Dreadlocksmile review:First published in 2009 by Ghostwriter Publications, ‘Creature Feature’ was compiled and edited by Neil Jackson (ex-Nanaimo Film School). Jackson’s love for the ‘Creature vs Mankind’ subgenre of pulp horror becomes obvious after reading his short but in some ways nostalgic one page introduction to the book. Indeed, Jackson has built strong connections with one of the most renowned authors in this field, Guy N Smith. Jackson’s publication company ‘GWP’ has seen the release of a number of Smith’s more recent novels as well as a number or re-releases and related merchandise.
- ‘Opening Night’ by Barry J House –
The book kicks off with Barry J House’s nine page short entitled ‘Opening Night’. The scene is set within the recently renovated Botley Picture Palace cinema, into all of its previous 1950’s glory. Darren Williams, the cinema’s owner, celebrates the opening night of the cinema by showing three of his personal favourite ‘creature’ movies. When the audience dismiss the first showing of the night ‘Tarantula’, Williams flicks a hidden switch unleashing hordes of deadly tarantulas into the confines of the cinema. Williams still has one final and monstrous grande finale for the now dying audience before the first show draws to a close…
This first short sets the anthology off in style, with giant tarantulas causing mayhem left-right-and-centre. House jumps straight into the action, throwing a wildly over-the-top storyline straight at the audience without a second to ponder the situation. The madness continues until the final curtain is pulled, where a comical conclusion ends this excellent first short. This really is a great first tale to get the collection underway with.
- ‘Old Slippery’ by Stuart Neild -
Next up is Stuart Neild’s four page short entitled ‘Old Slippery’. When Max is told the story of a giant eel known as ‘Old Slippery’ that inhabits a local lake, Max dismisses it as a fantastical story created by his doddering old grandfather. Max disobeys his grandfather’s instructions and takes a stroll down to the lake. But there appears to be more truth behind his grandfather’s story than Max thought was possible.
This super short tale spends hardly any time setting the scene before the naive character of Max discovers the predictable truth behind ‘Old Slippery’. Neild concludes the short well, ending this amusing little tale on a comically sombre note. As a quick little story to spend a couple of minutes reading, this is a gloriously light-heated addition to the book.
- ‘The Fish-Thing’ by Guy N Smith -
The third addition to this anthology is a short from the master of the pulp horror genre himself, Guy N Smith. The short Smith offers up is a six page story entitled ‘The Fish-Thing’. Smith alters the overall mood of the anthology so far, by delivering a much darker tale dripping with eerie tension. With a setting somewhat similar to that of his 1975 novel ‘The Sucking Pit’, Smith introduces the character of Leo whose brief love affair with a visiting gypsy girl ends with him killing her with a single shot between the eyes using his airgun. Her body falls into a Pike Pool where a giant killer pike is said to reside. Before long, Leo is being summoned back to Pike Pool from commands within his dreams. Upon returning for the last time, Leo discovers the terrible secret that lurks within the algae covered water of Pike Pool.
Almost Lovecraftian in places, Smith’s first contribution is a somewhat surreal and suggestive affair that seems to follow a totally random storyline until it reaches a final conclusion. Smith plays around with a number of vague ideas, ultimately leaving the reader with a weird and downright dark tale.
- ‘Sun’ by Ian Faulkner -
Following on from that is Ian Faulkner’s ten page short simply entitled ‘Sun’. The tale starts off with Patrick Robinson’s affair with the Korean nail beautician Sun Nukdae. After suffering for a number of years at the hands of his fat wife, his equally repulsive daughter and his tiresome step-mother, Robinson decides that he is going to leave his wife for his new Korean lover. However, his wife Stephanie has other ideas and puts her husband in an impossible dilemma. That is until Sun finds out and reveals her beastly hidden side on the women who stands to tear the two apart.
Faulkner’s tale is a slow starter, with a few pages utilised in setting down the premise for the tale. With this building understanding of Patrick Robinson’s dilemma within his trapped marriage, Faulkner throws in a purely pulp twist to the tale, wrapping up the story in a delightful and entirely suitable manner.
