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Post by Dr Strange on Sept 25, 2018 10:22:18 GMT
And going back to the general thrust of this thread; am pretty sure I once saw an odd Spanish film about a malignant telephone kiosk. Any details welcome. Or did I just hallucinate it on a combination of dodgy crab sandwiches and Cresta? I've seen that too - it's called La Cabina.
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Post by cromagnonman on Sept 25, 2018 10:43:04 GMT
And going back to the general thrust of this thread; am pretty sure I once saw an odd Spanish film about a malignant telephone kiosk. Any details welcome. Or did I just hallucinate it on a combination of dodgy crab sandwiches and Cresta? I've seen that too - it's called La Cabina. Many thanks Doc; yep, that's the one. The most horrifying aspect to it, as I recall, is that no attempt is ever made to explain it. And the final shot, with the door of a new kiosk swinging open invitingly of its own accord, is the stuff of nightmares.
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Post by Dr Strange on Sept 25, 2018 12:33:33 GMT
I think I've only ever seen it the once, sometime in the 80s, possibly on Moviedrome (or something similar) on Channel 4. I seem to remember it starting off looking like a comedy, before going all nightmarish. Very Kafkaesque, maybe some coded references to the Franco dictatorship in Spain.
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Post by cromagnonman on Sept 25, 2018 12:42:05 GMT
I think I've only ever seen it the once, sometime in the 80s, possibly on Moviedrome on Channel 4 (or something similar). Its available on Youtube. Seems I slightly misremembered the ending but it remains chilling nonetheless.
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Post by Shrink Proof on Sept 25, 2018 19:28:43 GMT
And going back to the general thrust of this thread; am pretty sure I once saw an odd Spanish film about a malignant telephone kiosk. Any details welcome. Or did I just hallucinate it on a combination of dodgy crab sandwiches and Cresta? It's "La Cabina", and is very well worth watching. Details on this Wikipedia page, together with a plot summary. Satisfyingly creepy...
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Post by Michael Connolly on Sept 26, 2018 12:34:16 GMT
And going back to the general thrust of this thread; am pretty sure I once saw an odd Spanish film about a malignant telephone kiosk. Any details welcome. Or did I just hallucinate it on a combination of dodgy crab sandwiches and Cresta? It's "La Cabina", and is very well worth watching. Details on this Wikipedia page, together with a plot summary. Satisfyingly creepy... I've just checked. I've seen it too. It's very memorable.
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Post by ripper on Sept 26, 2018 16:49:55 GMT
The Mandarin's Chair by Frederick Cowles from The Horror of Abbot's Grange. A respected mandarin's daughter marries a man who beats her. When the mandarin dies he leaves his son-in-law a chair shaped like a dragon. Son-in-law is delighted and can't wait to sit on it...big mistake.
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Post by Middoth on Mar 7, 2019 11:42:06 GMT
+ Little Red Shoes by Dermot Chesson Spence (Not at Night Omnibus).
Less funny companion for The Legs That Walked
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Post by Swampirella on Jan 20, 2020 22:06:15 GMT
Suggested by Ramsey and Steve's comments on Fashion Victims thread. We've already touched on creepy dolls, malevolent toys, bedroom perils and renegade clothing. Further proof, as if any were necessary, that everything, ever, is out to get you. This one could run and run - you could likely cull a 'Mammoth' book from haunted mirror stories alone. You're right: it has 'dead rubber' stamped all over it. Paula Goodman, Twilight Zone, July-Aug 1985 M. R. James - The Malice of Inanimate Objects: Ghosts & Scholars 6, 1984: The Best Of Ghosts & Scholars, 1986). The persecution of Mr. Burton. The toiletries start it, but soon every household utensil and garden implement is in on the act. Guy de Maupassant - Who Knows?: The author's adventure-loving furniture so upsets him that he voluntarily takes up residence in a "mental home," there to live out his days in fear of a pilfering junk shop proprietor, "a monster with a bald head like a full moon." Edogawa Rampo - The Human Chair: ( Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination, 1956:Peter Haining [ed.], Beyond The Curtain Of The Dark, 1966). I think this spring is busted. Wait, that's not a spring ... R. Chetwynd-Hayes - The Chair: ( The Cradle Demon, 1978). It's fabulously haunted by a beautiful woman, so no surprise the antique causes untold trouble. Rosalind Ashe - Teething Troubles: (Ramsey Campbell [ed.], New Terrors: Vol 2, 1980). Attack of the paper napkins. Dona Tolson - Nice Old House: ( Startling Mystery Stories #7, Summer 1967). Night of the woman-eating sofa. Deirdre L. Kugelmeyer - Threshold: (Charles L. Grant [ed.], Shadows 4, 1981). Curse of the were-doorknob. Janet Hirsch - The Seeking Thing: ( Magazine of Horror #3, Feb. 1964). Day of the vampire burlap sack. Elliott O'Donnell - The Ghost-Table: Charles Lloyd [Birkin] ed., Creeps, 1932). Originally published in Weird Tales, Feb. 1928, where it famously claimed lead story duties over H. P. Lovecraft's The Call Of Cthulhu. Robert Bloch - Mr. Steinway: ( Fantastic, April 1954): Homicidal grand piano disposes of love rival Dorothy Endicott. Add, correct, etc. Allow me to add "The Weathervane" by P. L. Howard (London Mystery Magazine June 1957) - Dr. Masterman goes to visit his sister in "Burmouth" where he meets an old ex-sailor who can carve you a wooden weathervane with lifelike detail to order. Of somebody you don't like. The good doctor doesn't have time to even consider ordering one before being gently warned off by the local police officer, but nonetheless sees the unpleasant result for himself.
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Post by piglingbland on Jan 22, 2020 9:15:04 GMT
Malice by David A. Sutton (The Ghost & Scholars Book of Shadows, Sarob Press 2012).
