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Post by dem bones on Mar 11, 2011 7:02:25 GMT
Peter Saxon (Wilfred McNeilly) – Dark Ways To Death [#32] (Sphere, 1975: originally Berkley Medallion, US 1968: Howard Baker UK, 1968) Blurb: In dark and secret places, the Devil's disciples are more active than ever. Beneath the crowded London streets, in an abandoned tunnel silent as the grave, Voodoo. brings terror and death to the victims who are lured to the dank and stinking hell-hole. Pledged to fight the war against Satanism, Black Magic and Witchcraft are The Guardians. Four men and one woman committed to the endless, chilling battle. Can they overthrow the menace of Voodoo?
Dark Ways To Death is volume 32 in the Dennis Wheatley Library Of The OccultWe've reviews of this from Dr. Terror and Nightreader on Vault MK I but it's the one Guardians book has received little fuss on here so time to put that right. Finally landed a copy yesterday in (where else?) TYPE and nothing but NOTHING is going to distract me 'til i've finished it. As has been mentioned, this edition comes with a SPECIAL BONUS FEATURE, namely what surely must be Dennis Wheatley's most barking introduction of the entire series. "I have rarely read a novel, the first chapter of which was more colourless, impersonal and lacking in inducement to continue" begins the man who gave the world Gateway To Hell and Star Of Ill-Omen, "But don’t be put off by that …” Having read the offending chapter, all i can say is that Dennis could consider himself fortunate - what some of us wouldn't give for a contemporary horror novel that opens with an impressive Baron Samedi presiding over grisly human sacrifice in a disused railway tunnel three hundred feet below the city of London! Chapter two offers a first glimpse of a Guardian - Professor Steve Kane - entertaining a journalist at the group's eerie mausoleum of a headquarters in Half Moon Street. Negley Prescott of the Daily Post has been commissioned to write a series of What Became Of ..." articles relating to once very public figures who've quietly disappeared off the media's radar and Kane is ideal subject matter: he resigned from his Kincaster University post in the wake of some outrage relating to Black Sorcery. Why he would wish to discuss the matter with a press hack isn't immediately apparent, but no doubt there's method in his madness and all will be made clear by time i come to posting up next bit. Some very impressive mumbo jumbo chanting during the voodoo ceremony - "Our Tongue goes three times round the world/ And all must come/ And all must come.". Let's hope there's more of same in the offing.
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Post by dem bones on Mar 12, 2011 9:23:18 GMT
We've now learned there was an almost Gerald Suster-like quality to Steve Kane's fall from grace. Lecturing to a disinterested class on Sympathetic Magic: Hypnotism & The X-Factor, he was challenged by a belligerent pupil named Knight to give a demonstration of magic seeing as how he was expecting them to believe in it. Kane, his dander up, unwisely complied and Knight's girlfriend volunteered to play guinea pig. By means of mild voodoo and hypnotism, Kane enabled his pupil to see fifteen minutes into the future, whereupon she screamed and launched into a frantic striptease, yelling that she was burning up. Fifteen minutes later, Knight's discarded cigarette set the lecture room ablaze and, although Kane risked life and limb to save the girl, some fledgling paparazzi had photographed the earlier incident. Once Fleet Street got their slimy hands on the story, Steve could only tender his resignation for the good of Kincaster. At a loose end, he received a call from Gideon Cross who had a proposal for him to consider, "and that, of course, was the start of the Guardians."
Given his experience of the scandal rags, you have to wonder what Steve's playing at, because one glimpse of voluptuous Anne Ashby and Prescott has the angle for his story: in short, "He licked his lips and thought of suggestions of secret and nameless rites that would involve three men and one woman" - and came up with "Phwoar!"
Prescott is so eager to dash back to his office and type up his scorcher that he misses the real story - a young black man belting out of the building in a state of extreme terror. Jackie Johnson, a West Indian railway ticket collector, has been referred to the house in Half Moon Street by their fellow Guardian, Father Dyball, which suggests he must be in very serious trouble. Between them, Steve and Anne instantly diagnose the nature of Jackie's problem.
