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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jun 27, 2021 17:57:40 GMT
He was the actor who played the old man who jumped to his death in MIDSOMMAR. He chooses his roles carefully. He does not act often.
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Jun 27, 2021 20:06:32 GMT
I found this when browsing, it's a huge list of fiction set in Venice. www.fictionalcities.co.uk/venice.htmI haven't had a chance to look in detail. Maybe it will remind people on here of some titles they have read. Are there threads about horror fiction set in particular cities on here?
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Post by Swampirella on Jun 27, 2021 20:09:05 GMT
This is a fairly good series; haven't read this one (yet):
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Post by Shrink Proof on Jun 27, 2021 20:55:53 GMT
Our friend David A Sutton devoted an anthology to the subject, Phantoms of Venice, which includes his own splendid La Serenissima. I read this while on holiday in Venice in late 2013. The stories in the book relly seemed to capture the decaying decadent creepiness of the place. Being November Venice was deserted - the season was over and Xmas hadn't got going yet, so we had the place to ourselves - the city was empty. With no crowds and none of tourism's intrusive commercialism it was all quite unsettling - you could walk down alleys and along canals and hear nothing but the slapping of black water on the stones and your own footsteps echoing back. That side of Venice, which I assume is lost for most of the year nowadays under the weight of hordes of tourists, was captured very well by the writers in the book. Whether it has the same effect if you read it in other circumstances I can't say.
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Post by dem bones on Jun 28, 2021 8:25:39 GMT
Are there threads about horror fiction set in particular cities on here? Not Cities (bar one) but Paul Finch's Terror Tales series has volumes devoted to Yorkshire, NW England, Home Counties, Cornwall, Wales, Scots Highlands (Lowlands to come), London, Cotswolds, E. Anglia, the Seaside and the Ocean, if that's any use. Fontana's '70's Tales of Terror series, on which Paul's is modelled, includes volumes devoted to London, Cornwall, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, the Orient, the Sea, Gaslit Britain and Outer Space. Last year, the British Library published Elizabeth Dearnley's Into the London Fog: Eerie Tales from the Weird City. I'm sure there must be plenty more city/ area specific collections knocking around in the Small Presses. 'Ghosts & Scholars' can usually be relied upon for Cambridge (or Essex, or East Anglian) locations.
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Post by samdawson on Jun 28, 2021 9:15:52 GMT
Also, superfluous to add, Visconti's film Death in Venice is superb. The child who played Tadzio is now a haggard, disturbed old dude with really long hair who has been the subject of a documentary. Life really can be more horrific than anything published by Herbert van Thal. H. He was the actor who played the old man who jumped to his death in MIDSOMMAR. Oh my goodness, I didn't know that
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peedeel
Crab On The Rampage
Posts: 61
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Post by peedeel on Jun 28, 2021 16:53:46 GMT
Our friend David A Sutton devoted an anthology to the subject, Phantoms of Venice, which includes his own splendid La Serenissima. I read this while on holiday in Venice in late 2013. The stories in the book relly seemed to capture the decaying decadent creepiness of the place. Being November Venice was deserted - the season was over and Xmas hadn't got going yet, so we had the place to ourselves - the city was empty. With no crowds and none of tourism's intrusive commercialism it was all quite unsettling - you could walk down alleys and along canals and hear nothing but the slapping of black water on the stones and your own footsteps echoing back. That side of Venice, which I assume is lost for most of the year nowadays under the weight of hordes of tourists, was captured very well by the writers in the book. Whether it has the same effect if you read it in other circumstances I can't say. My own experience of Venice from 2011: There was talk of the palazzo being haunted. My first glimpse of its sombre faƧade, looming unexpectedly out of the early morning mist, made me feelā¦well, feel uneasy: as if by crossing its threshold I would enter a different world; a past time of sinister secrets and phantoms. But then Venice in late November early December, was a quietly decaying city of dreams, where people swirled ghost-like in the mist and a solitary vaporetto drifting by on green water, its churning engine strangely muffled, seemed to me to be inhabited by spectresā¦. In a nearby shop window I saw these beautiful puppets: cats dressed in seventeenth century finery, silks