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Post by dem on Nov 5, 2007 13:12:26 GMT
Mary Danby (ed.) - Frighteners: New Stories of Horror and the Unknown (Fontana, 1974) Kay Leith - For The Love of Pamela
Sydney J. Bounds - The Mask
Joyce Marsh - Old Heather's Picture
Bernard Taylor - Cera
Pamela Vincent - Lost Soul
A. E. Ellis - If Thy Right Hand Offends Thee ...
Martin Ricketts - Dissolving Partnership
Terry Gisbourne - The Quiet Man
Francis Stephens - A Walk Along The Beach
R. Chetwynd-Hayes - The Catomado
Dorothy K. Haynes - Dorothy Dean
Sydney J. Bounds - Hothouse
Julia Birley - The Old Men
Pamela Vincent - Homicidal Maniac!
Bernard Taylor - My Very Good Friend
Martin Ricketts - And Now The Pact
Adrian Cole - The Horror Under Penmire Kay Leith - For The Love of Pamela: Joe and Pamela think they've finally found their dream home when they move in at 12 Drayfield Grove, but a restless elemental force has other ideas. It has sexual designs on Joe, but doesn't care for his wife at all ... Sydney J. Bounds - The Mask: Len Roberts of The Echo turns up for Jane Clay's Halloween party wearing an authentic death mask. He collars Shirley-Anne - she's come as the virgin sacrifice - and explains its origin: "Remember Martin Fletcher? ... Local lad made bad. Had a nasty habit of cutting up young girls and packing their dismembered bodies in trunks." At the end of the night, Jane can't find the couple. But there are some strange noises coming from the kitchen, so that's a good sign .... Francis Stephens - A Walk Along The Beach: Four-year-old Tod, pet-torturing little bastard, learns too late not to torment the mutated jellyfish washed up on the stony beach at Dirk Point near the nuclear power station ... Pamela Vincent - Lost Soul: Whatever you do, don't let that miserable old widower who sits in the launderette help you load your washing into the machine! Sydney J. Bounds - Hot House: Mr. Parker of Organic Fertilizers pays a visit to Colonel West at his country residence, The Plantation on the outskirts of Bredon Village. The Colonel reckons his beloved plants will thrive on blood. They do. R. Chetwynd-Hayes - The Catamodo: " ... to the ordinary person, it's a bit off-putting to know we cannot be hurt if we fall ever so far, or if something ever so heavy falls on us. They get very narky when they realise we don't grow old, too ... we sort of curl up and fade away at the age of a hundred and four." Martin certainly is among those who find it "off-putting" when wife Myra confesses to being a Catamodo. He's after her insurance money and has already made several attempts on her life. Finally he decides to dismember her and bury the severed portions in a variety of locations. Those familiar with Robert Bloch's Frozen Fear will know that this doesn't necessarily have the desired effect .... RCH seems to find the Catamodo's need for a constant supply of burst sausages hilarious and he also works in one of his ghastly attempts at verse, but the macabre nature of it all just about rescues this despite his worst efforts. Pamela Vincent - Homicidal Maniac!: A lone woman breaks down in the middle of nowhere. She's aware of a hairy, green-eyed figure watching her from the trees and fears the worst. Fortunately, a car pulls up, and two men drive her away to the safety of their secluded old house. As she flops out in a chair, she wonders at all the whips and leather gear on the wall. Reminiscent of a slightly restrained version of Alex White's notorious Never Talk To Strangers, (Pan Horror #7) Martin Ricketts - And Now The Pact: Miller finds a book containing instructions on how to summon the Devil, which he does. They make the usual deal - Miller's soul in exchange for gold, flash cars, a beautiful woman - in a disappointingly workmanlike four pager. Bernard Taylor - My Very Good Friend: Pierre lives in seclusion save for the visits of nearest neighbour Royston Stevens, but that's the way he prefers it. Shockingly hideous to the eye, he conducts his rapid growth experiments on a preying mantis he names Emil (later Emilie when he's ascertained its sex). There's such a thing as getting too close to your enormous pets ... A. E. Ellis - If Thy Right Hand Offends Thee ...: St. Chrysostum's College, 1925. A cowled skeleton walks abroad following an impromptu seance by four pupils at the nearby Hoecourt Ring. It terrifies several members of staff before it finally communicates to the medical officer what it requires of him. Martin Ricketts - Dissolving Partnership: Brooks moves in next door to partner Crowell at Mrs. Graham's guest house following the mysterious disappearance of the previous tenant. The pair are planning their next robbery, and Crowell has finally perfected his serum that will reduce a man to under twelve inches tall ... Adrian Cole - The Horror Under Penmire: Keen folklorist Roy Baxter disappears while investigating a mysterious village on Bodmin Moor. His friend, author Phil Dayton comes in search of him and, in a mist-shrouded valley which stinks of fish, encounters the most unfriendly pub this side of The Lough Inn (it's so rotten, it doesn't even have a name). He is taken prisoner by the Penmire villagers and chained up with his friend in a rat-infested crypt while above them the residents summon forth their God - Dagon.