- ‘Belvedere’s House’ by Daniel I Russell -
Daniel I Russell take up the next slot with his thirteen page short entitled ‘Belvedere’s House’. The tale takes place at night where four burglars are attempting to break into the old mansion of the eccentric Mr Belvedere. Whilst one of the men (Steve) tries to disconnect the burglar alarm, the remaining three (James, Louie and Bradley) creep inside the building in an attempt to locate some valuable documents a buyer has requested that they obtain. Steve doesn’t get very far before his body is dragged below group by a gigantic creature hidden under the surface of the ground. The other three burglars have no idea that they are like flies entering the web of a sadistic Mr Belvedere.
Russell has managed to create a mysterious tale that slowly unveils the hidden secret that lurks in the shadows of Belvedere’s mansion. When the curtain is pulled down, Russell pumps the story full of over-the-top creatures that slice and dice their way to the comical conclusion of another thoroughly enjoyable short.
- ‘Wookey Hole’ by Peter Mark May -
‘Wookey Hole’ is the next short in the collection, running at just eight pages in length. Peter Mark May’s tale begins back in 1932 where two pot-holers are on a mission to explore the depths of the Wookey Hole caves in Somerset, in a hope of obtaining further proof of the existence of the Mill Mermaid. All is going well until one of the explorers is attacked and killed by a strange aquatic-like being. The remaining pot-holer is then warned that no one else should ever venture again into their caves, or ther will be terrible consequences. The tale now jumps to 2009 where the local tourist board have just opened up another two of the previously closed off underground caves within Wookey Hole. But something pale and deadly still lurks in the dark waters of the cave...
May’s eerie short screams of Lovecratian inspiration with it’s sub-race of pale skinned fish-men. The first few pages of the tale bare similarities to the Neil Marshall’s 2005 film ‘The Descent’, with the claustrophobic confines of the underground caverns hiding a previously unseen race of beings. The short ends in a quick and straight-to-the-point fashion, which doesn’t seem to do the carefully laid down premise much justice. But the short still remains an enjoyable and well selected choice for the anthology.
- ‘Day Ten’, ‘Last Option’ and ‘Peek-a-Boo’ by Simon Kurt Unsworth -
Simon Kurt Unsworth’s contribution to the anthology is in the form of a three part tale of a monstrous beast that has so far successfully evaded humankind. The story starts off with the first instalment entitled ‘Day Ten’. This four page introduction to the tale tells the story of a group of scientists who embark on a hunt to capture this monstrous creature that resides in the depths of a forest. Upon locating the rough area where the beast has been known to frequent, the scientists set up camp for the night with their traps all ready and waiting. That very night the beast is heard approaching...
The second part of the tale comes later on in the anthology. This next part, entitled ‘Last Option’ is a much more established component to the story. The beast is now caught by the scientists and has been transported back to a secure lab for research to be performed on this illusive creature. However, after the beast kills a number of scientists, an order is put forward to put the creature to death with poisonous gas. But the scientists weren’t expecting such a savage creature to be so cunning and insusceptible to the attempts made on its life. Underestimating the beast proves to be a fatal mistake...
The final part to this tale is the five page short entitled ‘Peek-a-Boo’ that appears near the end of the anthology. The beast is now on the loose and causing havoc in the local communities. When the beast appears from seemingly out of nowhere in her parents backgarden, young Ellie manages to escape the beast’s wrath by hiding in a cupboard under the sink. With her parents slaughtered and her little brother Timothy now answering her calls, Ellie is put in a very difficult dilemma...
Unsworth’s three part story is a bizarre collaboration of three separate story styles that fit together in a clumsily fashion. The second part is by far the most involved of the three, packed with action and copious amount of splatter throughout. The final part is the strongest of the three, with a more adult side to the tale as well as a slightly harrowing premise to it. All in all, Unsworth’s three contributions to the anthology deliver an enjoyable injection of beastly terror.
