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Post by Dr Strange on May 20, 2021 19:56:35 GMT
Your summary puts me in mind of Nigel Kneale's "Baby" from the Beasts TV series. ... and sure enough, "Beasts, 'Baby,' (1976, TV)" features on the source list at back of book. In my defence, I've never seen it. I'm not sure if I've seen it since the original TV broadcast, but it left a lasting impression. These days it regularly crops up in discussions of "folk horror", which probably means I think I "remember" more about it than I actually do.
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Post by samdawson on May 20, 2021 21:12:17 GMT
Thank you for your kind words, Dem Bones. Dr Strange, this is what I answered on Facebook to the question of sources for the story Gentry in the Country:
The whole 70s Brit TV genre warning the affluent bourgeoisie not to invade rural areas where they don't understand the local ways and where their money will distort the local economy. In particular watching The Exorcism aged around 10 (and it still stands up so well). Two of the dinner guests have dropped in from that particular Dead of Night episode, while the builders are from the brilliant Beasts episode Baby. The author of the history book briefly mentioned is the self-described local historian from Robin Redbreast. The lecturer is largely based on two I knew from real life in that decade
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Post by dem bones on May 20, 2021 21:51:49 GMT
Well done, Sam. I think Darrell chose well in selecting Night Thoughts as the opening story. It sets the mood just so. Have you read the book through yourself?
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Post by Dr Strange on May 20, 2021 21:57:27 GMT
this is what I answered on Facebook to the question of sources for the story Gentry in the Country: The whole 70s Brit TV genre warning the affluent bourgeoisie not to invade rural areas where they don't understand the local ways and where their money will distort the local economy. In particular watching The Exorcism aged around 10 (and it still stands up so well). Two of the dinner guests have dropped in from that particular Dead of Night episode, while the builders are from the brilliant Beasts episode Baby. The author of the history book briefly mentioned is the self-described local historian from Robin Redbreast. The lecturer is largely based on two I knew from real life in that decade I'm with you on The Exorcism - I also remember watching this at time of broadcast, and again more recently on the BFI DVD of Dead of Night. Robin Redbreast is one that I didn't see at the time, but have seen more recently (BFI DVD again) - I thought it dragged a bit, and hadn't aged so well, though I would probably have felt differently if I had watched it first time around.
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Post by samdawson on May 21, 2021 9:17:58 GMT
Thank you. I'm fitting it in around work, so am about halfway through the second book now
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Post by samdawson on May 21, 2021 9:22:39 GMT
I think The Exorcism managed to be both stimulating and really rather scary. As a 10 or 11 year old what stayed with me was what was on the bed just before the end, but it was also thought provoking and memorable. It seems extraordinary now that perhaps five or more minutes of it is a monologue with no illustrative cutaways, something I can't imagine happening today - and it works extraordinarly well. I know what you mean about Robin Redbreast. I think it was more of a Play for Today rather than explicitly frightening. The one that I saw back then and haven't revisited is Penda's Fen, which I recall as being interesting enough to generate conversation at school the next day, but not intended to chill.
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Post by dem bones on May 22, 2021 7:57:43 GMT
Island of Terror Revisited.
Paul Newman - The Endless Depths Above Us: An epic in twelve pages. Del Shaw of Doomwatch assembles a crack team of celebrity pathologists and palaeontologists to investigate the cause deaths and subsequent obscene mutation of several workers on the Dantzler Ash oil rig. Can Doctors Brian Stanley, Barbara Judd, and Adam Royston contain this new epidemic? I'm not up on this stuff. Who/ what is the monster at the end? The Quatermass Experiment?
Two prequels ...
Simon J. Ballard - The Making of Lord Courtley: Marylebone, 188-. Accompanied by friend and benefactor, Oliver Prendegast (no idea), his Lordship visits the infamous male brothel at 19 Cleveland Street for a night of bon mots and buggery. Courtenay has his pleasure with a handsome epileptic youth who, overcome with gratitude that the gentleman said such nice things about his seizure mid performance, gifts him a silver ring. Courtenay recognises it as that of his Satanic master, Dracula Prince of Darkness! So begins Courtenay's mission to resurrect the King of the Undead.
Simon J. Ballard - The Making of Johnny Alucard: Chelsea, AD 1972. Begins with the rich young hipster taking a shower (enjoy while you can), ends with him planning the corruption of a group of ancient teenagers and mini-skirt girls who hang out at The Cavern on King's Road. In between, the arrival by telegram of a numbered key and a curt request to attend the Metropolitan Bank.
Beware of ....
Wayne Mook - Frankenstein's Tortoise: Next door's pet on the rampage in the garden while little Sammy is playing tigers. No cause for alarm - were it not for "next door" is the ruin of Frankenstein's Castle, once home to the Ralph Bates incarnation "the man who built the dead." What if some of his experiment's survived?
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Post by jepersonoatcake on May 22, 2021 16:35:59 GMT
Hello - Ken Shinn here! Glad that you seem to have enjoyed my tales for Book Four so far, and hoping that you continue to do so for the rest and my brace in Book Five. Also pleased that you're getting such pleasure out of everyone's stories!
