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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Nov 3, 2018 17:17:48 GMT
my long ago childhood in the vanished 1960s. Technically, anything before "now" has vanished, but sure, I see what you mean.
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Post by dem bones on Nov 26, 2018 17:52:54 GMT
Phyllis Eisenstein - The Robe: : (Stefan R. Dziemianowicz, Robert E. Weinberg, Martin H. Greenberg [eds.], Horror: 365 Scary Stories, Barnes & Noble, 1998). Allison purchased it from a Salvation army thrift shop for a bargain $10. Previous owner strangled, but that's no concern of hers. Danielle Ferries - Red Shoes: (Aaron Polson [ed.] Fifty Two Stitches: Horror Stories, Strange Publications, 2010). Better that Sally had let fellow inmate Mia borrow her snazzy footwear than leave the girl to help herself. Edmund Frederick The Haunted Pajamas Francis Perry Elliott - The Haunted Pajamas: (Bobbs Merrill, 1911). "After spending three years in England, the Harvard educated narrator returns to America with a pair of pyjamas said to be over 4000 years old. They can transform the wearer into a phantom-like figure and the young man uses them in a number of seductive exploits with very unexpected results." - Peter Haining, The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories (Robinson, 2007) Not read it, but from my understanding, the ancient Chinese unisex nightwear is gifted to wannabe English toff, Mr. Lightnut, from someone out to teach him a lesson. To wear the pyjamas is to become any one of their previous owners. Download for free from Gutenberg
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gilmore
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 27
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Post by gilmore on Nov 27, 2018 19:07:12 GMT
Characters in Daniel Farson's incomparable Transplant seem to end up wearing other people's clothes with surprising frequency. At one point, the protagonist, Dick Manley, is forced to don a ghastly cream coloured corduroy suit belonging to the bit of rough trade he has picked up after his own clobber is stolen. Dick is sporting this corded abomination when he has his life changing heart attack during a visit to what reads like the wildest gay club in Soho, if not the world. Proof, if any were needed, that corduroy is indeed the Devil's own fabric.
Joe Hill's Heart Shaped Box features a pretty nifty haunted suit.
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Post by dem bones on Dec 16, 2018 23:23:03 GMT
Herbert Roese (?) Thorne Smith - A Smoky Lady In Knickers: ( Topper: An Improbable Adventure: Chapter 12 (Robert M. McBride & Co., 1926: Uk as The Jovial Ghosts: The Misadventures of Topper, Arthur Baker, 1926). "It was awful. I'll never forget those knickers dancing around the shop." A mischievous spook runs riot in a Department store causing much embarrassment for put-upon Cosmo Topper. Nigel Kneale - The Stocking: ( Tomato Cain, 1949). Left home alone on Christmas eve a five year old is set upon by vicious "Minkeys" who use the stocking father nailed above his cot as a creeper.
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Post by mcannon on Dec 17, 2018 0:46:25 GMT
Herbert Roese (?) >>Thorne Smith - A Smoky Lady In Knickers [/color]: ( Topper: An Improbable Adventure: Chapter 12 (Robert M. McBride & Co., 1926: Uk as The Jovial Ghosts: The Misadventures of Topper, Arthur Baker, 1926). "It was awful. I'll never forget those knickers dancing around the shop." A mischievous spook runs riot in a Department store causing much embarrassment for put-upon Cosmo Topper.>> I can never read the adventures of Cosmo Topper without seeing Leo G Carroll playing the character in the 1950s TV series. When I was a lad in the late 1960s in rural New South Wales, the local commercial TV station used to screen an episode every Saturday afternoon. There are quite a few episodes on You Tube. >>Nigel Kneale - The Stocking[/color]: ( Tomato Cain, 1949). Left home alone on Christmas eve a five year old is set upon by vicious "Minkeys" who use the stocking father nailed above his cot as a creeper. [/quote]>> Possibly my nominee for the bleakest Christmas horror tale of them all. Mark
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Post by helrunar on Dec 17, 2018 1:44:25 GMT
Wonderful Topper cover. I was already a weirdo as a teen because I knew who Thorne Smith was though I never got around to reading any of his books (I was interested in Night Life of the Gods, but don't think I ever managed to get hold of a copy).
I'll have to look for one of the Topper shows on YT. I have this memory of trying to watch one on a UHF station back sometime in the mid 1980s but the signal was awful and I couldn't see or hear much.
