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Post by andydecker on Oct 18, 2022 18:29:20 GMT
Frederick Cowles - Fear Walks the Night (Ash Tree, 2011, Ebook)
Content:
Fear Walks the Night
Punch and Judy
The Florentine Chest Variety Show Princess of Darkness
Death of a Rat The Echo of a Song
The House in the Forest Goosefeather Bed Christmas Eve Three Shall Meet
Lisheen Voodoo Drums The Strange Affair at Upton Stonewold Gypsy Hands The End of the Lane Twilight
Do You Believe in Ghosts?
Afterword by Neil Bell
After discovering Cowles only in the last years I became a bit addicted to his work. How someone can write so many well done stories in his spare-time just for fun is beyond me. Even in the lesser works he is so easy to read, and it would be unfair to dismiss him just as some James imitator. There are so many ideas and concepts which have seemingly - or for real - have been used by later writers. By now I often wonder if he was required reading for 70s horror writers.
Fear walks the Night: Evening at the Benedictine Order. One of the monks reads Haunted Churches by Elliott O‘Donnell. The talk goes to hauntings, and Father Cuthbert tells a tale. In 1908 Cuthbert is studying in Cambridge. His friend Israel Jung develops an unhealthy interest for seances and Lambton Priory, an abandoneded house of the Knights Templar. The last Prior, Simon de Lacey, was blinded by the saracens and a satanist. Jung moves in and holds a seance. Bad idea …
Three quarters of a century later some elements are more than familiar. Regardless this is a suspenseful tale with a nice but strangly contemporary in parts ending.
Punch and Judy - The narrator meets a down a down on his luck Punch and Judy performer who looks slightly deranged. The man claims to be haunted by the ghost of dog. Then he tells his terrible story of jealousy and cold-blooded murder …
As someone who has never seen a live Punch and Judy performance it is hard to understand the cultural background - are these still done? - but here it is just kind of a back drop. As often familiar elements and the too lazy ending are made better by some unexpected twists.
The Florentine Chest - Dean Casson of a Cambridge College buys an antique Florentine chest in 1870. Soon unwholesome rumors circulate in college. The silhouette of a woman is seen behind the windows of the deans room, there is the tapping of high heels on the floor. The bursar investigates the mysterious chest and discovers the terrible curse which leads to suicide …
Very Jamesian setting and the story is one of the longer ones, still it is colourful and would have made a good movie.
Variety Show - Traveling sales man Faber enters a haunted music hall. More an short episode than a fully plotted story. But the haunting is nicely creepy.
Princess of Darkness – The narrator Gorton is sent to Budapest in 1938 on a secret mission. He is to investigate of the mysterious Princess Bessenyei. Is she an enemy spy? Much worse, she is a vampire. With the aid of native Professor Nemetz our British agent goes on the hunt …
Another mini Hammer horror, but with a good twist at the end.
Tbc
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Oct 18, 2022 19:21:33 GMT
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Post by andydecker on Oct 19, 2022 17:48:30 GMT
What is this? A cover of a book? |
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Oct 19, 2022 18:00:32 GMT
What is this? A cover of a book? An image I made with the Dawn AI app. But I agree, it should be the cover of a book. |
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Post by andydecker on Oct 19, 2022 18:25:17 GMT
It is well done. Could be for some Venetian themed anthology.
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Post by Jojo Lapin X on Oct 19, 2022 18:32:06 GMT
It is well done. Could be for some Venetian themed anthology. I did not do much. You simply supply Dawn AI with a text prompt. Sometimes the most startling images result. |
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Post by andydecker on Dec 28, 2022 14:45:29 GMT
Death of a Rat – All runs smoothly in a large factory. The narrator – the Medical Officer of the plant – witnesses the horrific events. The new assistant secretary, a hated guy named Fielding, starts a take-over after the death of his superior. He starts a power struggle with the general manager Marsden. Marsden resents his mobbing efforts and uses black magic to get even. Considering Cowles‘ usual settings this is a rare tale of black magic in contemporary business. It is pretty gruesome for its time. Interesting from today's standpoint is how modern this feels. Maybe not the death curse with the rat, courtesy of those nice Tibetan monks, but the rest. The Echo of a Song – A writer lives in a house at the West Midland Canal. During winter he witnesses a murder on a barge, a drunken and coarse seaman kills his girl. But the barge vanishes, was it a ghost-barge? Later the writer comes across the murder in a pub, who brakes down and confesses. More a weird tale than a ghost tale. There is some nice atmosphere and again a well-chosen setting, but the ending is lame.
The House in the Forest – The narrator remembers how as a child he, the son of a dilpomat, was living in Vienna in 1910. The eleven year old boy stumbles upon a haunted villa complete with a beautiful lady. Compelled he visits again but meets a crooked hunchback not bigger as a child of five. The hunchback tries to kill him, ripping his limbs off like he demonstrates with a bird. The lady saves the boy. After the war as an adult he visits Vienna again and discovers the sad story of a beautiful princess who was married to an jealeous husband who ripped her arms and legs off.
Again it it Hammer Time for Cowles. A great story. The set-pieces are memorable and so well executed, the violence is unexpected and pretty graphic for its time. Again Cowles uses some history to embellish his story, this time the still famous story of Austrian Mayerling. The tone of the story is like so often with this writer a bit uneven, it begins like a fairy tale with a young boy, really still a child, which gives the whole an innocent but creepy atmosphere, and suddenly it turns into something out of Terror Tales. The ending with the necesserary explanations is arguably a bit awkward, but Cowles manages a well-done and unexpected - at least for me - last line. Like so many of Cowles' stories this would have made a nice period horror movie. Actually it still does. This is as un-Jamesian as imaginable.
Tbc ...
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Post by helrunar on Dec 28, 2022 15:20:23 GMT
Interesting comments, Andreas! I liked the Cowles stories I read when I got the book out of the library. I had to return the volume before reading all the tales. Your remarks are prodding me to add the electronic version to my device. The stories will be nice to read on my commute.
Wishing you all the best for 2023,
Steve
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