Casting the Runes by M.R. James

Casting the Runes is a short story that first appeared in the collection More Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M.R. James in 1911. I will also be discussing, though in less detail, the 1957 film Night of the Demon which was based on the story.

Written review below. Video review here:

The story starts with some letters. And boy howdy is it confusing. First off, it’s one sided so you only are getting replies of denied submission. Second, for some reason, in the letter, the association name is blank. Council of the —— Association. So, we don’t even have the context of who the submission is for to help us understand. Third, I don’t know if the man responding is the secretary or his name is last name is Secretary. It’s capitalized and his wife is referred to as Mrs. Secretary. I’ve noticed with these creepy stories from the late 1800s, early 1900s is that they often start very convoluted. You are introduced to people who you think will be the characters in the story but are actually a vehicle for the story being told. I assume it is a written form of the fireside story which before cheap pulps and magazines was how people told these tales. It is jarring for a modern reader, and I’ve learned that it’s best to just go with the flow. Don’t try to figure it out as it’s happening, just keep reading and it will eventually make sense…in hindsight.

So, our antagonist and I think, main character is Mr. Karswell. He is a grumpy eccentric who submits a paper called The Truth of Alchemy to the Council of the —— Association which is denied. He is upset and wants the name of the man who denied him. That man’s name is Mr. Dunning.

Everything is told second hand. If this was a court of law none of it would be inadmissible. This is what his neighbors have to say about Karswell: Nobody knew what he did with himself: his servants were a horrible set of people; he had invented a new religion for himself, and practiced, no one could tell, what appalling rites; he was very easily offended, and never forgave anybody: he had a dreadful face, he never did a kind action, and whatever influence he did exert was mischievous.

It is later revealed that Karswell also wrote a book called - History of Witchcraft and at one point, in order to keep the children out of his yard he invited all the neighborhood kids to his house to show them a lantern slide in which he showed them gruesome realistic images and did spooky noises. The last few slides were of a boy on his property being chased by a horrible hopping creature in white who eventually catches up to the little boy and tears him to pieces.

A story is told of a scathing review that Karswell received for his book History of Witchcraft by a man named John Harrington. Harrington later died in a freak accident where he fell from a tree branch. What was he doing up there? It looked like some manner of beast had been chasing him.

So, as you can see, Mr. Dunning, the man whom rejected Karswell’s paper, may have some trouble coming for him.

The story switches to Dunning’s perspective and here is where I feel the main narrative starts. He sees an advertisement on the train that states, “In memory of John Harrington, F.S.A., of The Laurels Ashbrooke. Died Sept. 18th, 1889. Three months were allowed." He finds it upsetting and inquires about it. After getting in contact with the company’s ad man he is told that no advertisement like that has been submitted so they have no idea how it got there and even more mysterious, the ad has disappear.

While doing research in the Select Manuscript Room of the British Museum he hears someone whispering his name. He quickly turns to look and in the process knocks all of his papers off the desk. He picks them up and is tapped on the shoulder. A man standing there hands him a paper, “May I give you this? I think it should be yours.” Dunning thanks him and later on we learn from the library assistant that the man’s name was Karswell. Oh no! He knows exactly who the man is and has no desire to have further contact.

Alone at home that night in bed Dunning hears the door to his study door opening. He gets out of bed to have a look. I guess “an economical suburban company had decided that their light would not be required in the small hours, and had stopped working, or else something was wrong with the meter.” AKA the lights aren’t working.

He gets back in bed and when he reaches under the pillow and he finds “a mouth, with teeth, and with hair about it, and, he declares, not the mouth of a human being.”

Dunning’s sanity starts to crack. He consults with some friends. He brings up Harrington and the strange ad. His friend states that he should find the brother of Harrington as the man as stated that he suspected something amiss in his brother’s death.

Harrington’s brother Henry tells of his brother receiving a piece of paper from a strange man during a concert he was playing. Upon looking at said paper later on that night he saw that it contained Runes. They quickly go to research Dunning’s Rune paper. The two decide that the evil is in the paper, and to have ownership of it means death. They now realize that they must give the paper back to Karswell to break the curse.

And there it is. Can the two men get the paper back into Karswell’s hands?

So yeah, some fascinating concepts going on here. M.R. James was a medievalist scholar who was known for throwing ancient folklore into his ghost stories. I love the idea of a cursed paper being passed but the acceptor having to willingly accept it. Also, I couldn’t help but notice similarities with the movie The Ring. Person receives cursed item and has a countdown to their ultimate demise unless they can pass it on.

