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Post by dem bones on Oct 20, 2007 12:50:11 GMT
Frederick C. Davis - The Molemen Want Your EyesFrom the depths of the abandoned Black Lode mine they came - slimy, frightful creatures with staring, opaque eyes. Their groping hands sought soft, warm flesh - and the sight which only the mutilated bodies of the young and lovely, like my Jane, could give them ... Westhaven. Narrator Phil Ross and his bride-to-be Jane are out looking for Dr. Walter Lockwood, opthamologist, whose brother Carl is due to go to the electric chair at midnight for the rape and murder of a patient at the County Asylum for the Insane. A few years earlier, twenty of the inmates - every one a revolting sex criminal - had escaped and fled to the Black Lode mine and supposedly annihilated themselves when they blew the place up. Because they were such scum bags, the authorities decided not to recover the corpses, and soon the locals refused to work there. The pit shut down and is now "abandoned" .... After being grabbed at by a slimy arm, Jane asks Phil to take her home. On their way they bump into a naked girl oozing blood from her eyes which have been plucked out! It is Lydia Hartley, one of Jane's best friends and the most beautiful girl - "Lovely, vivacious, delectable" - in Westhaven! As it turns out, this is not the best of nights for the Hartley family: while all this was going on, her parents' place was being ransacked by "filthy human moles." "I saw them too! They were horrible creatures! They looked as thin as skeletons, and they had beards. They were naked, and their bodies gleamed as if they were covered with slime. I saw their horrible faces - and their eyes were white as marble. They were blind men, most of them, but there were one or two who could see, and they were leading the others ... Don't look at me as if I were crazy! I tell you it's true!" The following day, and Dr. Lockwood is still missing and unaware that his brother had made a full confession before he died. Porter Larkin, the local mystery man who nobody likes has leeched onto Phil and accompanies him on his visit to Sam Eustace, a brilliant eye specialist whose career was ruined when he advanced some of his theories during Carl Lockwood's trial. Neither Phil nor Sam seem to think there's anything mildly suspicious about Larkin's sudden interest in the case and speak freely before him. Personally, the guy gives me the creeps. Anyhow, Phil's take on it is that Dr. Lockwood share's some of his brother's madness and is trying to prove Sam's theory that the image left on a dead retina can be used as reliable evidence in court and for that he needs some raw materials to experiment on. Then they both remember how Danny Gans, village idiot and molester of girls, recently vanished - could Walter Lockwood be behind his disappearance? At this point, they're interrupted by a phone call from Jane. The molemen are attacking the house! A last frantic "They're coming for me!" and ... The line goes dead. This brings us to the end of Chapter III, The Eyes Of The Idiot. More to follow. 
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Post by dem bones on Oct 20, 2007 12:51:18 GMT
Spoiler: Don't read on if you don't want to know much of what's going to happen! David Weiss's tasteful cover art for the Shroud reprint ...The good news is that Phil is in time to rescue Jane as the mole menaces are scuttling away with her across the lawn. He shoots the one who's carrying her, turns over the corpse ... and peers straight into the eyes of Danny Gans!. So all that eye-transplant stuff was true! The bad news is, they got away with Jane's little sister Cathie! The break-in has roused the neighbours and a few state-troopers so together they head off to the Black Lode Mine. Phil is frantic. They have to find Cathy before she "suffers the horror of having her eyes cut out, of having her young body consumed by the lust of the foul degenerates". He's a top bloke and all that, but you wish Phil would lighten up. Sure, it's a sex & sadism pulp, but, even in so dubious a genre, no author would be sick and twisted enough to let that happen! So, the vigilantes descend into the mine but the molemen are not to be found. It's not entirely a wasted effort though. Phil discovers the fungus supply they've been cultivating for food - to supplement their diet of rats and human flesh! Also, he's finally wised up to Porter Larkin. Larkin claims to be a special agent investigating the disappearance of Danny Gans. A likely story! Who does he take us for? Sure enough, Phil checks with the D.A. but nobody's heard of him! It looks all up for this total imposter as the men are in no mood for strangers pretending to be someone they're not, but then a pathetic child's scream distracts everybody. Who's that eyeless, slime-covered little gal crawling toward them to die? Oh bum! Shortly afterward, Jane gets herself captured again, and when next we catch up with her, she's stripped and strapped down on a surgical table with the evil mastermind who stands to get rich about to carve out her baby blues. Despite the trad Horror Stories Scoobie Doo ending - villain unmasked, lovers reunited, everybody immediately forgetting the carnage they've witnessed and merrily carrying on with their nice lives, etc. - this is unquestionably one of my all-time favourite shudder pulps with enough red herrings to keep you guessing as to the identity of the culprit. The original cover (unfortunately I don't have it in all of it's full colour majesty) Printing historyOriginally Horror Stories, April-May 1938: Reprinted as a limited edition (995 copies) stand-alone booklet by Kenneth J. Kreuger (Shroud, 1976) Also included in Sheldon Jaffery's The Weirds (Starmont, 1987)