H.
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Post by ripper on Dec 26, 2018 12:31:29 GMT
There was a Topper radio series of which I have listened to some episodes, but not seen any of the TV series, so I will have to check out YT.
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Post by dem bones on Feb 13, 2019 10:47:07 GMT
We've not had a plunge into the dressy-up box for a while, so ... One for personal alt-'Not At Night' selection. Greye La Spina - The Scarf of the Beloved: ( Weird Tales, Feb. 1925). The Looting of a Grave - and What Befell Thereafter. A panicked medical student flees the cemetery clutching the silken shawl of the woman whose grave he's violated. It looks an awful lot like that worn by his bride-to-be .... Maybe not quite so essential (but what do I know?). A. R. Morlan - That Dress: (Nancy Springer [ed], Prom Night, DAW, 1999). They say jealousy is a green-eyed monster, but sometimes it arrives in varying hues. Four chameleon gal pals bitching about Carmela, who has swanned off with each of their Prom dates in turn. It's all down to that slutty transparent dress allowing onlookers to witness her body changing all the colours of the rainbow.
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Post by dem bones on Apr 27, 2019 11:50:30 GMT
Christopher Fowler - The Laundry Imp: ( Daily Mail: You supplement, 30 Oct. 1994). Mickey Finn Brian Day - She Wore A Yellow Ribbon: ( All Hallows #41, Feb. 2006). Jared, tomb-looter and swindler, comes to grief in the catacombs of Guanajuano when he idly removes the ribbon from a mummified child's hair .... Maria J. Perez Cuervo - Fatal Frocks & Killer Corsets: History's Weirdest Fashion Victims. Non-fiction, published in Fortean Times #345, Oct. 2016.
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Post by dem bones on May 16, 2019 15:14:33 GMT
Nick Shadow [Shaun Hutson] - A Perfect Fit: ( The Midnight Library Vol. 1: Voices, 2005). Justin Vafadari and the trainers from Hell. Stephen King - Sneakers: (Douglas E. Winter [ed.], Night Visions V, 1988). The recording studio bogs are haunted by slain drug-dealer's flyblown footwear. Graham Andrews - Shell Suit: ( Worlds of Strangeness #3, April 2019). Tight-wad business exec demands Chinese tailor supply him with classy suit at bargain basement price. Won Hung Lo, dressmaker to a fearsome Dragon Tong Black Magic aggregate, gleefully obliges. Murial Campbell Dyar - The Woman In Red: ( The Black Cat, Nov. 1899). Perma-masked mystery woman's sojourn in Monte Carlo brings death, insanity and suicide. Sequel The Woman In Red - Unmasked! ( The Black Cat, March 1900) suggests supernatural forces were behind these tragic events. Both stories recently revived in Mike Ashley's Doorway To Dilemma: Bewildering Tales of Dark Fantasy (British Library, 2019), as is: H. G. Wells - A Moonlight Fable: (Aka The Beautiful Suit, Colliers, 10 April 1909). Mother insists he save the beautiful suit for a special occasion. You can guess what that is.
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Post by dem bones on May 19, 2019 12:12:57 GMT
Barbara-Jane Crossley – Black Silk: (Herbert van Thal [ed.], 25th Pan Book of Horror Stories, 1984). It's their wedding night. At last Melvin gets to tear off Tania's slinky designer underwear! Rachel Kember - The Dancing Shoes: (Herbert van Thal [ed.], 12th Pan Book of Horror Stories, 1971). "They are yours, but I warn you they're bewitched. You'll dance in them as no one has ever danced before, but you'll never walk again. Once on, they can never be removed, and the shoes will take you away with them." All her life she had wanted to be a Ballerina. Then she met the Billy Elliot with the purple eyes who gifted her a pair of white satin slippers .... Alexander Laing - The Ghost That Missed Its Bonnet: ( The Haunted Omnibus, 1937) In the village of Lodden, in England, about ten miles distant from Norwich, the upper storey of a thatched house was being repaired. During the upheaval a member of the family discovered in the attic an ancient bonnet. Not knowing what else to do with it, he gave it to the vicar's wife, who thought it would be a good idea to present it some day to the museum in Norwich. Several days later, however, before she had been able to carry her plan into action, the owner of the cottage came back to her and in great agitation asked for the bonnet back. “I haven't had a moment's peace since I gave it to you," he said, "the house is full of screams and wailings and strange noises!” So the lady relinquished the bonnet, and the ghost, satisfied with the return of its property, caused no more trouble.
