If it ain't stiff - sex with dead people

[dem]

As far as I'm aware, Woolrich's novel is a necrophilia-free zone, but even so, I'm not sure we'll ever top this cover.

William Irish - I Married A Dead Man (Avon, 1949)

With obscene gratitude to @classicvillain1 ("undead since 1810") for providing the cover scan.

[Jojo Lapin X]

That cover is indeed a bit misleading.

[dem]

But as is so often the case, there's much to be said for artistic licence, the lurid paintings dis/gracing the covers of virtually any shudder pulp being prime examples.

[randy]

There's a particularly nasty/funny undertaker in the late William Gay's Twilight whose predilections are ... fitting for this thread.


Randy M.

[madaboutmonsters]

Gordon Honeycombe, iconic Newscaster of the Sixties, wrote an unusual novel about a dead lover called Neither The Sea Nor The Sand in 1969. Very slow moving and atmospheric. Confusingly the Pan edition paperback mentioned Werewolf country on the cover. It was made into a film in 1972 and starred Susan Hampshire and Frank Finlay. Sadly Gordon Honeycombe died this year aged 79. I remember him reading the news when I was kid in the Sixties!

[dem]

Dec 11, 2015 16:19:03 GMT madaboutmonsters said:

Gordon Honeycombe, iconic Newscaster of the Sixties, wrote an unusual novel about a dead lover called Neither The Sea Nor The Sand in 1969. Very slow moving and atmospheric. Confusingly the Pan edition paperback mentioned Werewolf country on the cover. It was made into a film in 1972 and starred Susan Hampshire and Frank Finlay. Sadly Gordon Honeycombe died this year aged 79. I remember him reading the news when I was kid in the Sixties!

Here's that very same Pan edition, and, like you, have no idea how 'werewolf country' came into it! Neither The Sea Or The Sand

Thanks for registering and welcome to Vault!

[Middoth]

don't forget about "The Worst Betrayal" by Hanns Heinz Ewers.

[dem]

Robert Bloch - Nocturne: (Charles L. Grant [ed], Greystone Bay, 1985: Midnight Pleasures, 1991). A troubled twenty-three year old who has difficulty attracting girls finally loses his virginity.

Charles Black - The Obsession of Percival Cairstairs: (Black Ceremonies, 2015). Percy, a sceptic, embraces Black Magic to win the favours of Miss Audrey Manning.

[Swampirella]

Amulet of Truth - Anthony Horner (London Mystery Selection #42 Sept. 1959)

A story about a little silver amulet that causes the death of brides and the madness of their newlywed husbands. Betty tells her fiance Phillip that her grandmother's sister died with a month of her wedding and a cousin of her mother disappeared on the third day of her honeymoon. Her husband is still in a mental home. The only way to avoid this horrible scenario is to remain celibate for 40 days. "Maiden's purity must thou bear Till forty nights have passed; And he who weds you too must share Your life and vestal fast." is inscribed upon it. The logic of keeping this thing in the family escapes me.

Philip thinks it's a lot of hoo-ha and doesn't let it stop them marrying. They arrive at a cottage where they plan to spend the night if not a bit longer. Somebody called Mrs. Huxtable has left them a cold dinner and will be in to "do" breakfast but promises "not too early." Since "Betty's pale blue nylon nightgown did nothing to hide her soft round figure." they waste little time in consummating the marriage. Too bad; poor Phillip "dreams" that the room now has a cold, clammy atmosphere. Soon a shadowy figure takes shape and he's powerless to move. The shape that approaches the bed "had - once - been the body of a woman. But so thoroughly had time and the maggots done their work that hardly a trace of it's sex remained. The top of the body was eaten away, revealing only a cavernous sore." So, definitely no oil painting.

The ghastly creature climbs on top of Phil and "he struggled against it's horrifying courtship until - final nadir of despair - he felt in himself the stirrings of a primeval lust. This threw him into a paroxysm of resistance, but the evil had been wrought. Sobbing and breathless, he surrendered to the kiss of putrefaction....then oblivion claimed his mind". Neither the hammering at the door nor Mrs. Huxtable's scream can wake him; only the rough shaking of the doctor. Poor Betty is dead, although there are no signs of violence. Phillip collapses and the doctor lays him onto the bed, saying to himself "It's almost as if there was smell of death in the room already".

[Shrink Proof]

Er, thanks for that. Probably....

[dem]

Sept 30, 2015 7:39:55 GMT dem said:

Sept 30, 2015 1:28:58 GMT bobby said:

    I've read "The Secret of Elena's Tomb", and I don't think there's any necrophilia in it. (But it does qualify for the "Body-snatchers & Grave Robbers" thread.)

Can't disagree it would be right at home on the BS&GR thread, but, while he doesn't come right out and say "and then I had sex with her delicious young corpse," still there's more than a whiff of necrophilia about the Count's turgid auto-hagiography. Even his account of their lovemaking while Elena was still alive is creepy.

Dave Needham (Fortean times, #159, June 2002)

The really ghoulish details of Karl's obsession were only revealed 20 years after his death by the hearing's medical examiner during a magazine interview. He stated that the replica's breasts felt real and, between her legs, was a padded tube in which traces of sperm were found. There was little doubt that Karl was a necrophiliac. This information was never disclosed as there was no trial and therefore no testimony given. This medical examiner was not part of the team that gave the psychological examination.

- James E. Conlan, A Fine and Private Place, (Fortean times, #159, June 2002)

[dem]

P. J. Roberts - in The Dead Of The Night (Darlene Daniels [ed.], Nocturnal Extacy II, 1992). Police Sergeant Andrew Braidwood and soldier Bernard Rankin on the trail of prolific serial killer, the Glen Hartwell Slasher, the one more intent on his capture than the other. The murderer decapitates his victims with a gravedigger's shovel and steals their underwear to store in a cabinet back at his Nissan hut. But the collection is incomplete. Rankin was unable to get at twenty-year-old Jennifer Masman while she chilled in the morgue, so it is off to Shady Rest cemetery on the outskirts of LePage to put matters right. My, she sure looks inviting lying there in her bridal gown ....

Was a toss up whether to include In the Dead of Night here or on the fashion victims thread but this seems to be the right place.

[sabenaravna]

About that "radiologist Count", who was neither... How much did his "treatments" contributed to the death of Elena, I wonder?

[sabenaravna]

Time to resurrect Elena...
Ie I'm just reading this

Apparently no one loves Elena except Carl. Her family forces her to work, although she is very ill, father smokes in her presence, although dear Carl warns him, sister dresses her dead body in dirty clothes. Oh no! They killed her, they Robbed Her Dead Body.

He claims to be both Count and doctor, forgets to mention his wife, and claims that Elena loved her, but her family didn't allow their marriage. He only wanted her Soul! Yea, right.


Look, I very much appreciate his attempts to write flowery romantic prose instead of, well, Extreme Horror: Necromantik! But hey, if you are telling tall tales, give me more those flowery funeral flowers under the Florida moon.

[dem]

Hi sabenaravna

If there's any truth in the James E. Conlan FT article referenced three posts up, the Count's designs on Elena's home-mummified corpse were less innocent than he would have us believed.

And another for the Necrophile file.

Thomas Tessier - La Mourante: (Jeff Gelb & Michael Garrett [eds.], Hot Blood #8: Kiss and Kill, 1997). Fado is a rich man's playground off the coast of South America where the living love the dead, and the dead love them back.