"Voodoo,' said Kane somberly. "I suppose it had to come. With so many Africans and West Indians in the country someone was bound to. I wonder how bad it is.'
And the answer to that was very bad indeed.
My guess is that Wheatley's interest in Dark Ways Of Death perked up around now as, if the astonishing Gateway To Hell is anything to go by, he was on the cusp of granting the Black Power movement full Red menace/ Trade Unionist status as the greatest evils to face mankind. Having railed against Black Magic and Witchcraft since the 'thirties, it seems Wheatley had found a new hobby horse - "Of all forms of Devil Worship, Voodoo is the most filthy, degrading, obscene" - and "it is an appalling thought that very similar happenings do now secretly take place in British cities."
More when i've unsidetracked if you're desperately out of luck.
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Post by dem bones on Mar 14, 2011 19:06:57 GMT
Things are picking up fast. The Guardians have been approached by Sir Bartley Squire to protect his daughter Caroline from the skeletal Dr. Odabiah Dubal, a "specialist in West Indian remedies," who owns a Voodoo superstore in Notting Hill Gate. Caroline, a mini-skirt girl with "a hairstyle that looked like an amateur attempt to knit a Guard's bearskin ... Her appearance was the epitome of what older people mean when they say 'the younger generation' in that sort of voice" - is cohabiting with Jackie Johnson in a Paddington slum. Jackie won't tell Caroline what trouble he's in for fear of involving her, but he shows Father Dyball the tell-tale blood-stained white chicken feather he's received in the post. The priest contemptuously puts his lighter to it which sends Jackie into an even greater panic. They will know! They will surely kill him! No sooner has Dyball left Jackie and Caroline alone than there's a rap on the door. It's Rongo, Dr. Duval's razor-weilding number one henchman, come to persuade Jackie that he has business with the brothers. Back in Half Moon Street, The Guardians have had their number reduced by one. Bubastis has been cat-napped! Although technically Steve Kane's pet, 'Booby' has far greater affinity for Anne Ashby to the point where Kane suspects his cat is her familiar. Lionel Marks, the team's ex-private detective, has soon traced the theft to Dr. Duval who requires a steady supply of cat inards for his medicines, and an angry Anne storms off to confront him at his powerbase. Anne soon has cause to regret her hastiness. She's easily able to withstand the sneering Duval's attempts at hypnotism but before she can teach old gargoyle face the error of his ways and take him as an astral captive, banana bunch fingers grab her from behind. It is Rongo, fresh from sustaining a humiliating bashing from Jackie, and determined to take out his fury on this attractive white girl. Anne puts up a good fight, raking his shin with a well-applied high heel, but he's too powerful. Soon she suffers the indignity of being forced across Rongo's knees with her dress pulled over her head while a chuckling Duval creaks off to fetch a snake whip. At the risk of coming across like some obsessive nut, i find it fascinating to refer back to Wheatley's introduction and contrast his thinking with that of McNeilly. To Wheatley, Caroline is curtly dismissed as "one of those rich young rebels who despise all the taboos of the respectable." McNeilly allows himself a smirk at her outlandish hairdo and overdone make-up, but goes on to empathise: "And yet her eyes held that other quality of the modern generation which is less apparent to their seniors, a compassionate awareness, an almost desperate quality, a quality that sends youths out on parade for lost causes, drives them to seek through drugs not so much 'kicks' as a more encompassing awareness. There was a tenderness in the grey eyes despite the heavy mascara. There was love on the lips which were fashionably pale." In The Ka of Gifford Hillary, Wheatley allowed his spectral hero a voyeuristic trawl of Notting Hill's least desirable residences where he inadvertently puts the willies up a young negro in what is clearly intended as a "comical" interlude at the man's expense. He's at it again here, sneering that Jackie becomes "a jelly of terror" over a silly white feather, yet it's Wheatley who has been at such pains to assure us that Voodoo is the most filthy form of Devil-Worship and if Jackie has been summoned to participate in a human sacrifice - one which may even prove to be his own - then he has good reason to feel afraid. But after a few initial read-through-your-fingers moments, McNeilly writes Jackie as a likable, gutsy young man who is more terrified for his girlfriend's skin than his own, and triumphs in what should be a one-sided fight with hired thug Rongo the slasher. yet more marvels of unjoined up thinking to follow ...