and lace, lemon-yellows and voluptuous-reds; they were gripping lutes or pan pipes in their curved paws. Either side of the palazzo narrow lanes or alleyways led off to curling gray obscurity. Ochre buildings were reflected on the surface of the canal, their peeling sixteenth century facades looking mirage-like in the stillness of the water. The palazzo itself stood tall, humourless, moody; a thing of extravagance from another, half-forgotten age; its front doors huge, the wood carved with wild, twisting arabesques and fabulous beasts, the raised head of a medusa glaring out from the central panel, a warning against disturbing the sleeping ghosts within. So I approached in some trepidation. Was my coming here a mistake? The place looked decrepit and melancholy with time. Was it a suitable place to work? Would I find peace here...Or would spectres resent my intrusion? Would they disturb me, make work impossible? I remember well tugging on the worn brass bell pull, and somewhere inside a bell jingling wildly. I understood from my correspondence with Signor Valentino Rossi, the palazzoās owner, that the manās housekeeper and her husband would be on hand for my arrival (Signor Rossi lived full-time in Milan). At the railway station Iād arranged for my luggage to be sent on later that morning. I had rented palazzo DāArco for four weeks. I remember listening to the slow approach of footsteps, heels shuffling on marble floors beyond the door. āSignora Nocerino?ā I said as the door opened, and this elderly woman looked out at me. Her face was wrinkled and nut-brown from years of sun, her hair long, grey, falling well below her shoulders. Her dark, cautious eyes regarded me carefully. āIām Signor P. You are expecting me...ā āYes,ā she replied. And so was it I came to reside for a while in that place of ghosts...
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Post by dem bones on Jun 28, 2021 18:56:28 GMT
More: Isobel Colegate - Nice Boys: (Syd Bentlif [ed.], Horror Anthology, 1965). Rosemary Timperley - Gall, or Ghost Of Venice: (Robert M. Muller [ed.], Supernatural, 1977). Patricia Highsmith - The Bravest Rat in Venice: (Herbert Van Thal [ed], 18th Pan Book of Horror Stories, 1977). Cherry Wilder - Alive in Venice: (Stephen Jones & David A Sutton [eds], Dark Voices 2, 1990). John Gordon - Vampire in Venice: (A. Finnis [ed.], 13 Again, 1995).
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Post by weirdmonger on Jun 29, 2021 13:43:02 GMT
Just finished reading GANYMEDE by Daphne du Maurier, a wonderful, darkly insidious novella about VENICE that I could not put down!
Also appropriate to comparison with the book that gave its title to this threadās title.
ā Unsavoury is a hideous word. Itās the most hideous word in the dictionary. It conjures up, to my mind, all that is ugly in life, yes, and in death too. The savoury is the joy, the Ć©lan, the zest that goes with mind and body working in unison; the unsavoury is the malodorous decay of vegetation, the rotted flesh, the mud beneath the water of the canal. And another thing. The word unsavoury suggests a lack of personal cleanliness: unchanged linen, bed-sheets hanging to dry, the fluff off combs, torn packets in waste-paper baskets.ā
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Jun 29, 2021 14:07:56 GMT
I think of Venice as a decaying city. The aging buildings crumbling through time, but I think of the canals and lagoon as being dirty, smelling of decay too.
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Post by PeterC on Jun 29, 2021 15:28:04 GMT
I visited Venice (sorry Mr Aickman) five years ago. I found it busy but peaceful (no litter, no beggars, no rowdiness) and the famous canals were clean and odour-free. Its grandeur is delicate and under threat but there was no sense of decay or decline.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Jun 29, 2021 15:33:45 GMT
the famous canals were clean and odour-free. In reality they are not, though. The city's sewage goes directly into the canals, making the water there a serious health risk. In particular during acqua alta.
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Post by andydecker on Jun 29, 2021 15:45:51 GMT
Thanks for the many contributions. Some interesting stuff here.
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Post by Swampirella on Jun 29, 2021 18:47:52 GMT
I visited Venice (sorry Mr Aickman) five years ago. I found it busy but peaceful (no litter, no beggars, no rowdiness) and the famous canals were clean and odour-free. Its grandeur is delicate and under threat but there was no sense of decay or decline. Same for me, but it's been sadly about 25 years since I last visited (on 2 occasions) and fell in love with Venice. So I suppose I should be pessimistic about it's condition now.
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Post by šrincess šµuvstarr on Jul 1, 2021 12:23:35 GMT
Farewell Nikola! (Doctor Nikola #5) by Guy Newell Boothby
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