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Post by nightreader on Mar 22, 2008 11:27:43 GMT
Cover art by Alun Hood One of my favourite covers, from the1976 reprint. Enjoyed Sydney J. Bounds The Mask and Pamela Vincent's Homicidal Maniac but the Dorothy K. Haynes story Dorothy Dean left me a little cold. |
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Post by dem on Mar 22, 2008 12:59:39 GMT
That's a beauty, Andy. Hadn't seen that before either, so thanks very much for sharing. I don't know what it is about the Frighteners books: they're probably not the best selection of horror stories, but they're among my very favourite collections. I think we have Mary Danby and Chetwynd-Hayes to thank for introducing work by (then) new authors in the Fontana Books - Robert Aickman certainly wasn't much up for the idea.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Apr 4, 2008 10:06:53 GMT
It took me 15 years to track this down, in the version at the top of the page. Nice to see the cover Andy posted as I've never seen that. My favourite is probably the AE Ellis story, which is very MR Jamesian and is in fact listed in Rosemary Pardoe's 'James Gang' index. 'The Catomado' is another fun RCH monster story and I thought the whole book was a brisk, fun read
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Post by Johnlprobert on Aug 14, 2010 7:15:41 GMT
And so it's on to this one, in its 'stony face' incarnation this time, ie the 1976 second printing.
Lots of very short tales here on the whole and again as Mr D has summarised most of the plots above here are just a few thoughts:
Kay Leith - For The Love of Pamela. Here's a brisk (?slight, really) haunted house story with a twist in the title to kick things off, and an ending reminiscent of RCH's The Elemental. In fact the appearance of Madame Orloff might have jollied things up a bit. Ok but nothing special
Sydney J. Bounds - The Mask. Would you wear the death mask of a serial killer's face to a party? I suppose it depends on what sort of party. Another tiny tale (four pages!) that's more of an idea than a story.
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Post by dem on Aug 14, 2010 8:11:43 GMT
If i had to pick a desert island Mary Danby collection it would be one of the 65's, Spinechillers most likely, on the rather obvious grounds that they're the biggest. But if that was considered cheating and it was strictly paperback only then - Frighteners! No question that nostalgia plays a big part in it, but i remember enjoying every single story when i first read it in the mid-eighties. If only Mary Danby had seen fit to include one of her own nasty efforts! Sydney J. Bounds - The Mask. Would you wear the death mask of a serial killer's face to a party? I suppose it depends on what sort of party. Another tiny tale (four pages!) that's more of an idea than a story. reads to me like a classic episode of Thriller in the making, except nobody thought of it. Strange that, for all the longevity of his career, for me, Syd Bounds' name seems inextricably linked to the 'seventies and Fontana in particular. It's not as if horror & supernatural formed anything like the bulk of his work but when he got around to the genre, the results were invariably brilliant IMO. |
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Post by Johnlprobert on Aug 27, 2010 8:12:40 GMT
Joyce Marsh - Old Heather's Picture. MR James strikes again with this variation on The Mezzotint (or more accurately the first story in Rod Serling's Night Gallery pilot movie - the one with Roddy McDowall). Old Heather dies and she has a rather nice picture on her wall that might fetch a bit of cash. But oh dear what's that dark blob that's just appeared on it? It couldn't be an old lady could it? Let's wait until tomorrow when no doubt it will be a big bigger and clearer and intent on murderous revenge...
Bernard Taylor - Cera. One of those seriously daft stories that 70s anthos threw up from time to time. Is the beautiful Cera Tiidae all that she seems, especially as she has the Latin name for genus of fish? She marries Greg whose teeth all fall out and who starts to shrink as she starts to get bigger. Eventually Greg diasppears. Where has he gone? And could the movements beneath the gown of the now massively obese Cera mean anything? Apart from being ludicrous this has to be one of the few pulp horror stories I've read where the monster dies by falling over, rather than by any intervention from the 'hero', who just gets to watch. I do get a mental imagte of Mr Taylor, desperate for a story idea, wandering around the Natural History Museum and coming up with this. I wonder what he thinks of it now?