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Post by ripper on Sept 9, 2014 12:05:57 GMT
The Molemen want your Eyes by Frederick C. Davis (first published in Horror stories April/May 1938)
What a great title! I read this last night and was thoroughly entertained. I was expecting the molemen to be subterranean monsters emerging from the ground to invade the surface world, but that wasn't quite the case. It is actually a story of a group of "sexual degenerates" who escape from an asylum, are pursued into a mine and are trapped by an explosion. Years later, they dig their way out and begin abducting young women in order to "ravish" them and cut out their eyes. The "molemen" are naked, covered in slime and most are blind due to being underground for so long. There are several characters who aren't quite who they seem to be and the story is suitably savage and lurid. As usual for a pulp, the pace is frenetic and melodrama is to the fore. I don't think I have read anything else by Frederick Davis, so it would be interesting to see if this story is typical of his work.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 10, 2014 2:17:51 GMT
Among my very favourite shudder pulps. Horror Stories promoted The Molemen Want Your Eyes as "a smashing novel of midnight terrors" which completely under-sells it. Frederick C. Davis was an old school genre-hopping pulpster - during the 'twenties while still at college he'd written for Detective, Western and Air story mags. "Before long my output was 125, 000 words a month. I kept up this pace month after month for years." Davis contributed at least fifteen stories to the shudder pulps but Molemen was his only Horror Stories appearance. Have only read four, and while "Molemen ..." is the best, Goddess Of Evil Revelry (Dime Mystery, Dec. 1936), Dig Deep The Graves (Terror Tales, Jan-Feb 1937) and Festival Of The Bloodless Dead (Dime Mystery, Jan. 1937) are far from dull!
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Post by ripper on Sept 10, 2014 8:23:58 GMT
Hi Dem, sorry I hadn't realised that there was already a Molemen thread. It's a great tale, probably the nastiest shudder pulp I have read as yet. I was genuinely shocked over the fate of Jane's 12-year old sister; I was expecting that the story would be concerned with her rescue, but Davis pulled the rug from under me very quickly on that point. I thought that Davis also did pretty well on keeping the truth about some of the characters from the reader until the conclusion; for example, I really wasn't sure whose side Porter Larkin was on until near the end.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 10, 2014 10:25:20 GMT
Hi Dem, sorry I hadn't realised that there was already a Molemen thread. It's a great tale, probably the nastiest shudder pulp I have read as yet. I was genuinely shocked over the fate of Jane's 12-year old sister; I was expecting that the story would be concerned with her rescue, but Davis pulled the rug from under me very quickly on that point. I thought that Davis also did pretty well on keeping the truth about some of the characters from the reader until the conclusion; for example, I really wasn't sure whose side Porter Larkin was on until near the end. Ha! the thread was buried and forgotten over on p.6 of this section so would have been surprised if anyone found it! Am very glad you enjoyed Mole Men, rip. If its a nasty one you're after and you've not yet read it, try Russell Gray's Fresh Fiances For The Devil's Daughter. Grown men have been known to wince! |
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Post by Craig Herbertson on Sept 11, 2014 6:38:51 GMT
Hi Dem, sorry I hadn't realised that there was already a Molemen thread. It's a great tale, probably the nastiest shudder pulp I have read as yet. I was genuinely shocked over the fate of Jane's 12-year old sister; I was expecting that the story would be concerned with her rescue, but Davis pulled the rug from under me very quickly on that point. I thought that Davis also did pretty well on keeping the truth about some of the characters from the reader until the conclusion; for example, I really wasn't sure whose side Porter Larkin was on until near the end. Ha! the thread was buried and forgotten over on p.6 of this section so would have been surprised if anyone found it! Am very glad you enjoyed Mole Men, rip. If its a nasty one you're after and you've not yet read it, try Russell Gray's Fresh Fiances For The Devil's Daughter. Grown men have been known to wince! After all this hype I broke and read it. Blame the vault. It is a cracking story with few redeeming features (the way I like them). Possibly one of the greatest titles ever. I read it quite quickly and couldn't spot any loose ends really - eyes gone, molemen found, degenerate criminals caught |
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Post by ripper on Sept 11, 2014 14:27:58 GMT
I think I read Fresh Fiances a few years ago, and if it's the one I am thinking of, then it certainly is a nasty. I think it is time I read it again, though.
Craig, with such a wonderful title, it is so satisfying that the story actually lives up to it.
Currently, I am reading a 1927 non-Jules de Grandin story from Seabury Quinn entitled The Ghost of Townley Towers, with a Professor and his young female ward investigating dastardly goings-on in an old dark house setting, and so far it is coming along nicely.
