Photo: Adrian Mott - from David Dixon's
The Lodger In Room 16Co-inspired by Mary-Rose Hayes'
The Neighbours (trust me, it fully deserves that super cover photo) and Harold Bishop's brief psychotic interlude when he tried to throttle the bloke for making that really horrible
Don't it make you feel good record, another audience-decimating imaginary horror classic , this time devoted to the people who live next door, above, below or otherwise in the closest proximity. Your NEIGHBOURS. Who are they really? i will tell you. they are Satanists, cannibals, swingers, deranged surgeons, craven arsonists, bone-crushers, maniacal rapists, nosey parkers, knicker thieves and possibly Jack the Ripper, that's who, and you knock to borrow a cup of sugar from them at your peril.
Ramsey Campbell - A Street Was Chosen: ... at random, for a social experiment in which the authorities deliberately provoke the unsuspecting residents to get a gage on their tolerance levels. it isn't high.
Vera A. Gadd - The Road: flashy bright young thing Hazel Peters moves in at Farne House and is soon upsetting her neighbours with loud parties and a constant string of boyfriends. The spokeswoman for the community, Martha Yabsley, asks her to move out. She really doesn't fit in with the other women, all of them embittered spinsters, either facially disfigured or bodily deformed and craving a peaceful life. Hazel stands her ground and come Christmas, it seems she's won them over as, not only is she invited to the seasonal get-together, the ladies have got together with struck off surgeon Dr Westover to arrange a belated welcome present.
Charles Birkin - Havelock's Farm: Due to a mix-up over accommodation, young Faith Harrison, the new schoolmistress, has to look for a room in the village, and the only place she can find one is at the farm of the shunned, inbred Havelock family. They're actually a far more decent clan than their neighbours give them credit for ... except, that is, for the insane son they hide away from the outside world on account of his predilection for rape. One night, the thatched roof catches fire ....
Flavia Richardson - Behind The Blinds: Everyday story of a brilliant scientist "stricken with a loathsome disease" and his elderly assistant, who keep girls chained up in the spare room and starve them to death. As the twisted old spinster explains to plucky Joan Morgan: "slimming is so fashionable now. Our method of reducing is a little drastic perhaps, but so efficacious ... in a few days you will hardly know yourself. Your clothes will hang on you so loosely that it will be simpler to remove them entirely .... we keep our patients under a very strict regime - no outings, and no visitors - except the doctor, of course. And he comes twice daily".
She's the talkative one of the two. It's the best the wheelchair-bound old boy can do to slobber "too fat ... too fat" and chuckle with "filthy, senile amusement."
Harold Bishop, psychopath. "An eye for an eye, Robinson!": According to Mr. Bunting, the quiet, deeply religious Mr. Sleuth is "the first bit of luck we've had for a very long time", even if he's creepy and always out in the fog on the nights Jack the Ripper commits his murders.
Charles Beaumont - The New People: Hank Prentice would prefer not to believe Matt Dystall's drunken ramblings of the 'group activities' indulged in by his well-to-do neighbours - especially as, in the past, these have included wife-swapping and black magic, leading to the suicide of the previous owner of his house.
Kay Leith - Avalon Heights: Newly affluent Deborah moves into the brand new block of luxury flats ahead of her husband. She's perturbed that there's no sign of the caretaker or, for that matter, her fellow residents. Evidently the old boy keeps a dog as there are bones strewn across the floor of his apartment and she keeps hearing shuffling noises ...
Sally Franklin - The People Opposite: The new neighbours have something of the Addams Family about them. The terminally inquisitive Jane Varley invites them over …
Roy Harrison - The Cockroaches: Black magician Mr. Borynski demonstrates considerable aptitude for pest control.
David Dixon - The Lodger In Room 16: Mr. Feith is concerned at the habits of his unseen fellow boarder, but the landlord tetchily explains that the man is a cemetery worker who's been at the lodgings for as long as anyone can recall and Feith shouldn't go prying. A tall ask for our curious hero, who fatally encounters a horror not dissimilar to the leprous entity in Chambers'
The Yellow Sign.
David Case - Neighbours: it's been a long hard struggle but at last Mrs. Harvey has come to accept that, even though she's black, the elegant new wife of Mr. Harvey is not actually a cannibal.
John Llewellyn Probert - Neighbourhood Watch: Open a refuge for asylum seekers next to an exclusive housing complex in
Daily Mail country, and you're bound to infuriate the "now, i'm not a racist, but ...." brigade. The Talbots and Markhams, terrified the centre will impact on property prices, take matters into their own hands, horribly miscalculate the timing of their arson attack and face grisly supernatural retribution.
George MacBeth - Crab Apple Crisis: A petty squabble across the garden fence quickly degenerates into all out war between families.