Pamela Vincent - Lost Soul. A tiny story about a nasty old bloke who sits in the laundrette and well...see Dem's note above!
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Post by Johnlprobert on Sept 11, 2010 7:30:12 GMT
A. E. Ellis - If Thy Right Hand Offends Thee ... - Brief Jamesian fun with a school setting and a ghost that needs to be laid to rest.
Martin Ricketts - Dissolving Partnership. The author of 'The Nursery Club' from Pan 12 comes up with the very slight tale of a mad scientist whose assisants keep disappearing, affecting his hopes of perfecting his shrinking ray...
Francis Stephens - A Walk Along The Beach. Holidaying couples! Do you have an annoying child whose been foisted on you because his single parent mother has had a stroke? Is there a beach nearby that's close to a nuclear plant? Is it covered with man-eating, and more importantly, child eating jellyfish hideously mutated by said radiation? Well you know what to do then, don't you?
R. Chetwynd-Hayes - The Catomado. "It would be nice to record that Myna flew like a bird. But she didn't. She fell like a fat woman who has been kicked off a tall building". Two pages into this and I had already laughed out loud three times. Dem's right above in that this tale does contain some of RCH's worst traits, but happily far more of his best, with the result that I loved this, and it made me realise I haven't really properly gone to town on RCH on Vault and I ought to, really.
Dorothy K. Haynes - Dorothy Dean. I thought this was quite a clever psychological one, similar in style to what Ramsey Campbell often tries to do. Little Dorothy is scared of everything and in an institution. As we learn a little more of her life story it becomes apparent that she has been driven into her neuroses by those around her, thinking they've been doing it 'for her own good'.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Sept 15, 2010 19:06:35 GMT
Sydney J. Bounds - Hothouse. Another quick one from Syd about a greenhouse and some plants that are a bit too keen on the bull's blood organic fertiliser our narrator supplies. So keen in fact that...
Julia Birley - The Old Men. A really good hospital horrors story with the ghost of a vengeful pathologist out to get some of the 'Old Men' (ie established hospital consultants) of the title. This one's so accurate in its depiction of teaching hospital life that I suspect the author must have had some experience of it. Of course the bit about the consultant surgeon who only gives good references to the attractive ladies on his staff if they go to bed with him is the sort of thing that would never, ever happen in real life.
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Post by Johnlprobert on Sept 16, 2010 7:34:52 GMT
Pamela Vincent - Homicidal Maniac! What's a girl to do if her car has broken down miles from anywhere, in the dark, and she sees figures behind every tree? Accepting a lift from those two rather strange men doesn't seem a good idea, now does it...
Bernard Taylor - My Very Good Friend. And here we find yet another possible true identity for Pierce Nace! My Taylor's second insect story for this volume tells of mad scientist Pierre growing his pet mantis Emil to giant size for the sake of "science". Emil turns out to be a lady mantis, and we all know what they like to do. Oh dear.
Martin Ricketts - And Now The Pact. Brief and to the point, and yet at the same time rather pointless, really.
Adrian Cole - The Horror Under Penmire. They're all at in Cornwall you know - worshipping Dagon I mean. Some nice atmospherics before the beasties arrive, and then it all ends in slime.
Not as good as volume two but still worth a look through. Oddly enough the main thing it's done is made me look forward even more to The Seventh Black Book of Horror!
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Post by dem on Sept 16, 2010 18:07:49 GMT
Not as good as volume two but still worth a look through. I preferred it over volume 2, most likely because I can remember reading it for the first time beginning on the back seat of a bus and right the way through a night shift at a foul-smelling rubber factory of dubious local repute. Nearly lost two fingers when I became too engrossed in Homicidal Maniac! good point about the Black Book's, Lord P. i'd agree, they're as much in the tradition of the Frighteners and Mary Danby's other work for Fontana as they are the Pan Horrors. |
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Post by ripper on Mar 8, 2015 10:42:57 GMT
Read this one again over the last few days. Probably first read it a decade or more ago. Not bad at all, I thought. Nothing really stood out to me, but I had a pretty good time. It's a shame these slim anthologies seem to have bitten the dust in favour of telephone directory sized collections; these Frighteners and associated slim Fontana Horror/Ghost series were ideal to slip in a jacket pocket and whip out on the train or bus or when waiting for something. The Francis Stevens contribution reminded me of a similar story in a 70s anthology. I think it had a female author but the title and anthology escape me.
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