Tim Greaves - Vampyres

[dem bones]

Sacrebleu! The postman just staggered to the door with a bumper emergency pack from Saucy Dave's Video, Paperback & Magazine emporium, comprising ten issues of Goth rock mag Kaleidoscope, a Bite Me, two issue's of Bloodlines, Elaine Bergstrom's continuing adventures of Count Dracula novel, Blood On Blood, plus an assortment of horror-vampire DVD's and the following NEL-size jewel !!! Thank you so much for such a generous gesture, Mr. Saucecraft!

Tim Greaves - Vampyres (Strega, 2001)

Blurb:
Erotic Horror Fiction

In the midst of a passionate embrace, two beautiful bisexual girls are brutally murdered by an unseen assailant. Returning from the grave they pose as hitch-hikers to prey on unsuspecting motorists, luring them to a remote country mansion where they satiate their sexual and visceral desires upon them. With the body count rising, into their world comes a willing hostage, kept alive, trapped in a web of lust and impending death. As the life ebbs from him, his only hope of escape lies with a young couple camping nearby...

Remarkably never before available in novel form, Vampyres is based on the cult 1974 film from Jose Ramon Larraz, starring Marianne Morris, Anulka Dziubinska, Murray Brown, Brian Deacon and Sally Faulkner.

Farnsworth Hall, Hampshire has a terrible history. Built 200 years ago by Dr. Terrence Farnsworth for use as a Private Mental Institution, it quickly gained a reputation for appalling cruelty toward the unfortunate inmates. Within a year Farnsworth was dead, verdict suicide, although popular belief has it that he was lynched by his patients. Abandoned for close on a century, the Hall was revived as a Nursing home in the early 1900's until a fire consumed staff and patients alike. In recent years Trent, a shady entrepreneur, bought house and grounds on the cheap with a view to opening a theme park. One slit throat later (he failed to meet his gambling debts), and the property passed to his daughter, Miriam.

Miriam Trent doesn't live at the Hall but sometimes uses it as a love-nest for herself and equally gorgeous lover, Francesca Morris. When first we meet them, the girls are enjoying a grapple on the bed, and, so engrossed are they in the "swelling rapture", they're oblivious to the sound of approaching footsteps on the stairs. A man in black burst into the bedroom, guns down Miriam and Fran in cold blood. "Lezza bitches" make him want to vomit.

Three years later. Ted Gorman, dangerous driver and sales rep, pulls up in the forecourt of the Wayfarer Inn, cursing the commission that has brought him back to this place after what happened last time. At least comely young receptionist Paula - who puts down her Emmanuelle paperback just to offer him the register - is an improvement on her predecessor. Either he's hallucinating or Paula is giving him the come-on! But what would a disco dolly like her see in a greying, 38 year old divorcee who smokes Rothmans lung-busters and plays John Denver's weedy Annie's Song on the car stereo?

Before we can find out why Ted detests the Wayfarer Inn so, the focus shifts to John and Harriet Bailey, doing their best to pretend they're thoroughly enjoying a wretched caravan holiday in cow-pat country. They gradually become aware that two young women are watching them from the trees ...

To be continued ...

Many thanks to H. P. Saucecraft

[dem bones]

Francesca thumbs a lift from a passing motorist who can't get the door open quick enough, but any thoughts of a Confessions Of A Driving Instructor moment are dashed when the gorgeous hitcher bares her fangs. The following morning, the village police investigate what looks to be a run of the mill fatal road accident. An upturned car by the side of the road, the driver's face mashed up against the windscreen.

The Bailey's park their caravan in a woodland glade facing directly onto the gloomy former Asylum. Harriet takes an instant dislike to the place, but John doesn't fancy his chances driving back through the trees after dark. Harriet's sleep is disturbed when she hears a piercing shriek from Farnsworth Hall. Stepping out to retrieve her clothing, she's molested by the undead lipstick bi girls until .... she wakes up. How odd. She's not had a girly crush since school, but those mystery women in the woods have really got inside her head ....

The following morning, she and John explore the cemetery in the shadow of the great hall, and who should be flitting from grave to grave but Miriam and Francesca ...