Unfortunately, the story doesn’t have too many visually creepy moments other than the demonic beast face that is only hinted at under his pillow. It’s even creepier as it’s physically impossible, which gives it a real otherworldly feel. I guess there is also the creaking door opening to his study in the middle of the night and the images of the monster in white following the boy in the picture slides and then tearing him to pieces. That visual is super unsettling. But all three were slight mentions of the horror. There is an ominous dread but with the story being so short it really doesn’t have time to build or fully develop.

The movie on the other hand amps up the visuals with the iconic giant demon. At its core it’s almost the exact same plot only more concise at the beginning and way more fleshed out. They change Dunning into a psychologist from the United States named Dr John Holden, who is in town to debunk Karswell. He is a Houdini type character who travels around demystifying the occult by exposing and explaining how they do it.

Holden doesn’t believe in magic, hexes or witchcraft. The characters in the short story do believe in the existence of black magic. In fact, they take it very seriously. I think it makes the story more rich to have the protagonist not believe in it so that way as the story goes they are talking you into it also. If you went into reading the short story and were a skeptic it makes the threat feel less threatening.

Some other changes in the movie include; they make Harrington’s brother a sister, so there could be a woman in the story. That was a good move. In the scene with the neighborhood kids party he isn’t scaring them on purpose, it’s just a regular party and he’s dressed like a clown. He does cause a wicked windstorm but that’s only to show Holden that he’s for real. Karswell’s mother is in it and she’s very ambiguous as to whose side she is on, which is kind of a weird addition but it does give them the opportunity to set up a séance scene which was fun.

So, yeah. Read the story first it’s only twenty pages long. It’s a public domain story so it’s everywhere. I’ll put a link for one of the online postings. The movie is also available for free on youtube. I’ll put that in the description also. If you are looking for an old school creepy story with occult flavor this is it. And the movie is pure old school black and white comfort. Sometimes movies from that era can be a bit slow with too much dialogue but Night of the Demon is perfectly balanced. And wait until you see that demon. It’s iconic for a reason.

Joyride- Ronald Francis Patrick/ Stephen Crye

Today we are going to be talking about Fathom Press’s recent reissue of an obscure and much coveted horror classic, Joyride by Ronald Francis Patrick, originally published under the pseudonym Stephen Crye by Pinnacle Books in 1983.

Written review below. Video review here:

Pinnacle Books was the mainstream publishing wing of sleaze/softcore publisher Bee-Line Books. Pinnacle is one of my favorite publishers from the 70s and 80s as they cranked out all kinds of fun and exploitative pure pulpy genre fiction so it’s no surprise that they were responsible for giving the world Joyride which is nothing but guiltless fun.

Following the release of the movie Halloween in 1978 the horror movie market was flooded with seemingly supernatural maniac killers out for horny teenage blood. Yes, I know there are many movies before Halloween that one can posthumously credit as a slasher film, the Hershal Gordon Lewis movies, Psycho, the Giallo films, and definitely my beloved Black Christmas, the direct inspiration for Halloween itself. But to me, just my opinion here, all of those movies were steps up a mountain that led to the top and at the top is Halloween where all of those influences converge into one and exploded into a prism in which all of the slasher genre that followed is directly related back to. The slasher template had unknowingly been created and as the 80s rolled in the genre was now exploited to maximum impact for monetary returns on motion picture investments by every low-budget producer out there. And what a moment it was for horror fans. How can such a basic premise repeated over and over be so enjoyable? Like a Ramones riff, the brilliance is in its simplicity and execution and there is no reason to stray too far from the formula. Other than Michael Myers from Halloween who was just born bad, the standard trope of the slasher killer is at one point they were wronged or felt that they were wronged. Years go by and the victim of yesteryear is now an unhinged adult set on revenge, either to the exact people who scorned him or to stand-ins like in Joyride where as a teen he was bullied and now that he is an insane adult, any teenager will do.

As many fans of vintage horror paperbacks have come to realize, a slasher novel is as rare as the killer actually being dead at the end movie. Why is this? In the introduction to this edition of Joyride, Will Errickson from Too Much Horror Fiction Blog and co-author of the horror reference book Paperbacks From Hell, tries to answer this mystery. Which we will leave untouched here as to not steal the man’s accolades. What I will mention from the introduction though is Ronald Francis Patrick’s background; he was born in Richmond Indiana in 1950 and died in 2004 at the age of 54. Will states in the introduction, “it seems he and perhaps his family worked in the funeral business” which is indeed the setting for Joyride. Patrick also worked as an editor in a publishing house which released genre fiction (probably Pinnacle). He wrote one other novel, Beyond the Threshold in 1978 which also has a funeral home setting and a lead mortician character. There is a bit more info in the intro, some speculating and conclusions drawn from Will in which he received by talking to a friend of Ronald Francis Patrick. There is literally no info online about the author so the material in Will’s intro is invaluable.