- ‘Late Shift’ by Maxwell Dowie-
Next in line is Maxwell Dowie’s thirteen page short entitled ‘Late Shift’. The tale sets off with Fred Miller beginning his night shift at a local supermarket. Miller is split up from his usual co-worker, the attractive young Louise Gabor, to cover the shift of an absent employee in the Produce Department. Not long into the shift, Miller discovers the mutilated corpse of another one of his co-workers. Miller races to the assistant manager’s office to alert the authorities, where he is confronted by a bizarre creature that is somehow made up of the anatomy of a cat, bat and a monkey. This freakish beast is found in the process of devouring the assistant manager. Faced with such a hideous creation, Miller attempts to flee, only to end up knocking himself unconscious. But the nightmare is still there when Miller finally wakes.
Similar to the late Richard Laymon, Dowie has the remarkable ability to inject such a level of charm into his writing, that any piece of writing is simply a pleasure to read in itself. This allows Dowie to put down a rather slow start to the tale, whilst still keeping the reader immersed in the story. Dowie’s character of Fred Miller is extremely likeable from the outset, which cleverly allows the reader to connect more with the character. The tale takes a few pages to get going, but when it does Dowie fires on all cylinders, creating a blood drenched splatterfest with a tense and overtly dramatic ending.
- ‘It Lives In Dark Places’ by David Jeffrey -
David Jeffrey’s seven page short entitled ‘It Lives In Dark Places’ takes up the next slot. Gloriously over-the-top in its characterisation, Jeffrey begins the story with Robert Ashford delivering a dodgy package to an address on behalf of the notorious Fratellis brothers. Upon arriving at the delivery address, Ashford is spotted and chased by numerous police and special unit officers. Ashford ditches his car and disappears down an open manhole. The police follow Ashford down into the gloomy sewers, but no one is prepared for what awaits them deep in the darkness of the underground tunnels.
Jeffery’s short is packed to bursting point with ‘Shaun Hutson style’ wildly exaggerated action from the very outset, delivering a mile-a-minute pace from the very first sentence. With the chase on and Ashford’s escape down into the sewers underway, Jeffrey now brings out the big guns with an awe inspiring display of mindless splatter at the hands of a fantastically savage creation. A magnificent splatterpunk / pulp horror crossover that is everything this anthology is about.
- ‘Rickman’s Plasma’ by William Meikle -
Taking up the tricky spot of following on from Jeffrey’s classic monster tale, is William Meikle’s short entitled ‘Rickman’s Plasma’. This eight page short tells the story of aspiring creative musician Rickman, who invents an impressive piece of technology that produces an ever-moving plasma bubble that feeds off his dream compositions and the surrounding sounds of the city. Alas, Rickman’s creation takes on a life of its own and begins surging, devouring and ultimately consuming anything that creates a sound. With each new victim, the plasma blob gets bigger and bigger; its appetite unstoppable.
Heavily weighted in favour of a comically ‘The Blob’ style of approach, Meikle’s short reads like a classic 1950’s B-Movie with its comical vilian and cardboard-cut-out characters. Almost poetically structured in its recurring structure, with tongue firmly wedged in his cheek, Meikle delivers a tale of escalating madness that will have you chuckling away until the end. A thoroughly enjoyable and light hearted short that is one of the highlights of the entire collection.
- ‘The Moths That Ate New Jersey’ by Rakie Keig -
Next up is Rakie Keig’s short ‘The Moths That Ate New Jersey’ running at twelve pages in length. The tale begins with the character of Robbie who is helping his granddad Jeffrey to board up all of the windows on their reasonably isolated house located in the rural countryside. Jeffrey soon explains his reasons for this, declaring to his son and his step-daughter (Robbie’s parents) that he has witnessed a pack of giant moths devouring their beloved pony - Muffin. Alan and Elsie don’t believe a word of what Jeffrey is saying until one of these gigantic moths squeezes its way down the chimney and plops out into the kitchen area. With their house now under siege by these giant killer moths, all is not lost when Jeffrey announces that he has something sorting out the problem...