I thought that the monster at the end of Paul's story was simply meant to be Cthulhu or something similarly Lovecraftian, although ideally it'd be Gorgo all grown up...
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Post by Swampirella on May 22, 2021 16:39:43 GMT
Welcome, welcome, Mr. Shinn! Enjoy your time here at the Vault, should you actually return of your own free will. Bwa ha ha ha, etc.
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Post by dem bones on May 22, 2021 19:40:29 GMT
I thought that the monster at the end of Paul's story was simply meant to be Cthulhu or something similarly Lovecraftian, although ideally it'd be Gorgo all grown up... Hi Ken. I did consider Cthulhu or Dagon but wasn't sure if they'd appeared in any Brit horror films? Fully grown Gorgo suits admirably. One more for today ... James Manfred OBE; Patron Saint of Vault who "Suffered for his perversions." Martin Parsons - Calhoun Despairs: The Scotland Yard veteran, plagued by nightmares, consults the decades old dossier on the murder of James Manford, OBE, by the Cannibal of Russell Square tube station. Meanwhile on TV a succession of vacuous presenters showcase the nightly dose of real life tragedy as entertainment. Really sad.
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Post by samdawson on May 23, 2021 16:03:19 GMT
Hi Ken
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Post by jepersonoatcake on May 24, 2021 2:10:21 GMT
Hello there!
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Post by dem bones on May 24, 2021 7:57:31 GMT
Continuing the pessimistic mood of Calhoun Despairs; depending on your POV, the outcome of this next is either irredeemably miserable or life affirming.
Ken Shinn - Glad It's All Over: A Children of the Damned update. The thirty scary youths have been nurtured to survive every eventuality. Controlled exposure to nuclear radiation has achieved immunity. To all intents and purposes, they are immortal. Mission accomplished, the species is secured! The boffins have considered every eventuality — except one. Matthew, gifted even above the others, has realised he can withdraw from the project whenever he so chooses.
Selene Paxton-Brooks - Tansy's Poppets: Lily the librarian receives a surprise parcel in the post — a home-made book of spells, charms are rituals culled from various sources by late Aunt Tansy. What a load of rot. "You touch my book and I'll cut out your gizzard," she playfully and, alas, fatally admonishes Peter, her flatmate and best friend. Taking Lily at her word, a crew of ghastly types desperate to obtain the scrap-grimoire, slaughter the young man on his bed and make away with his eyes. Needless to say, lily is by now a confirmed believer in Aunt Tan's 'mumbo jumbo' and consults the book for a spell to return Peter to life.
Another winner. I like the accompanying illustration of Lily and her poppet guardians, too.
Jason D. Brawn - The Interview: A wealthy Oxford graduate quits a lucrative career in finance to seek poorly paid menial work he surely can't need as caretaker of (I think) St Patrick's cemetery, Leyton. Why would he beg for such an opportunity? How come he's not eaten for days?
With no other applicants for the post, Fribbins hires our man on a trial basis. Accepted! Once the gravediggers have clocked off for the day he can get down to his real work. Sure enough, his suspicions are confirmed. Those abnormal footprints leading to desecrated graves are a dead giveaway. The Loughville mob are back in business!
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Post by 𝘗rincess 𝘵uvstarr on May 24, 2021 11:57:52 GMT
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Post by dem bones on May 25, 2021 11:17:42 GMT
Darrell Buxton - Luxuriate Effervescently: Eerie that I was only just thinking: "If there's one thing this anthology lacks, it's a fridge on the rampage story." The opening of the Dentley & Soper department store in Derwent coincides with a spate of mysterious disappearances among local residents. How cheering to see the old Grace Brothers building put to such good use.
James Stanger - Just A Click and the Agony: Post-Apocalypse Britain. We join Gavin, a Traffic Warden turned trigger-happy Emergency Law Enforcement officer, as he tackles looters, pedestrians, women, and similar undesirables on the streets of what's left of Sheffield. The Far Right indulge their Master Race/ Concentration camp wet dreams. The Bramell Lane pitch now a mass funeral pyre. In a word, bleak.
Ken Shinn - A Bloody Nuisance: Last time we caught up with Inspector Calhoun, he seemed on the verge of ending it all. Happily, during intervening stories, the great man has rediscovered the tenacity saw him come through that frightful business with the Victorian cannibals on the London underground - and all thanks to an old adversary! Stratton-Smith, ever one to nurture a grudge, lets loose fancy dress vampire Count von Plasma to put the bite on the meddlesome Scotland Yard man. Calhoun, furious at being shoved around in his own home, puts on a terrific show - so much so that the Ultraviolet wallah's grant him carte blanche to cherry-pick a new squad to tackle the increasing V-menace. A nice one for RCH fans - he is well represented in this collection.
Ian Taylor - A Voodoo Flavour: How Squire Hamilton's traumatic exposure to voodoo rituals in Haiti decided him to re-open the family tin mine on his return home to Cornwall, workforce courtesy of the local cemetery.
One to go. Would probably be a bit glum about this were it not for the fact that BHF #5 awaits.
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