|
|
Post by severance on Jun 30, 2009 18:04:32 GMT
No so much of an extensive thread on this at the old place, most of it was a fascinating piece by Steve about the book packaging activities of Lyle Kenyon Engel - but here's the gist of it: Demonik wrote on 09 Dec 2005Demonik wrote on 13 Dec 2005Nightreader wrote on 25 Aug 2006Killercrab wrote on 25 Aug 2006Demonik wrote on 26 Aug 2006Not sure I agree with Dem on that last point, but it's still a damn good follow-up anyway. The cult section didn't quite cut it for me, but that's more than made up for in the finale with Dracula, Cam, Ktara and Jenny taking on Peter and Yorge. On the intercom, Harmon's voice: 'Count, quickly, he's going to kill her!'
Dracula's voice: 'Who is killing whom, I have no idea.'
Harmon: 'Get out of that thing and see for yourself!'
Dracula: 'I would like to oblige you, Professor Harmon. But there is something on the coffin lid that pins me to the earth on which I lie. From its emanations, I would say that it is a cross of some kind.'
Harmon: 'Cam!'Luckily, and perhaps fittingly, Yorge decides the cross would make an excellent weapon with which to brain Cam with, and thus gives us this wonderful section: It was then that across the room, a coffin lid crashed open.
About time, Cam thought weakly.
Yorge's head snapped to the sound. A pair of hands were gripping the coffin side. Yorge froze at the sight of them. But the hands froze too. They moved no further!
'The cross, you fool! He holds it so that I cannot rise!'  In the end analysis I thought the twin threats were a little lightweight for someone with Dracula's power, but that's a small quibble. Halfway through 'Dracula's Brothers' and think it's the best one so far... |
|
|
|
Post by cauldronbrewer on Jun 19, 2012 11:40:21 GMT
I found The Hand of Dracula to be contrived, ludicrous, tasteless, and thoroughly entertaining. Though I liked Dracula Returns! just fine, its sequel is a big improvement. Lory ups the ante on everything. Last time around, the villains were rather colorless mobsters; this time around we get a Satan-worshiping, human-sacrificing, naked-people-chaining-up Manson family knockoff and a necrophiliac mortician with a sidekick straight out of Hugh B. Cave's Murgunstrumm. The sex is weirder, and the violence is gorier. Plus, Lory ratchets up the Harmon/Dracula tension with a high-stakes bet and throws Harmon's niece Jenny into the mix to create a bizarre love triangle with Cam and Ktara. In addition to giving off the ongoing Tomb of Dracula vibe, Hand sometimes feels like an updated Seabury Quinn story. I even wonder whether there's a sly Quinn reference in the book: I've been thinking of writing a paper about the subject for our journal. We have one, you know. A professional journal for funeral directors. Quinn's day job involved editing Casket & Sunnyside, a funeral home trade journal . . . I love the NEL cover for this one, which is why I've been buying the NEL editions of the series instead of the Pinnacle ones: I'll confess that I didn't notice the use of the Dracula Returns! cover in the background until I actually had a copy in my hands. For the curious, here's the link to the thread on the old board: vaultofevil.suddenlaunch3.com/index.cgi?board=trash&action=display&num=1134113730Time to order a copy of Dracula's Brothers. |
|
|
|
Post by cauldronbrewer on Jun 19, 2012 15:50:59 GMT
that's more than made up for in the finale with Dracula, Cam, Ktara and Jenny taking on Peter and Yorge. On the intercom, Harmon's voice: 'Count, quickly, he's going to kill her!'
Dracula's voice: 'Who is killing whom, I have no idea.'
Harmon: 'Get out of that thing and see for yourself!'
Dracula: 'I would like to oblige you, Professor Harmon. But there is something on the coffin lid that pins me to the earth on which I lie. From its emanations, I would say that it is a cross of some kind.'
