Peter Saxon - The Darkest Night

[dem bones]

Peter Saxon - The Darkest Night (Mayflower Dell, Oct. 1966)

The darkest night ... the night when the devotees of Kali, goddess of destruction, make their unholy puja.

This was the night when Dennis Wood faced the grimmest challenge of his whole life: a test that was to bring him face to face with the unspeakable horrors of a worship based on death and destruction.

A young English girl stripped for sacrifice ... blood-maddened, lust-crazed worshippers ... and the esoteric mysteries of a faith founded on the ultimate Negation.

These were the elements that came together on the Darkest Night: Kali's festival of unbridled licence and foulest murder.

Who could resist? I'm only just through the prequel, which concerns an incident in the Sepoy mutiny. Ten British women are captured by forces loyal to the Maharajah of Mahadhrana ("Scourge of Islam, Lord of the Seventy-Nine Elephants and a most infinite rascal") and imprisoned in a dungeon to await the darkest night. Their menfolk gallantly ride to the rescue but, alas, they are too late to save one of the women, who is sacrificed to a very animated statue of Kali. The Maharajah and his goons are taken outside and hung. The evil old scoundrel takes it all in his stride and warns that "I will be back", whereupon all the flesh falls away from his dangling body to briefly reveal a skeleton, which almost instantly becomes powder and dust.

We now shoot forward 40 years to 1897 when the story proper is about to kick off as we've just been introduced to Dennis Wood. I've not checked which version of Saxon wrote this yet, but it seems very The Torturer thus far.

Severance

demonik said:

I've not checked which version of Saxon wrote this yet, but it seems very The Torturer thus far.

You're right Dem, they were both done by Wilfred G. McNeilly, as was Satan's Child and the two Guardians entries Dark Ways to Death and The Haunting of Alan Mais

Let us know what you think of it, if I remember rightly Curt didn't think a great deal of it at Groovy Age of Horror - but then again he is a Yank ;D

demonik

Will do, Sev. I've got Les Daniels' No Blood Spilled lined-up next so it's going to be interesting to compare the two.

I'm deliberately avoiding curt's review until after I've finished it. I'm already slightly disappointed as I thought - like Vampires Moon and Torturer - we'd get the gory prologue out of the way and shoot forward to the 'sixties, but this looks as though it's gonna stay firmly rooted in 1897.

No film crew getting bumped off this time, then.

****

"The tiger came around when they were skinning him"

He laughed merrily at the memory.

"Killed two of the skinners and took a lump out of my uncle's leg. The funniest thing you ever saw ...."

I'll take it up to just over halfway in case Sev or anybody else wants to read it. My verdict was ... so-so. I preferred both Torturer and Vampire's Moon but that may have something to do with the locations and time period as, in truth, there's not much else to set them apart.

Desmond Wood is an engineer who has the misfortune to be in Mahadhrana to build a dam just as the survivors of the Kali cult are regrouping. Having fixed up the ruined chapel and glued the enormous statue of the Goddess back together, her devotees feed her a chicken - human sacrifice being beyond them just now - but she takes it in the spirit intended, transforms one loyal disciple into a were-tiger, and is soon up and being evil again.

Rambir, the new Maharaja, fresh from an education at Harrow, is the grandson of the guy who crumpled to dust, and it was Wood's father who hung him. Despite this, the two hit it off, and all is well until they go on a tiger hunt. Wood is injured, and the Maharajah wanders off in search of the wounded beast as it's considered deuced unsporting to leave them to die in agony. The wildcat is, of course, Kali's number 1 devotee and lures him back to the revamped temple. Rambir shoots it before the altar, Kali laps up the blood and pain - she really thrives on suffering - and the Maharajah is possessed by his ghastly ancestor.

As a result, Wood's life plunges into nightmare. Rambir is his old self before sundown, but come the night and his ancestor takes over, bent on reviving the Thuggees and doing all in his power to destroy the Englishman and his instant wife ...

[pulphack]

This is not the best Saxon - or indeed the best McNeilly - but it is interesting to look at it as a dry run for a lot of The Specialist, particularly Tigerman Of Terraphur. The way it's structured makes me think it was an experiment that he was able to get paid for, as he seems to be trying out ideas and styles that he would later adopt, knowing that Baker would pick up the tag.

As part of the appeal of Saxon horror titles is in the 'period' trappings of their time of writing (in the same way that the 'best' 60's horror movies are those made by middle-aged men trying to capture youth culture), this doesn't rate high for me; but anyone who likes The Specialist books will get something from it.

[dem bones]

I think you've called that spot on, pulps, or at least, if and when I get around to revisiting the horror titles (i like to give it at least two years distance between reads) - I can't see Darkest Night being in a place of prominence on the list. There's nothing remotely 'bad' about it, just that it didn't grip me in the way that the Guardians series, 'LeCale's Castledoom and virtually every previous Saxon shocker did. I don't think it was the period setting as I'm generally partial to some Indian mutiny fun and games and No Blood Spilled, the Les Daniels novel referred to above, makes a great fist of it.

[severance]

Recently finished this one, and I pretty much agree with the majority of what Dem and Pulps have already written. Nothing inherently bad about it, just nothing to grip like the sixtes Saxons have. I was surprised Wood's 'instant wife' bit the dust near the end, pretty gruesomely I might add, but even the graphic sequences don't lift this above the distinctly average. Not good for a Saxon but, because it's a Saxon, still worth it - just.

[dem bones]

for me, pulphack's "a dry run for Tigerman Of Terraphur" nails it, and i know which one i'd be most keen to read again. you really should give Black Honey another go, though!

Peter Saxon - The Darkest Night (Five Star, 1972)

Blurb
THE DARKEST NIGHT ...
The night when the devotees of Kali, goddess of destruction, made their unholy puja. This was the night when Desmond Wood faced the grimmest challenge of his whole life; a test that was to bring him face to face with the unspeakable horrors of a worship based on death and destruction.
A young English girl stripped for sacrifice ... blood-maddened, lust-crazed worshippers ... and the esoteric mysteries of a faith founded on the ultimate Negation ...
These were the elements that came together on the Darkest Night; Kali's festival of un­bridled licence and foulest murder.