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Post by dem bones on May 30, 2019 6:34:23 GMT
"EATEN ALIVE BY BUGS!" screamed the headlines - and the terror-stricken panic beganDonald F. Glut - Bugged! (Manor, 1974) Blurb: “My God! They're eating me alive!"
Truth exploded in Barks‘ mind as he realized that the beetles were turning him into a bloody pulp and that more of them kept attacking and consuming him. The river! he thought. His body jerked spasmodically as he staggered on. If I can get to the river, maybe I can drown the filthy little bastards!
Agony, more excruciating than before, attacked his right hand. When Barks lifted it with painstaking effort, he saw the gleaming white hand of a skeleton. But the sight was brief for, moments later, he no longer had eyes to see. .. .A quarter century on from the cruel prank that left him a cripple, a wooden-legged, Phantom of the Opera-faced mad chemist-entomologist visits grisly insect death upon the six bullying frat boys responsible for his unhappy plight. It begins when the six are invited to a reunion hosted by Dr. Ronald Reid at his swampland mansion. We know we're on to a winner when one of their number, Howard Barks, doesn't even make it through the first chapter. Passing the bog, his car comes under kamikaze attack from a squadron of carnivorous tiger-bugs. Howard dies a horribly protracted death but, curiously, the insects ignore his daughter, Karen, a beautiful twenty-one year old fashion model. As the bugs feast on her father, she is approached by Grollman, the sex-crazed seven foot lunkhead employed by Reid as his butler/ general factotum. Grollman overcomes his lust to deliver her to the mansion unmolested. For the time being. The reunion getting off to such a tragic start, the college buddies repair to their old haunt, Kelly's bar. At first they're keen to accept Barks' death as a ghastly freak - until their colleague, Major Alex Gear is attacked by army ants while tucking into a lobster dish. Only the quick thinking of his insane wife, Florence, who lops off his infested hand with a cleaver, spares him a similar end to that of Barks. For the time being. And so it goes on; the official school weirdo of 25 years ago wages phermonal warfare on the frat pack utilising dermestid beetles, praying mantis, grasshopper, cricket, black widow spider, a moth-bumble bee alliance, plague of bed-bugs (!) & Co. Meanwhile, Karen and Sergeant Gary Rutledge of the highway patrol are all loved up and out to avenge her father's murder. All roads lead to Reid's mansion on the swamp - but will the madman and his insect legion be ready for them? Published the same year as James Herbert's The Rats - and twelve before twelve Guy N. Smith's Abomination - DFG's fusion of hoary old dark house thriller with 'when insects attack' nasty is so easy on the brain it makes The Partridge Family #2: The Haunted Hall seem like Finnegan's Wake. The mandible-on-flesh action is well tasty and, as with the adorable 'New Adventures of Frankenstein' novels, the dialogue frequently sparkles. "Really too bad about Howard. Getting eaten by bugs like that. And I always liked the guy." "If I didn't know that Bela Lugosi has been dead for years, I'd swear this was his summer cottage." "Surely no amount of butterflies could ever cause a man's death." (try telling that to the cast of Mark Sonders' Blight - what little there is left of the poor, bloody, shredded bastards).
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Post by andydecker on May 30, 2019 10:20:05 GMT
In the review of the German edition I wrote: Reads like a first draft at times … often unintentionally funny, but it doesn't matter, because it is a lot of fun. So who cares if the story contradicts itself sometimes or scenes seem to be lifted from old movies. Interesting as a time capsule are some of the plot elements. The American fascination with college and its fraternities. This is an early example, I think, as his college buddies put Dr Reid into the wheelchair. There is a whole flood of horror movies where the deranged killer has been traumatised on college, like Terror Train. Not to mention countless episodes of crime shows. Insofar Glut put more thought into his plot as is seen on the page. Of course this is about bugs and not bullying. Here is the German cover. Originally published in 1975. It's a Thole.
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Post by helrunar on May 30, 2019 15:09:35 GMT
The perfect follow-up book for those who love the oeuvre of Mrs Pierce Nace.
H.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on May 30, 2019 16:00:16 GMT
The perfect follow-up book for those who love the oeuvre of Mrs Pierce Nace. I hate to be "that guy," but it is actually spelled Pierce Nose (although of course it originally does come from the German "Nase"). Edit: You cheated!
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Post by helrunar on May 30, 2019 17:36:18 GMT
It's such an odd name. I imagine her going to Ladies Auxiliary Luncheons in absurdly large hats and white gloves in a little old lady tailored suit, then returning home to write graphic descriptions of a woman's breast being ripped apart by rapacious giant razor-jawed critters.
An enigma...
H.
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Post by dem bones on May 31, 2019 7:08:06 GMT
In the review of the German edition I wrote: Reads like a first draft at times … often unintentionally funny, but it doesn't matter, because it is a lot of fun. So who cares if the story contradicts itself sometimes or scenes seem to be lifted from old movies. Interesting as a time capsule are some of the plot elements. The American fascination with college and its fraternities. This is an early example, I think, as his college buddies put Dr Reid into the wheelchair. There is a whole flood of horror movies where the deranged killer has been traumatised on college, like Terror Train. Not to mention countless episodes of crime shows. Insofar Glut put more thought into his plot as is seen on the page. Of course this is about bugs and not bullying. There must be loads of novels and short stories on the theme, Andy, though I'm struggling to think of any beyond Ed Bryant's ace Frat Rat Bash in Nightvision: Hardshell (Berkley, 1998), and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode, Reptile Boy, (novelised by Nancy Holder in The Angel Chronicles: Vol 1, Pocket, 1998). I've not read Stephen Gresham's v*mp*re novel, The Fraternity (Pinnacle, 2004) but blurb suggests it qualifies. Any more?
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Post by andydecker on May 31, 2019 8:04:15 GMT
There must be loads of novels and short stories on the theme, Andy, though I'm struggling to think of any beyond Ed Bryant's ace Frat Rat Bash in Nightvision: Hardshell (Berkley, 1998), and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode, Reptile Boy, (novelised by Nancy Holder in The Angel Chronicles: Vol 1, Pocket, 1998). I've not read Stephen Gresham's v*mp*re novel, The Fraternity (Pinnacle, 2004) but blurb suggests it qualifies. Any more? Good question, Dem. Novels bear some thinking, I have to confess – maybe this is the reason I stumbled upon it in Glut in the first place – that nothing more comes to mind. Guy Smith was more interested to get the damn hippies from the lawn than exploring dark school conspiracies. But the most recent example on the screen is Netflix series The Order this year. As you mentioned Buffy, the whole season 4 is kind of a Fraternity plot with its far-fetched Initiative and the chipping of monsters. Maybe I projected. I have seen this so often in crime-tv, from Midsomer Murders to the Dick Wolf cop shows. Of course one could say that Harry Potter is the ultimate fraternity novel, but this isn't exactly horror.
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