‘Night of the Living Dead’ meets ‘The Birds’ meets Rakie Keig’s passion for pulp horror style rampaging beasts. Keig follows the classic formula of not only using some giant-mutated insect, but also traps a family within a house with the beasts desperately clawing their way to get inside. The suspense builds up quickly, with the moth’s first appearance delivering a burst of action, whilst also injecting a suitable level of gore to the proceedings. The short tale quickly moves on to the cleverly contrived concluding outcome to the tale. Keig was later convinced by her partner to expand on the giant killer moth’s idea, and hence the novel ‘The Moths’ soon followed in the wake of this glorious short.
- ‘The Devil Of Mons’ by Steve Jensen -
Steve Jensen’s four page short entitled ‘The Devil Of Mons’ is next. The tale begins in 1914 where rumours of a giant Siberian wolfhound with a human’s brain named ‘The Hellhound’ are being spoken of amongst the soldiers who are currently moving through No Mans Land. Before long the reality of this beast from hell becomes apparent to the weary soldiers...
Short and sweet, Jensen’s atmospheric tale delivers a gore soaked punch with its straight into the action approach, whilst also not holding back on the splatter. With the first set of troops slaughtered by this savage beast, Jensen piles on the gory entertainment with round two, as he sends in a Captain Marryat to investigate the disappearance of the previous squad. Alas, a sticky end is certainly anticipated; but Jensen has a darkly comical angle to take as a concluding prospect for the tale. Plain and simple, this short delivers some good old fashion gory pulp horror fun.
- ‘The Flies’ by Steven Lockley -
‘The Flies’ by Steven Lockley is the next short story running at eight pages in length. This curious tale sees the character of Kenny McLeish making his way onto a deserted island where he plans to organise a ‘dodgy’ corporate bonding exercise to make some money. As McLeish arrives at the island the heavens open and so he takes refuge from the rain in some long forgotten WWII buildings. But McLeish isn’t alone on the island, and he is about to learn of a horrifying secret that the island has kept quiet for so long.
Somewhat slower paced than the majority of the previous shorts, Lockley’s contribution to the anthology is one of the weaker tales. The short spends too much time laying down the premise for McLeish’s appearance on the island, and too little on the disturbing situation the island has with the breeding of flies. However, the ending is still quite chilling, with a nasty little revelation that will certainly bring a quick smile to the readers face.
- ‘Le Carcajou’ by Kevin Lumley -
The next short is Kevin Lumley’s tale ‘Le Carcajou’. Written in a first person perspective, this seven page short sees our storyteller abducted by two men and a woman, who tie him up and throw him down into their cellar. The abductors then disclose that they are actually vampires who plan to consume his flesh at the next nightfall. But our storyteller has a secret of his own which the vampires had not expected.
Lumey’s short, although littered with type-o’s, keeps a good pace from the start, plunging the reader into the eerie premise of his abduction. Once daylight comes and Lumley’s principal character awakens, the resulting turning of events is a shot-in-the-arm for pulp horror fans. The tale ends well, with a nice concluding line to finish it off with.
- ‘The Lake’ by David McAfee -
Next up is David McAfee’s nine page short entitled ‘The Lake’. The first person point of view tale is set around an algae covered lake known as The Green Lake. The character Wally has placed an online advert for five guys to share the costs of renting a small camp on the shores of Green Lake. The positions are filled by five college students – Brayden, Spencer, Josh, Mickey and the tale’s storyteller. Wally announces that he plans to go off swimming in the algae covered lake. None of the others wish to join him because of the algae. When Wally doesn’t return, they begin to fear the worst and subsequently go out in search of him. However, the lake isn’t quite as it first appears. Smoking weed near its banks isn’t the best idea…
McAfee begins this tongue-in-cheek tale setting down a ‘Cabin Fever’ style atmosphere to the proceedings. Once Wally disappears and the students go out on their search for him, the tale really begins to pick up on the suspense. With definite similarities between the likes of Eli Roth’s ‘Cabin Fever’ and the tale ‘The Raft’ in Michael Gornick’s ‘Creepshow 2’, McAfee’s short comes across as a homage to the B-Movies of the 80’s. The short ends well, with a nice little twist in the storyline to keep the readers guessing.
