Clegg does best. He breathes life into his characters and makes them feel real. The confrontations of fears in The Abandoned are spectacular (look for the gay bashing bar sequence in particular)-but the gore gets overdone and becomes repetitve, slowing down the action.
Yeah, I wrote that. Me, a fan of Shaun Hutson, Ed Lee, Guy N. Smith...a real true believer in the power of splat. The book works best when Clegg works his magic with the emotions and falls a bit flat in the "effects" department. Overall, not my favorite Harrowing tale, but loaded with some genuinely affecting moments and more dead children then you can shake a hatchet at.
Lawnmower? Lawnmower...nuff said.
Any horror fan will dig this book, and I hope that if you have not read his work this would make a good entry point for gorehounds to explore his other work. Keep a copy of The Attraction around, simply so you can read the amazingly great (and truly nightmare inducing for me) tale, The Necromancer for a peek deeper into Harrow.

But ya know, I did find a passage that REALLY made me happy that I spent my time in this book. I've harped on it in the past and frequently take books to task. Maybe it was when my buddy Curt at Groovy Age Of Horror called bullshit on my own writing that this stuck so hard. Characters are put into demented and strange and yes, totally unbelievable situations in horror novels. But the writer should be responsible not to make the reader FEEL like it is so unbelievable that it pulls them out of the story. As berserk as The Abandoned gets, that doesn't happen. There is a nice near prayer for true insanity to sweep one character away to escape the scenario she is in...but THIS is a perfect example of not wimping out and apologizing to your readers for writing a horror tale. Thanks Doug, I'll keep it in mind when I'm wondering how to pull that off with style.
Check it folks...and by all means, check out The Abandoned and more of Douglas Clegg (ahem...Nightmare House...ahem). Visit his website now!

From The Abandoned...one helluva line:
"While he knew that it was an impossibility that she could be there, something deep within him awoke to the impossible."

Man, I love that.

Used Book Trawling...Happy Halloween!!

Nothing says Halloween for me like Used Book Store trawling...and horror treats galore!! This first book is something I never knew existed...but a Young Adult line of Micheal Meyers books is quite intriguing. I'm looking forward to this. Then we have two sleazy ones, The Devil's Channel screams about naked women worshipping televisions... something I whole heartedly agree with and think should be an organized religion!! Finally... a NEL version of a Laymon book! The first one of those I've found. Each cost under 2 dollars!!
Enjoy these lovely covers!

Night Of The Loving Dead - An Extreme Review for an Extreme Tale

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Dan Brennan - Writer, Fighter and Journalist

One of the most interesting parts of blogging too my experience has been the great feedback (and search hits) that it elicits. I recently reviewed a funky novel by Dan Brennan entitled Insurrection! and couldn't help but wonder about the author with each and every page turn. Was he pulling my nose? Was he just crazy? Very little information exists on the web, and thanks to a comment placed on this blog I got some answers! Here is hoping that this information will find it's way around the web for anyone interested in what sounds like a fascinating life in both a printed legacy and a story for late night pub talk in his home state (and beyond!) If you read the original post and check the comments, this helpful post from Bill Brooks should not go unread.

" The real story about Brennan is beyond belief, but true. Dan was a Minneapolis based writer with 40 novels, a British and US best seller in 1946 "One of Our Bombers Is Missing"; a highly decorated WWII tail gunner ace, (flew 80 missions with RAF and USAF); news reporter, highly published outdoor sports writer-- the bio goes on and on. He was a crazy Irish boozer, MN legend a wild genius who could've gone toe to toe against Hemingway, shooting the bull about hunting, women-- and his specialties guns and drinking. Long live Dan Brennan, 1917-2002-- Bill Brooks, Mpls."

Bill and I exchanged a few emails since this and with his permission I wanted to pass along a little more information. I hope it spreads the word on this particular writer, I know I'll be reading more of his work, and thanks to Bill's information, I will do so with a wink and a nod (and perhaps a few beers) up to Mr. Brennan!

Not only was Brennan a writer for nearly 55 years, he was also a tailgunner and flew with the RAF and USAF! Now that is certainly enough for a book right there. He remained in Great Britain after the war and sold his novels there with several successful works, all the while being published in magazines such as Sports Afield, Field And Stream, Argosy and more. Upon returning home to Minneapolis he carved himself out some noteriety with his wide range of potboilers and war books, including the intriguing Velvet Rut (what a title!!)-that included many real figures from the local scene, barely disguised but obvious to those in the know. I figure he was in his early 50's while writing Insurrection! and that gives the book a good bit of perspective-and also explains the military aspects of it being so well put together and thought out.
In his later writing years he had articles published in the L.A. Times, notably calling the film Memphis Belle for it's inaccuracies, of which he would be quite aware.
A fascinating guy-and someone that truly lived a writing lifestyle! I'll close out with two things... the obituary posted below (click for a readable image by the way) is from the Minneapolis Star Tribune and comes courtesy of bill. Also it is great to know that Bill took the picture of Mr. Brennan in 1973 while on a sharptail grouse hunt, I want to thank him for anyone that reads this for sharing all this information. And finally, I think Bill's own words say it best...

"He had five kids with his beautiful blond wife Helen, who was originally from South Africa-- he met her when she was a WAC Battery commander in London during the Battle of Britain and he was on his way to becoming the rarest of air aces-- a tail gunner. How he survived some of those missions was huge unto itself.

Thanks for your interest, David-- he was a complex guy, charming, intelligent, hot tempered when drinking, fiercely loyal-- 100% Irish. The social class was uptight about him here in staid old Minneapolis. (And for Insurrection!-- I never knew him to be racist-- as for the book, he could read the social barometer as well as anybody and that was the era of the Black Panthers and all that-- and he was always looking for fresh topic material!! He loved yanking everybody's chain.)"

Switch Party...A Classic Bit of PICTO-FICTION!

Now here is a format I could never get enough of...PICTO-FICTION! Personally, I'd love to do something like this myself...and I wanted to share a great bit of groovy goodness from these lovely scans. So from 1955...SHOCK ILLUSTRATED magazine gives us... SWITCH PARTY! Get hip hep cats... and dig in. The thumbs are small (since the story is rather long) so click 'em and read away.

As for me... three days til FANEX!! I'll be leaving and spending some days with the good folk of Eurotrash Paradise and rooming with The GROOVY AGE OF HORROR guru tah boot. I can't wait!

Nick Carter...Killmaster Comics!

Here is a little comics gem from November 1940 presented in The Shadow Comics that any Neo-Pulp fan will find interesting. Nick Carter has been around for a long time and been in comics, movies, pulps and Neo-Pulps (as Killmaster no less). Here is a little retro-fun, before he became a globehopping and gun toting ass kicker...he was still one cool dude. Click and savor the big old spysmashing action!