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Post by andydecker on Sept 11, 2014 18:13:59 GMT
Hi Dem, sorry I hadn't realised that there was already a Molemen thread. It's a great tale, probably the nastiest shudder pulp I have read as yet. I was genuinely shocked over the fate of Jane's 12-year old sister; I was expecting that the story would be concerned with her rescue, but Davis pulled the rug from under me very quickly on that point. I thought that Davis also did pretty well on keeping the truth about some of the characters from the reader until the conclusion; for example, I really wasn't sure whose side Porter Larkin was on until near the end. Ha! the thread was buried and forgotten over on p.6 of this section so would have been surprised if anyone found it! Am very glad you enjoyed Mole Men, rip. If its a nasty one you're after and you've not yet read it, try Russell Gray's Fresh Fiances For The Devil's Daughter. Grown men have been known to wince! I can really recommend Gray aka Bruno Fischer. I bought his Hostesses in Hell, his collection by Dancing Tuatara Press. Wonderful stuff. His crime novels are also interesting. |
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Post by claytwisted on Sept 26, 2014 11:55:41 GMT
Andy: Thanks for picking up Hostesses in Hell! The second Gray collection (My Touch Brings Death) is out now and I have at least two more collections in the works. After Bruno Fischer gained confidence and began selling under his own name and abandoning "Russell Gray" and "Harrison Storm" his work for the most part was toned down considerably. However, there are two novels published by Gold Medal in the 1950s that are well worth seeking out: House of Flesh and The Lustful Ape both are definitely in the weird menace genre and the former seems that it may have been written a decade or so earlier, it really seems like something written for Horror Stories or Terror Tales (keep in mind for those writers who part of the second or third wave of weird menace authors, the whole genre crashed on them all at once, so it wouldn't be at all surprising for stories to have been orphaned.) I'm really hoping that this is the case with Mary Dale Buckner (Donald Dale) as I'm in touch with her relatives about a "stack" of unpublished stories and correspondence with Rogers Terrill (editor of Popular Pub. weird menace mags). I don't want to get my hopes up too high as I know that she tried her hand at other markets after the weird menace genre imploded, but as a member of the second wave, she was certainly writing weird menace fiction in 1941 when everything crashed. I'm just about done putting her second collection together, which has some great stuff, but wouldn't it be something if the third book contained some previously unpublished weird menace fiction that has lain dormant all these years...
Cheers,
John |
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Post by andydecker on Sept 26, 2014 19:07:34 GMT
Hello John.
welcome to the board!
I really like Dancing Tuatara Press. Aside the Gray I also bought one of Rogers, Blassingame and Knox. I read some of Fischer's crime novels. I did a short piece for a german online fanzine of his crime novels. I think half a dozen were translated back in the early 70s and earlier. House of Flesh wasn`t translated, as far as I could see, which is quite a shame. A very good novel, very Jim Thompson. It is a shame that Fischer has become so obscure. On the other hand, a lot crime writers of this period seem to drift out of public consciousness.
I find the short weird menace era particulary fascinating. It is such a contrast to the other media of its time, when a married couple had to sleep in separate beds on the screen. It is also such a contrast of the more traditional horror of the time. Can't imagine even Seabury Quinn's nude damsels in distress being victims of such graphic violence as in Terrill's magazines.
Thanks for the info on the new Gray. I have to check immediatly.
Cheers Andy |
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Evil Scientist
Crab On The Rampage
answering the call of the Weird
Posts: 18 
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Post by Evil Scientist on Sept 27, 2014 7:05:16 GMT
 David Weiss's tasteful cover art for the Shroud reprint ...Lovely art! |
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Post by mcannon on Sept 30, 2014 2:03:22 GMT
David Weiss's tasteful cover art for the Shroud reprint ... Lovely art! They're rather fit-looking chaps for a bunch of degenerate Molemen! |
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Post by cauldronbrewer on Oct 4, 2014 14:39:55 GMT
I'm really hoping that this is the case with Mary Dale Buckner (Donald Dale) as I'm in touch with her relatives about a "stack" of unpublished stories and correspondence with Rogers Terrill (editor of Popular Pub. weird menace mags). I don't want to get my hopes up too high as I know that she tried her hand at other markets after the weird menace genre imploded, but as a member of the second wave, she was certainly writing weird menace fiction in 1941 when everything crashed. I'm just about done putting her second collection together, which has some great stuff, but wouldn't it be something if the third book contained some previously unpublished weird menace fiction that has lain dormant all these years... That's excellent news about the second Dale collection. A third collection would be an added bonus. For me, the first volume was one of the highlights of the Dancing Tuatara series. |
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Post by pbsplatter on Jan 19, 2023 1:04:09 GMT
Really amazing, although like Midnight's Lair I feel slightly short-changed of actual scenes of mole-man mayhem.
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