Emsh Detail from illustration for Robert Bloch's
The Dream Makers,
Beyond Fantasy Fiction, Sept. 1953).
... or movies that exist only in the minds of disreputable horror hacks. And Ramsey Campbell.
Pride of place - if only for sheer overkill - must go to
Harry E. Turner - Now Showing At The Roxy from
Fontana Horror 10 (1977). Before one of the story's sparring cinema owners inflicts an unmerciful double-bill on his public to top all that has gone before, between them Stan Rabble and Lou Rouser have tortured their clientele with:
The Son Of The Thing From The Slime
The Return Of The Curse Of the Hunchback Werewolf
The Nymphomaniac Mummy From 20,000 Fathoms Beneath The Earth's Crust Meets The Boneless Snakeman
I Was A Sex Mad Teenage Vampire Dolly Bird From Outer Space
The Heart Transplant, Voodoo Drug Addict, Thigh Booted Nun Meets Abbot & Costello On Ice
I Was Dracula's Transvestite Masseur
Bluebeard's Journey Into The Intestines Of A Whale Actually, there are two more, but I ain't prepared to lower the tone of this board by naming and shaming em. Ed Wood should've sued for defamation of character.
Ramsey Campbell - The Other Woman (from 'Linda Lovecraft's "The Devil's Kisses", Corgi, 1976). We don't really learn anything about
The Fall Of The Roman Knickers beyond the title, but Campbell gives us a nifty little plot summary of
Father Malarkey's Succubus - it sounds terrif! We also learn that it was originally
Le Succube du Pere Michel which suggests he was having another dig at 'Ms. Lovecraft's alter-ego.
Speaking of whom, when Parry and Carol visit the cinema in Campbell's
The Second Staircase, there's a poster advertising
House Of Dr. Jekyll which features: "a half-naked girl in the monster's arms, the hunchback with the whip, the doctor fondling a skull". I've never been able to twig whether this is a reference to a real movie, or one that exists soley in the mind of R.C.
Ian Dear - Village Of Blood (NEL, 1975). Centres around the traumatic shoot of the film from which the book takes it's title. From the makers of
The End Of Dracula?Tim Stout - The Dracula File Nasty - indeed, fatal - things befall director, cast and crew of
It's Fun to Be Dead! when a resident of Golders Green Cemetery takes exception to their jokey handling of a serious subject. Meanwhile, a rival production,
The Great Impaler is coming along just dandy. Similarly, three familiar faces rendezvous beneath a billboard advertising
The Bride Of The Spider and set about teaching a buffoonish horror host a lesson in Fritz Leiber's "The Spider" [Christopher Lee's X Certificate].
Things start to go wrong on set when old Joey Siddons gets his marching orders from a soap opera in
Roger Mallison's Welcombe Manor (Fontana Ghost #17)
In William Lauder's novelisation of
The Uncanny, Valentine De'ath murders his wife on the set of Hemorrhage Films'
Dungeon Of Horror during a nifty "Pit & the Pendulum" sequence.
Robert Bloch - Return To The Sabbath: The brief rise and gruesome fall of Austrian horror actor and black magician Karl Jorla. His first film,
Return To The Sabbath, made as a favour to a director friend, was never meant to be released but somehow finds its way to LA where its shown in a burlesque fleapit. Jorla's stunning turn as a reanimated corpse decides aspiring producer Les Kincaid to sign him up for a Hollywood remake and Jorla jumps at the chance to get out of Austria. His fellow diabolists are furious as
Return's big resurrection ceremony exposes secrets of their craft. The director is ritualistically murdered in a Paris hotel and now several shadowy figures show up on set.
Robert R. McCammon - Make Up: Calvin Doss is hired by Mr. Marco to steal the make-up case that once belonged to Joan Crawford from the Hollywood Museum Of Memories. Due to the incompetence of some museum employee, he winds up with an item from the Chamber Of Horrors - the warpaint trove of horror actor Orlon Kronsteen, star of "Dracula Rises", "Revenge Of The Wolf", "London Screams", "The Invisible Man Returns" and "The Man Who Shrunk."
Those who've read Robert Bloch's
The Chaney Legacy will know what happens when Doss decides to experiment with some slap.
"It's awful - I'm not sure yet what happened. His wife ... came to life while they were cremating her. They saw her through the window, you know ...screaming and pounding at the glass while she was burned alive. Hess got her out too late. He went stark raving mad ..." Small wonder fallen idol Hess Deming is so pissed off with the saturnine Chevalier Futaine, the mysterious star of forthcoming Hollywood blockbuster
Red Thirst (
Henry Kuttner's "I, Vampire"). Ever since Futaine showed up, he's been nothing but trouble!
Karl E. Wagner - More Sinned Against: Aspiring actress Candace Thornton makes desperate sacrifices to finance her ruthless, abusive boyfriend Rick Justin as he embarks on his Hollywood career - she prostitutes herself, unwittingly cultivates a smack habit, appears in hard-core porn movies, bestiality flicks and even a near-snuff abomination - so it's a kick in the teeth when he finally gets his break in
Colt Savage, Soldier Of Fortune and very publicly humiliates her. But the ruin that was Candace is still together enough to avenge herself and a Colt Savage doll provides her with the means.
Candice has an impressive list of imaginary film credits to her name including the stalk 'n slash
Camp Hell, Black Magic torture porno
Satan's Sluts and the self-explanatory
Jiggle High,
Cheerleader Superbowl,
Sex Clinic,
Malibu Hustlers and
Voodoo Vixens.
R. Chetwynd-Hayes - Under The Skin: Amicus filmed so many of Chetwynd-Hayes stories it's hard to believe they overlooked this one which is screaming out for the Subotsky treatment. Carl Blackwood, veteran of nine
Beast Man horror movies, is slowly taken over by his character both at home - where he turns on wife Miranda during an argument over their relative acting talents - and on set - where he mauls co-star Rhoda Warren, ripping gown and flesh with his plastic claws (the director has to promise her a part in his next feature, "a harmless sex extravaganza", to prevent her pressing charges. After watching his body transform into the hunchbacked, hirsute Beast Man as he sleeps, Miranda finally snaps. Carl 'phones the director to tell him he'll never play his most famous role again. But it's too late ...
See also:
I was a Nazi Vampire in R. Chetwynd-Hayes allegedly side-splitting "Great Granddad Walks Again"
Dracula's Curse On The Virgins and
Kinky Darlings in Lindsay Stewart's "Jolly Uncle" from Pan Horror 9.
Creep Flesh, Creep in John Burke's "Comedy Of Terrors" from the same collection.