Let’s talk about the cover art real quick here. The original is boss as fuck and in an unprecedented move on the publisher’s part, the scene is actually from the book. Rare but not impossible in the case of vintage horror. The artists were two Serbian illustrators, Sonja Lamut and Nenad Jakesovic.

The new Fathom Press edition cover art is glorious in its own right with its foreboding blue and blood red stormy sky as the ominous killer Cleats hovers over the open grave. It is painted by Stephen Andrade, yes painted by hand, and guess what? Also, a scene from the book. I appreciate the directness. We’re two for two here.

So now lets talk about the contents.

The book starts with a chapter of our deformed antagonist killing a dog.

I’m sure it was terrible. I didn’t read it. Justin from Fathom Press warned me it was there and that I should probably skip it as he knows my disdain for animal abuse in books. Trusting Justin’s judgement I skipped. I’m assuming it’s supposed to be an absolutely wicked scene to set up just how soulless our killer is. Having not read the scene I didn’t have the killer introduction and I think that made the book more enjoyable. Because in the next chapter when the two car loads full of high school kids pull up to the cemetery gates, I have no idea what fate awaits them. Well obviously, I know they will be slashed but it is more mysterious this way and less of an inevitable countdown. Also, the shock of the first kill isn’t wasted upon a defenseless dog which is only sickening but a human making it more relatable. The killing of a human being puts me in the place of the character and I am now in the story. The killing of the dog is watching from the outside. What I am saying here is two things, 1- skip the first chapter. 2- if you are a horror writer don’t kill animals in your stories. Shit sucks.

So, once again, our story begins with two car loads full of teenagers looking for somewhere to party after their high school graduation practice. They pass by All Saints Hill Cemetery and see a perfect prospect. It’s a massive place filled with many isolated spots and no prying eyes. We meet the kids and get a whiff of their personalities. If you’ve ever seen the 1988 movie Night of the Demons it was very similar to that. The group is an unlikely pairing of jocks, rebels/criminals, virgins, sluts, nerds, a kid and some fat guy named Twinkie.

And right off the bat we get our first kill. One of the girls is a goody goody who knows they shouldn’t be trespassing and after a brief argument with her mismatched friends she has decided to leave and walk the few miles back into town. But when she gets to the gates they are now chained and locked. Even though it will out her friends she goes to find the cemetery warden to let her out. She comes upon a shed with a light on inside. She knocks. There is no answer. What’s this in the bushes? A mutilated dog! She screams and the shed door bursts open. Standing at the threshold is a giant man holding a sickle—that guy on the cover!—who is referred to as Cleats. Because of the shoes he wears. Is there urban lore background of the spooky disformed guy who lives at the graveyard that the kids set up? No. Who has given him this nickname? We don’t know. Look, it doesn’t matter. His name is Cleats and kills kids. Let’s go. She takes off running as he stalks after her and we are balls deep in slasher territory and it just feels so right. She makes it to the fence and tries to climb over. He catches up with her and chops off her head. Pure gore fest goodness.

And so it begins.

What more is there to say? It’s a perfect slasher. You know the formula. A couple goes off to fornicate. Slashed! Kids go snooping where they aught not. Slashed! Kids partying. Slashed! Kids running. Slashed! Kids fighting back. Slashed! The kills are creative and elaborate with pretty much a different instrument of destruction used for each execution. The suspense is built in their ability to try and survive. Another tick on the list of slasher tropes is that you know one of these kids is walking out of here. Which one will it be?

We do get a different take on the slasher backstory that moves away from the movie template though. Usually, a slasher is very linear. We start off the movie with the injustice—the spark that created the monster—but in Joyride we get interposing snippets of what made our man Cleats lose his shit. His backstory is obvious and somewhat basic. He was an outsider in high school who had a crush on the popular girl. He is picked on by bullies, an accident happens that disfigures him and his life is ruined. It’s very similar to the plot of the 1986 slasher movie Slaughter High. Only in Slaughter High the killer gets revenge on the kids, now adults, who caused the accident and in Joyride the killer believes one of these new kids to be someone from his past. It’s also interesting to note that while I was reading movie comparisons kept popping in my head. This scene is like the scene in so and so movie etc. But as I went to write up the actual review I saw the dates on everything and Joyride came first in almost every scenario. So not only is this one of the rare slasher books, at the time, Joyride was also fresh and groundbreaking in that it had new takes on tropes before they had been done to death.