Ted Gorman has made his mind up. Screw the job, he's leaving the Wayfarers Inn and this crummy village of bad memories, and there's nothing on God's earth will stand in his way ... except for that drop dead gorgeous hitcher in the revealing black dress. Fran directs him back to the Hall. Inside all is in ruin bar the magnificent bedroom. As she pours the wine, "her voluminous bosom ... threatening to burst from the confines of her low-cut gown", Ted, understandably, cheers up no end. One vigorous bad-sex interlude later, and he's too weak to stand. Fran, beside him on the bed, lies still as a corpse, unseeing eyes staring into nothing at all. Bloody hell - she's dead! But Ted is too tired to panic. It's only after he's slept the day away he notices the deep gash on his arm. How on earth did that get there? And where's Fran got to?

[dem bones]

As Ted imposes on the caravanning couple to tend his slashed arm, an ambulance crew are busy scooping what's left of another dead motorist from his crumpled Mini Minor. This one drove straight into a tree, making it six fatalities on the same quiet woodland stretch this month.

All thought of leaving the village have clean flown from Ted's head, and he returns to the hall to await Fran. Their two wine flutes from the previous night are shattered and an ornamental sword he'd admired when first entering the bedroom is stained with blood. He wants an explanation, or failing that, an action-replay of last night's marathon bone-shaker.

Fran eventually returns with a lame excuse for her departure, introduces Miriam and new face, Rupert Groves, trendy young long-hair and manager of a London based Pharmaceutical concern. While Miriam discreetly escorts Rupert to the wine cellar, Fran peels off her dress and she and Ted go at it hammer and tongs again until his stamina gives out. As he sleeps, the vampire removes his bandage and gets to work on his arm.

Miriam emerges from the cellar, mindless drunk on blood, and what's left of poor Rupert isn't worth saving for later. They finish the Good Samaritan off good and proper with the knife, drag his butchered carcass to the car, dump it in the woods. But jealousy has crept into their relationship. Miriam wants Fran to kill Ted. She's worried her girlfriend has become romantically attached. It seems they both know him from another time, same place ...

Fifty pages to go. One last push should do it.

[dem bones]

Ted Gorman wakes to find Fran has again gone AWOL. Must have been thrashing around in his sleep as the bandage has unravelled and he's bleeding again. And what was that nightmare featuring his dead mum all about? He sure hopes he doesn't look as death-warmed-up awful as he feels. There's no way of telling just now as his lwild girl's bedroom contains no mirror - except for the one shoved away in the corner draped in a black sheet. Has Francesca invented Goth? Ted realises he's not eaten for two days. Famished, he heads for the Wayfarers Inn only to get as far as a police roadblock. An ambulance crew are extracting the cruelly mutilated corpse of Rupert from his written-off Rover. His appetite gone, Ted circles back to Farnsworth Hall to inform the girls of the tragedy. No sign of anyone upstairs so he tries the wine cellar. The door locks shut behind him.

Harriet's in the woods, working on a watercolour of the Hall when she's surprised by Miriam and Fran. Fran traces a thumb across the startled camper's forehead. "I always knew we'd find each other. By this sign I'll recognise you." Flashing her a look of sheer malevolence, she and Miriam melt away into the trees.

Fran frees Ted from his prison. He's too exhausted for round three but that's no great loss to his lover who has Miriam. They take turns at inflicting more damage on his arm until the flesh is white and soggy. Soon there'll be not a drop of blood left in him.

Now it's Harriet's turn to snoop around the hall. She finds Fran sleeping the sleep of the dead in the cellar, and for the first time it crosses her mind that the beautiful brunette is an undead. Miriam, hiding in an alcove, wonders what to do. Kill her seems the safest bet. John, who has just rustled up breakfast, comes looking for his wife and inadvertently saves her life. He's had enough of her fixation on the women in the woods and they agree to move on tomorrow, after he's had one last day's fishing. Neither hear the desperately weak and now terrified Ted pounding feebly on the window ...

A stormy night. While the vampire's are preoccupied with their latest victim - Elliott Hatch, the middle-aged, pompous owner of a Marylebone accountancy firm who fancies himself a connoisseur of fine wines and God's gift to women: the chapter would make for a fine stand-alone short horror story - Ted somehow crawls downstairs and out to the caravan. In seeking the Baileys' assistance, he's as good as signed their death warrants unless they've picked up any tips from the Hammer films. Either way, it will all end in ultraviolence.