Harmon: 'Cam!'Luckily, and perhaps fittingly, Yorge decides the cross would make an excellent weapon with which to brain Cam with, and thus gives us this wonderful section: It was then that across the room, a coffin lid crashed open.
About time, Cam thought weakly.
Yorge's head snapped to the sound. A pair of hands were gripping the coffin side. Yorge froze at the sight of them. But the hands froze too. They moved no further!
'The cross, you fool! He holds it so that I cannot rise!' I just have to add: This scene is hilarious. |
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Oct 25, 2019 21:58:49 GMT
Robert E. Lory - The Hand of Dracula (NEL, Dec, 1973) Blurb: A strange undertaker who evinces more than a professional interest in corpses. Mysterious coffins containing more than a dead body ....
These are only a few of the strange happenings in a seemingly respectable undertaker's. Dracula, with the scientist Dr Damien Harmon, the eerie woman Ktara and the faithful giant Cam, unravel this latterday chamber of horrors.
In the second fearful book of the return of of Dracula, his evil is still unsurpassed. This tale leads to even greater spine-chilling suspense."Count Yula at your service. A bit of old royalty that your uncle recently, shall we say, dug up. " - Dracula slimes over Jenny Harmon. No doubt the ghoulish subject matter clouds my judgement - necrophilia in the funeral parlour, a Hippie Black Magic human sacrifice cult, etc - but I still think The Hand of Dracula is ace. Market street, California. College kid Derek Williams bluffs his way inside Yorges Funeral Homes, intent on stealing a candle. Unfortunately for him, he strays to a back room where the nude corpse of a young woman is laid out in a coffin, a noose tied around her neck. The cadaverous proprietor and giant hunchbacked assistant don't take kindly to snoopers. Berkeley student Roy Ambers is taken into custody, accused of murdering the missing Williams whom he was known to have threatened to kill. The pair had spent the summer at a commune in Napa Valley. Roy, deciding it wasn't his scene, quit when the new term began. The commune leaders, who call themselves The Family, took exception to his leaving without permission, sent Derek to warn him that his days were done should he betray any of their secrets. Jenny Harmon is a friend of the suspect and, convinced of his innocence, turns to Uncle Damien for help. Dracula, sick at being at the Professor's beck and call, proposes a wager by which, should he lose, he will follow Harmon's instructions to the letter and make no attempt to escape his control for a period of six months. If he wins, Harmon will remove the tiny stake implant brushing against his heart. Simply put, if Ambers is cleared and released within the next 60 hours, Harmon has six months free of sleepless nights. If not, Dracula will be free to feast on whoever he chooses .... The Family are led by 'High Priest' Paulus Aliester, 28, a drop out philosophy instructor, scrawny and not pleasant to look upon. Nevertheless, a cocktail of drugs, Black Magic, sex and ritual murder has attracted a ninety-strong body of loyal disciples. That he has nothing but contempt for these smelly misfits comes as no surprise, but a man has to amass his riches somehow, "voluntary" donations have seen him OK so far, and taking his pick of the hottest "nuns" is a fringe benefit. Cam, posing as a dealer, secures an audience with Paulus in the Family's torture chamber, where two nude gals are shackled to a wall awaiting execution. Harmon's "remarkably huge" bodyguard is doing fine until he recognises one of the captives. Trust Jenny to ignore her uncle's instructions and go snooping around the commune! To be continued ..."Poetry" warning. Extracts from Professor Damien Harmon [ed.], The Runes of Ktara, p.18 Product placement. Dracula Returns, p.21.
|
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Oct 27, 2019 12:06:42 GMT
Cameron Sanchez now also chained naked to wall, guarded by Vinna, a mean and spiteful member of the Inner Circle, who insists on calling him "cop-pig" (no longer strictly accurate) and gloats over his impending torture-murder. Cam, playing it cool, taunts her that she's really pissed at the thought of missing out on a piece of him. "I can get any man in this commune any time I want him. That's a fact." Maybe once, but not any more once Cam's goading hits a nerve. When Vinna the vile attacks, he wraps his tree trunk thighs around her head and squeezes ....