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Post by Swampirella on Feb 5, 2020 1:10:06 GMT
The Statuette - Peter Cook (London Mystery Magazine #36 March 1958)
The unnamed narrator buys a pair of statuettes from an Indian store in Nairobi, one of light mvuli wood and one of dark with a spear in one hand, to use as chess pieces. The next morning, he's awoken by his houseboy to find half of the pieces smashed to pieces and the cat dead. Thank goodness our narrator's wife "visiting down the coast. Apart from a look of fear on it's face, no other marks of violence can be found. He handily has a vet friend who does a portmortem; it turns out the cat died from a hole in it's head, made by what could be a pencil. And it's body was drained of blood. The houseboy cleans up but later the narrator notices the new dark figure is warm to the touch and "it's smoothness had the yielding quality of flesh."
The next day, hearing noises, he stumbles downstairs to find the houseboy dead in the same way as the cat. "About three feet away...the fligure of the black "king" stood on the carpet. It no longer held the stake, which lay broken, halfway towards me, it's tip bleeding, sticky.The face was no longer passive but a mask of evil, the smile repaced by a gaping mouth, from which two fangs projected." He smashes the thing with a poker, burns the fragments to ashes, then scatters them in a nearby Forest Reserve. The neighbours, worried about a Mau-Mau attack, have called the police.
Naturally they have trouble believing his story so after waking up from some mild sedation, he continues to ask for the Indian merchant who sold him the statues. Eventually he's found but isn't very cooperative. It turns out he bought the statues from a witch-doctor who had been with "General China" and his Mau-Mau gang in the Forest reserve. He had "filled them with his life and soul" (not in a nice way) and told the Indian merchant they would bring bad luck to white people, before being executed by the authorities. The narrator remains under guard in a convalescent home, while the police decide if they believe his story.
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Post by Swampirella on Feb 5, 2020 14:59:43 GMT
A Nice Swing - Rosemary Timperley (London Mystery Magazine #36 March 1958)
Anonymous narrator tells us of her daughter Marjorie's nightmares and general fear of school. She visits the headmistress and speaks to her daughter's teacher, who tells her all the children seem frightened and subdued. This started when a swing made by the school handyman was installed. While visiting she sees Marorie listlessly swinging, then she collapses in her mother's arms. "The man, she whispered "What's the matter with his neck? Send him away" she tells her mother. Yup, you guessed it; mom later finds out from the handyman, whom she also gets help from, that the wood was taken from the old gallows of an old prison building that was demolished. Naturally once the swing is taken down, all is well.
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Post by Swampirella on Feb 7, 2020 2:47:05 GMT
The Chair - James F. Wood (London Mystery Selection April 1959)
Impoverished spinster Miss Tayson buys a second-hand chair for her shabby little room. "It was the product of a more decorative and grandiose era"; carved wooden arms and legs and a seat covering of dark brown leather. Strange that each arm should have two long narrow scratch marks down their length. After admiring it all afternoon in it's new home, at dusk she gets the strong impression that somebody is sitting in it, due to the depression in the seat and creaking of the leather. When she turns on the light, the impression is gone. She decides to find out all she can about it.
Due to bad health she's only able to work half-days; the next afternoon she obtains the address of the dealer who sold the chair to the shop she bought it in. The next night the same thing happens, twice. Despite her asking if she can help, the presence does not reply, however the scratch marks disappear. She awake on the bare floorboards, chilled and feverish from the draft entering from under the door. She drags herself in to work, since she can't afford not to. However after being persuaded to go home early, she's unwell enough to splurge on a taxi to the dealer's shop; he gives her the address of the house from where he bought the chair. Cedar Lodge turns out to be a derelict, about to be converted into flats. Next to it is a library, from where she's able to borrow a book with details of the older houses in the area.
Noticing the presence in her room again, she learns the history of Cedar Lodge. In the middle of the 19th century, the house was bought by a wealthy industrialist named....Tayson! His wife was found one morning by a servant brutally murdered in an old armchair. "As she looked up from the book, she realized that her guest was no longer sitting forward in the chair; the leather backseat was clearly pressed in, and the head cushioning also was beginning to show deepening creases. It was as if the person's body was being forced back into the chair; as if someone or something was pulling fiercely from behind. Slowly but quite distinctly the marks on the polished arms being to appear.....scratches caused by a woman's fingernails as she clawed desperately at the wood; the scratch-marks of a woman who was being slowly strangled to death."
Poor Miss Tayson is found dead the next morning; "without doubt the cause was a heart attack." "Her hand was still tightly clasped around the leg of the chair."
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Post by helrunar on Feb 7, 2020 3:35:24 GMT
Chilling. Thanks, Swampi!
H.
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Post by Swampirella on Feb 8, 2020 19:54:33 GMT
The Enlargement - B. Storer (London Mystery Selection #57 June 1963)
George and Ada spend a week every summer in Brighton. This summer had been especially nice because of the new camera. After they return home, naturally they decide to look through their enlarged photos. They're shocked to find one of a man's body, undoubtedly George, wearing his check sports coat & lying in a huddle, with skid marks on the road behind him and the back of a saloon car far in the distance. From then on, George is haunted by the fear of his imminent death. He becomes a bundle of nerves, taking detours home & waking Ada screaming nightly because of nightmares. They decide to visit Ada's sister in Blackpool for a few weeks. George recovers his health and starts to enjoy life again. The night before they're due to leave, he goes upstairs for some throat lozenges. Ada and her sister hear a loud crash followed by "sickening thuds". It turns out poor George has taken a fatal fall down the stairs, leaving skid marks from his shoes along the newly distempered stairway walls. The cause? - "a boy's toy motor-car".
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