I've not seen the film, but my guess is that Tim Greaves may have spiced up the sex scenes as, if some of Miriam and Fran's antics made it into the final cut, it's hard to imagine Vampyres being granted general release in 1975. "A symphony of sensuality and slaughter" is perhaps overstating the case, but if you're looking for a 120 page cheap thrill ride, this comes very recommended.

Fellow fans of Pop culture references will appreciate several 'You Know You're In The Seventies when ...' moments:

"Christ, this place was like something out of a Vincent Price movie ... More The House On Haunted Hill than that awful thing John had dragged her along to see last month - what was it called again? - Percy's Progress. Ugh!"

"The transistor radio was blaring out the recently re-released Gary Puckett classic Young Girl ..."

There' are also references to Terry Jacks' death disc Seasons In The Sun, and, what with everyone else getting it on at the Hall, who could begrudge Harriet and John a Deliverance-inspired midnight romp in the caravan, with Harriet reprising Ned Beatty's role? I think there was also a mention of Susan George in Straw Dogs early in the book.

Finally, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that both am*z*n reviews were contributed by the publisher ....

[Jojo Lapin X]

Nov 9, 2012 13:02:36 GMT dem bones said:

Terry Jacks' death disc Seasons In The Sun

Did you know this is originally a song by Jacques Brel? I only found out recently. The general idea of the original is the same---"Goodbye everybody, I am dying"---but the attitude is very different.

[dem bones]

I knew he wrote it but haven't heard his original. Somehow, i'm imagining something far less ... jaunty.

There's an item in one of the Bloodlines issues i've been reading where Michel Parry takes the chair for the regular Ten Questions dept. Sure enough: "How would you counter the national stereotype that says Belgium is boring?" It takes him all of a paragraph to destroy that stupid cliché - and he doesn't even need to drag Jacques Brel or, come to that, Hercule Poirot into the mix to do so.

[Jojo Lapin X]

Nov 9, 2012 15:02:09 GMT dem bones said:

I knew he wrote it but haven't heard his original. Somehow, i'm imagining something far less ... jaunty.

I would not call it less jaunty, exactly.

[andydecker]

Thanks, Jojo. Never saw Brel performing. (Or heard another song of his)

Always pictured him more in the troubadur vein, but one tends to forget how mother-in-law compatible artists used to be back then.

[rob4]

Nov 9, 2012 13:02:36 GMT dem bones said:

I've not seen the film, but my guess is that Tim Greaves may have spiced up the sex scenes as, if some of Miriam and Fran's antics made it into the final cut, it's hard to imagine Vampyres being granted general release in 1975. "A symphony of sensuality and slaughter" is perhaps overstating the case, but if you're looking for a 120 page cheap thrill ride, this comes very recommended.

it was cut by the bbfc for it's first video release but the latest UK release from Anchor Bay is the full uncut version. i have the movie on an uncut US dvd and your description of the novelisation makes me think it has been adapted almost verbatim from the screen. The sex scenes are very explicit for the time although the director Larraz (Spanish) noted in his audio commentary on the dvd that the male lead was not as enthusiastic as the two vampire ladies!! The violence at the end is also very intense and well directed. The film itself has a unique atmosphere and many admirers, including me. one of trash cinema's gems!

[andydecker]

Nov 5, 2012 21:29:57 GMT dem bones said:

Elaine Bergstrom's continuing adventures of Count Dracula novel, Blood On Blood,

Many thanks to H. . Saucecraft

How are the Bergstrom novels? I translated her Ravenloft novels back then, and they weres quite well written for that sort of thing.

Love the movie, btw. How can one not love Anulka?

[sabenaravna]

I really, enjoyed this one,  Greaves created wonderful Gothic atmosphere among all the "sensuality and slaughter".  Now I must to find his Daughter of the night about Carmilla on screen...

[dem bones]

Mar 8, 2014 17:57:51 GMT sabenaravna said:

I really, enjoyed this one,  Greaves created wonderful Gothic atmosphere among all the "sensuality and slaughter".

Yeah, Mr. Greaves makes a very decent fist of this one. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but Vampyres was far better. The introduction - detailing the author's fixation with the film - is also very entertaining.

Thanks for registering, sabenaravna, and I hope you enjoy your time with us.

[sabenaravna]

Thank you, demonik, and I believe I will!