Much as snapping the hippie chick's neck gives Cam a kick, it's not freed him or the kids and the hour of sacrifice draws near. The girls are so zonked out they'll barely be conscious of what's happening, but Paulus has already given orders that there be no pentothal injection for Cam; the cop can watch everything the Family do to the girls before they get around to him.
Sanchez, Jenny and an unnamed fourteen-year-old who witnessed the murder of her family are bound to the sacrificial altar.
Dracula attacks the congregation, but has he come to rescue the three prisoners? Not a bit of it. He's proper EVIL, remember, and winning his wager is all. After demonstrating his power, he commands pathetic Paulus to torch the commune and everyone present.
Admittedly the ensuing Satanic hippie massacre is rush and the fortuitous manner of the trio's deliverance a touch ... unconvincing, but no time to worry about that. The clock is ticking down, we've only 36 hours to prove Roy's innocence, otherwise - Dracula properly Returns!
Cam has learned that Derek disappeared while on a scavenger hunt. To complete the first stage of his Family initiation, he was required to purloin various items, among them a candle from an undertakers. The trail leads to Leopold Yorge's Funeral Home where there have been some mighty unsavoury goings on in recent times ...
|
|
|
|
Post by dem bones on Oct 29, 2019 7:40:34 GMT
All finished now, worst luck. Revisiting Hand of ... reminded me why I so fell for REL's Dracula when most other versions failed. Agree that the interlude in the funeral parlour is the highlight - would go so far as to commend Chapter 13 in it's entirety as some kind of masterpiece of bad taste. And I can't be the only one wishing Mr. Lory had devoted an entire novel to the amorous adventures of Berkley's #1 perverted undertaker, Leopold 'master of death' Yorge?
|
|
|
|
Post by helrunar on Oct 29, 2019 15:21:53 GMT
The books do sound like fun.
Yorge the amorous "Master of Death" undertaker must have been a barely-concealed tip of the hat to Robert Quarry's Count Yorga who was always called "the Deathmaster" in the posters and adverts. Quarry even made a film about a different character called the Deathmaster, a kind of vampire hippie guru (it's wildly funny and at times scary, and very early Seventies)--I think a lot of people went to see that one assuming it was "Count Yorga does the commune groove." (And come to think of it, there was a kind of tacit reference to that motif in a couple of scenes in Tim Burton's dreadful Dark Shadows send-up.)
Will you write about more of the Lory books? My budget can't afford to collect them from over here. Unless some car boot sales suddenly materialize in my neighborhood, or I happen to visit a gas station where early 70s vintage paperbacks show up on a rack (that really felt like the person had visited the Twilight Zone). I think it's much more fun to read your comments about them, in any event. Perhaps it is presumptuous of me to suggest such a thing, but I believe you're a much more entertaining writer than either Robert Lory or Guy N. Smith.
cheers, Helrunar
|
|
|
|
Post by andydecker on Oct 30, 2019 9:17:39 GMT
The books do sound like fun. Yorge the amorous "Master of Death" undertaker must have been a barely-concealed tip of the hat to Robert Quarry's Count Yorga who was always called "the Deathmaster" in the posters and adverts. Quarry even made a film about a different character called the Deathmaster, a kind of vampire hippie guru (it's wildly funny and at times scary, and very early Seventies)--I think a lot of people went to see that one assuming it was "Count Yorga does the commune groove." (And come to think of it, there was a kind of tacit reference to that motif in a couple of scenes in Tim Burton's dreadful Dark Shadows send-up.) They are. Most of them, at least.
Ah, yes, "Count Yorga". Always thought those two movies boring, couldn't hold a candle to the very low budget but gritty "Grave of the Vampire", which villain Caleb Croft was featured heavily in Kim Newman's Anno Dracula cycle.
|
|