- ‘Creeper’ by Brooke Vaughn -
Brooke Vaughn follows on with the 10 page short entitled ‘Creeper’. The tale is set within the Bellevue Clinic for the insane. Katrina Winters in a patient there, who is suffering from an extreme case of entomophobia (a phobia of bugs). Winters notices that the creeper vines that the clinic have imported from Haiti are growing at an alarming rate during the hours of darkness. It soon becomes apparent to her that the creepers are attempting to gain access to her room whilst she’s sleeping. But of course, no one believes her, passing it off as another symptom of her mental illness.
Vaughn’s short plays with a couple of well used ideas within his tale, neither delivering any air of mystery or indeed any originality to the tale. This does not however detract too much from an otherwise well written and enjoyable story. The conclusion is predictable but still wraps the short up nicely. The characters are suitably well developed for a story of this length. All in all, although not the most original of stories, the short is nonetheless a thoroughly enjoyable read.
- ‘Each Step I Take Is In Darkness’ by Robert Morrish -
The next instalment into the collection is Robert Morrish’s sixteen page short entitled ‘Each Step I Take Is In Darkness’. Written in a first person perspective, our storyteller tells the tale of how he and three other explorers (Vazquez, Mills and Renko) go on an extreme pot-holing adventure to make their way through the legendary underground passageways of Cueva de El Chorreadero. However, quite soon into their expedition, the caves begin to flood and they have no option but to desperately try to find an alternative exit from the underground chambers via an unknown and previously unexplored passageway. But the deep and dark chambers of the Cueva de El Chorreadero hide away a monstrous and bloodthirsty race...
Like with Peter Mark May’s earlier short ‘Wookey Hole’, this tale involves an underground race that doesn’t take too kindly to outsiders exploring their caves. Morrish’s tale is remarkably similar to Neil Marshall’s 2005 film ‘The Descent’. The story is however pure edge-of-the-seat reading from start to finish, with a glorious and deliciously downbeat ending. Unoriginal it may be, but thoroughly entertaining nonetheless.
- ‘The Beast In The Mist’ by Guy N Smith -
Guy N Smith’s second contribution is the seven page short entitled ‘The Beast in the Mist’. With similarities between Smith’s early ‘Werewolf’ trilogy and his more recent novel ‘Maneater’, his short includes a very Gordon Hall type of character named Brent Bodine, who is also a successful big game hunter. With a similar setting to that of ‘The Origin of the Crabs’, Bodine arrives at the Carroch Estate in the hope of hunting an Imperial stag. However, the misty hills of the Scottish Highlands that surround the Carroch Estate are home to a paranormal secret known only to the locals...
Smith’s second short is a definite highlight to the anthology, with the eerie and atmospheric short that is so clearly written from the hand of the great scribbler himself. The characters are classic Smith style characters, with their own individual wildly exaggerated traits. The hunting premise is such a passionate subject matter for the author that you can really feel his knowledge and enjoyment for writing a tale around hunting seeping through the text. The story builds to a dramatic conclusion, whereby Smith warps up the whole short in an eerie and downbeat manner.
- ‘Stingers’ by William Meikle -
The final short in the collection is William Meikle’s nine page tale entitled ‘Stingers’. This bizarrely set short tells the story of Eric Strang who is currently being held hostage by two guys named Pat and Frank. When their horses are disturbed by two giant scorpions, Pat and Frank rush out to fight off the gigantic beasts. However, these huge arthropods seem to be attracted to sound, and Eric’s screaming isn’t doing him any favours...
Utterly surreal in the way the short appears to be a passage taken from a much larger story, Meikle’s tale is intriguing and unsettling from the start, with the confusing premise to the tale never truly explained. Even when the gigantic scorpions appear on the scene, it is a while before Meikle actually announces what exactly the beasts are. The whole style of writing is surreal but utterly entertaining. Once the scorpions attack, Meikle doesn’t let up on the fast paced action, concluding with some spectacular splatter to finish off the tale and indeed the anthology as a whole.
In total the book runs for 193 pages and was published by Ghostwriter Publications.