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Post by pulphack on Mar 15, 2011 8:17:49 GMT
Haven't read this for a while, but Den's intro always tickles. This was my first Guardians novel, and I bought it at the same time as Through The Dark Curtain. It was only years later that I discovered it was the SBL title 'Come Dark Come Evil' rewritten. Which maybe accounts for that first chapter that Den disparages so much. The odd thing about it is that it DOES break the 'rules' in that it goes from the very evocative opening pages to a lecture in pseudo-academic style about voodoo. When I took writing classes I used to use this as an example of what you should try to avoid as it disrupts the carefully built atmosphere. However, it was surprising how many of the students loved it because of the contrast. I saw their point, and can see how it would work because of that. It's the sort of thing I've done purposely in the past and then got hammered for! Sadly, I can't think of many mainstream fiction editors who would agree even now (though I feel that's changing as a new generation comes in and standards shift once more).
I re-read The Vampires Of Finistere recently, and because of the excellent denouement had forgotten that it was basically a Stephen Kane solo outing, with a wonderfully sympathetic portrayal of the young girl who previously been a 'bride' of the green wolf. Contrary to the views of more 'literary' types, pulp isn't just about exploitation (calm down Dem, it is mostly...), but it does pay attention to getting the reader onside in order to shock surprise and delight.
Unless you're the Rev Lionel, of course... but he was out there on his own somewhere!
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Post by pulphack on Mar 15, 2011 8:24:14 GMT
p.s. - can you PM me dem as I've been trying to pm you and it won't send!
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Post by dem bones on Mar 17, 2011 8:51:38 GMT
Now the real butchery would begin ...
"Black Magic, Houngans, Voodooism and zombies - on the London Underground." There's more, so much more going on in Dark Ways To Death, but Lionel Marks' incredulous remark gives you a decent idea of what the Guardians are up against. Essentially, Dr. Duval and his mob are worshippers of Dumbalawedo, the feathered serpent. Virtually every mutilated corpse dragged from the Thames can be attributed to their Notting Hill voodoo cult who must keep the human sacrifices coming every full moon to satisfy the Devil-God's insatiable appetite for pain and suffering. Being of a seriously sadistic bent themselves, witch-doctor Duval and the despicable rapist Rongo are the right men for the job.
The outcome of the Anne versus the voodoo sadists cliffhanger is surely one of the most exciting episodes in the series. For me, this shows McNeily at his economical best: in little over three paragraphs he has us landed slap bang in the thick of a riot with Anne, psychically abetted by Gideon Cross, demonstrating a mastery of telekinetic powers to rival Carrie White's. Bombarded by everything from wooden masks to stuffed snakes, the witch-doctor's men are driven from the room, just as Steve Kane bursts in to drag an exhausted Anne into the laboratory out back. Naturally, Duval thought to grab Bubastis before taking off into the night, which leaves Kane and Ann locked in with hundreds of crazed, malnourished felines.
Duval's henchmen finally succeed in abducting Jackie and bundling him off to the disused railway tunnel. To prevent his escape, thorough rotter Rongo shatters Jackies arms and legs but this still doesn't prevent him from crawling crab-like along the track to head off Caroline, who he knows will come to find him.