- Communicated to the editor by Mrs John Allsop
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Post by dem bones on Sept 25, 2019 5:12:22 GMT
Nikolai Gogol - The Overcoat (1842: This translation, Robert Wilks, The Diary of a Madman & Other stories, Penguin, 1972. Reprinted in Mary Danby [ed], Tales from Beyond the Grave, Octopus 1982). Lawrence Mynott Starring Akaky Akakievich, a fifty-something civil servant, unimaginative, unmarried, virtually anonymous among men. Akaky lives for his tedious job, the copying of documents. His colleagues only notice him for his overcoat, which is a standing joke among them (they refer to it as a dressing gown). Worn to near transparency, it no longer offers even token protection from the icy cold, until the dark day when Petrovich, the one-eyed tailor, pronounces the death sentence. The overcoat is beyond repair. Akaky Akakievich must invest in a new one, no matter that it will cost the best part of six month's salary! Akaky scrimps and saves toward this new goal. He sacrifices meals, tea, even fresh underwear - but it is worth it. As Petrovich promised, the beautiful new overcoat is a masterpiece. When Akaky proudly first wears his pride and joy to work, it is a huge success. For once his colleagues show the clerk some respect - a minor official even throws a party in his honour. Akaky reluctantly accepts an invitation, something he is soon to bitterly regret. On his way home through a terrifying St. Petersberg he doesn't know, Akaky is brutally mugged for the overcoat. The indifference of the police toward his plight combined with the outright hostility of a General he approaches for help, send Akaky into decline. With only the disintegrating dressing gown for protection against the vicious winter cold, he contracts pneumonia and dies. Soon a ghost is reported stalking Kalinkin Bridge, tearing the coats from the backs of all comers, regardless of rank or title. The menace is such that the police have orders to take the culprit into custody. All to no avail. The phantom Akakievich pursues a reign of terror until finally locating the person it holds chiefly responsible for its woes.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 30, 2019 18:45:02 GMT
Adam Stower Lennox Robinson - A Pair of Muddy Shoes: ( Eight Short Stories, Unwin, 1919). Peggy, a struggling schoolteacher down on her pennies, welcomes an invitation to spend Christmas at her affluent Aunt Margaret's home in Rosspatrick, West Cork. Unfortunately, the hostess has nowhere to put her but the lumber room on the ground floor, which some folk find .... uncomfortable. A man who attempted to throttle a woman in there died a month ago in the asylum. Over consecutive nights Peggy experiences a series of nightmares, one of which has her choking a woman to death, her arms strong and hairy as those of a man. The following morning, a servant excitedly announces that a neighbour was strangled in the night. The mud on her shoes suggests Peggy has been walking in her sleep .... Garnett Radcliffe - The Gloves: ( Weird Tales, Jan. 1953). The first incident about the gloves was of a very trivial nature; the others were a very different matter .... Narrator's purchase of pair of classy hog-skin gloves from Mr. Robinson's store coincides with a "rat infestation" at flat in Harbinger Mansions and a recurring nightmare of flabby hands squeezing the life from him. Denouement is pretty ghoulish. Liked it. Story also suitable for Railways ... End of the line and Wandering hands imaginary compilations.
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Post by dem bones on Oct 16, 2019 13:58:28 GMT
Shannon Stirnweis (Stephen P. Sutton [ed.], Tales to Tremble By, Whitham, 1966). Anon - The Sutor Of Selkirk: ( Blackwood's, May. 1827: R. Chetwynd-Hayes (ed.) 14th Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories, 1978). A cobbler resorts to grave-robbing to retrieve a pair of brand new shoes for resale. All above board, you understand - a hastily convened council have no objections to his parsimony - though the shrouded skeleton is most put out. Read on-line at Electric Scotland
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Post by helrunar on Oct 18, 2019 19:40:01 GMT
The new film In Fabric features a dress with some very strange properties. Is it haunted? cursed? or even worse? www.youtube.com/watch?v=biHUTtV4K40The dress boutique lady who seems like a cross between Diana Vreeland and Anna Wintour as played by Gale Sondergaard is quite creepy. H.
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