Meanwhile, the magnificently named Negley Prescott is investigating his next sex-sational exposé for the Daily Post and having a fun time doing so. The paunchy, self-styled "Sexton Blake of the press" has trailed the Duchess of Derwentwater and her boorish cronies to an exclusive strip club where her ladyship is far from impressed with tonight's star performer. One of her oafish Hooray Henry pals attempts to cheer her up by aiming a champagne cork at the stripper's tits only to hit her in the bellybutton instead. This so irks the Duchess that she leaps onstage and - with great difficulty - peels off her silver lamé dress to the strains of Land Of Hope And Glory. As the party stagger drunkenly from the establishment, one of their number suggest they head for Dr. Duval's Black Magic shop for an 'orge'. Prescott, sensing a scoop to out-scoop even the business at the strip club, tags along. Also headed for Notting Hill are Kane, Anne Ashby and Lionel Marks who have located the trapdoor leading to the abandoned tunnel where Duval performs his torture-murders. But have they the capability to rescue Jackie and Bubastis from a Magus at least as powerful as Gideon Cross?
i have probably said this about each of the Guardians novels as i read them, but this has to be in with a shout for my all time favourite from the series and, thanks to pulphack's informative post above, i am now seriously on the trail of Come Dark Come Evil. Even if his other observations are a little, uh, open to question, Wheatley was spot on with his "but it picks up in chapter 2." McNeilly packs enough action into 140 pages to sustain a book three times that length and - unusually for the day's pulps - he doesn't even fluff the ending!
File under: Hammer should have filmed this directly after Scream And Scream Again.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Mar 17, 2011 13:13:21 GMT
Of course Scream and Scream Again was a curious co-production between AIP (who wanted more nudity) and Amicus (who didn't want any at all). The orginal script was very faithful to the book but director Gordon Hessler wanted to go for a more 'art house' feel and so drafted in Christopher Wicking, who took out the aliens and fragmented the narrative even more. I think it's a unique film and more Saxon movies at this time could have been great fun, but Scream & Scream Again didn't make any money so Hessler and Wicking were sent off to make The Oblong Box (try making sense of some of that one) and Cry of the Banshee (ditto, especially as it was drastically re-edited and then released in two different versions in the US & the UK). Impromptu BritHorror ramble over
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Post by andydecker on Mar 18, 2011 10:03:38 GMT
Hessler and Wicking were sent off to make The Oblong Box (try making sense of some of that one) and Cry of the Banshee (ditto, especially as it was drastically re-edited and then released in two different versions in the US & the UK) I kind of like Cry even if I don´t know which version I saw , I was astonished about the amount of nuditiy in it which they made as anti-Hammer as they could. An interesting approach. Price seems to sleepwalk his role here and still he makes a convincing villian. The Oblong Box is a terrible bore. Wicking´s movies often have gaps and a lot of WTF moments, but this somehow never works at all.
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Post by dem bones on Mar 21, 2011 17:22:28 GMT
Of course Scream and Scream Again was a curious co-production between AIP * sizzling blush * Too much thinking about globes, not enough concentration. I re-read The Vampires Of Finistere recently, and because of the excellent denouement had forgotten that it was basically a Stephen Kane solo outing, with a wonderfully sympathetic portrayal of the young girl who previously been a 'bride' of the green wolf. Contrary to the views of more 'literary' types, pulp isn't just about exploitation (calm down Dem, it is mostly...), but it does pay attention to getting the reader onside in order to shock surprise and delight. this is very true. It is a weird comparison to be sure, but if McNeilly and Richard Laymon have one thing in common it's that they're both adept at creating characters you actually care about, even if you're none too sure if you'd wish to be around them. I absolutely detested the Duchess of Derwentwater's entourage from the moment i clapped eyes on them, but her ladyship and even Negley Prescott redeem themselves with courageous acts, in the Duchess' case, facing down Baron Samedi as he's about to lop a limb from Bubastis, McNeilly marvelling at "the curious trait of the upper class, defending the life of an animal they do not themselves actually hunt." Unless you're the Rev Lionel, of course... but he was out there on his own somewhere! You could say that. "The city slept. Men slept. Women slept. Children slept. Dogs and cats slept." 'Leo Brett' - March Of The Robots ( Science Fiction Library #53, 1961) Ps - pulphack: check your pm's for details of operation The Bugg has landed.
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