As for the reading experience; the best part about this book is that it’s exciting. It never becomes dull or has any flat spots. It moves at a consistent pace and even though there isn’t much of a plot there, you really don’t need one. The slasher is less about narrative and more about tapping into that primal fear of survival. These are characters who live in the safety of the suburbs, there are no giant predator attacks, no sharks or lions, they don’t live in a warzone or the ghetto, so their fear is fun—what if there was a Boogeyman? The atmosphere is also on point, it’s a graveyard, it’s constantly raining, it’s nighttime, they are locked inside. It definitely tapped into that nostalgia of being a teen and doing things you weren’t supposed to be doing. There are a couple scenes in Cleat’s house which is located in the graveyard. It is a stagnant and repugnant giant Victorian house with corpses at dinner tables. The kids are appropriately stupid kids but at the same time resourceful. I saw some mild complaints online about the dialogue reactions; “Oh my God! No! Please! Don’t kill me!” Etc. What do you want them to say?? It didn’t bother me at all and felt pretty realistic.

Overall Joyride isn’t just a copy on the slasher movie genre, it’s better than a lot of the slasher movies I’ve seen. Some of my favorites include Killer Workout, Iced, Slaughter High, Tourist Trap, Rush Week and of course the two classics Black Christmas and Halloween and I think Joyride is worthy of being on that list. It’s hard to believe this was never made into a movie. It feels like one. If you are looking for more of that good ol classic slasher this is it. This book is quite literally a Joyride. Which would be the only explanation for that title because it doesn’t really make sense.

Riptide by Donald Cheatham

Published by Zebra in 1984

This is the Fathom Press re-issue from 2026

Yes! Another hard-to-find 80s paperback is back in print from Fathom Press. Release date today! May 22nd 2026. With new cover art by Stephen Andrade.

Where to begin with Riptide?? I randomly picked up the original about 8 years ago in a used bookstore in Arizona. I don’t remember which one. Probably Book Maze in Mesa. I paid a couple bucks for it. Two dollars for a ticket on the Riptide roller coaster of insanity. This is one of the wildest books I’ve ever read.

When I made my top ten 80s horror paperbacks video I put this book at the top. Number one. But looking back that was probably unfair as this isn’t necessarily a straight horror book. In fact, when I shared the video to the Retro Horror Paperback Art group on facebook one person commented, it’s supposed to be a top ten horror list not a top ten schlock list. Comments like that usually launch nuclear bombs in my brain but for once I had to give it to them, they weren’t wrong. Riptide IS schlock. It’s not groundbreaking, hell, it mentions the movie JAWS multiple times. It knows what it’s doing but I get the impression that Donald Cheatham really meant it when he wrote this. He didn’t sit down to write, Microwave Sharks, or Sand Sharks or even Sharknado – which, BTW, I wouldn’t be surprised if Riptide wasn’t an inspiration for that movie- Donald Cheatham sat down to write an exciting Gulf Coast tale about the small beach community that he knew and lived in, killer wildlife, and a natural disaster that is always looming over the ocean side residents of Florida. Riptide isn’t JAWS but it’s not Cruel Jaws or The Last Shark either. It’s its own thing and it’s ridiculous and bloody and horny and most importantly it is not self-aware which makes all of the craziness charming. Other than some articles in his local newspapers Donald Cheatham didn’t write anything else besides this book. And let me tell you, this is B-book royalty and though I probably wouldn’t put it at the top of my 80s horror paperback book list if I did it again, it would definitely get the number one spot on my top ten absolute fun list.

Our hero in Riptide, and I use that term in the loosest possible sense, has a backstory that sounds like it would have been an action-packed crime thriller best seller. Michael Stark was a St Louis cop who took on a sniper serial killer in a long and drawn-out manhunt. The killer was someone from his past who was now massacring innocent people in St. Louis for a wrong he believes Stark did to him. The sniper’s body count is hilarious and gives you a little taste into what is to come; pregnant women, children Etc. Stark has a downtown shootout with him near a floating McDonald's on the river. St Louis people…did you really have a floating McDonald’s in the early 80s?? Tons of innocent bystanders get killed. It reminds me of the movie Demolition Man. The case and publicity ruin his life, so he leaves his family and moves to Florida to take this easy job as a detective in the small beachfront town of Surfside.

So basically, Riptide is the after-story of the tough as nails cop who went one-man-army against a psycho killer who is now taking it sleazy in big titty bikini land, sort of battling a giant tiger shark and surviving a devastating hurricane.

A huge part of what makes Riptide so fun is you never where it’s going. There are so many avenues this goes down that will make you literally say, “wait, what?” out loud.

So normally when I do reviews, I do an in-depth set up, talk about the general plot and then what I thought about it. But with the way Riptide plays fast and loose I feel like it might be better to give a little sample of what this book has to offer. I mean the basic set up is- ex St Louis-super cop gets new position in beach town, meets a plethora of smoking hot to trot ladies that he must navigate through, he has to catch a rapist on the nude beach, and there is a giant tiger shark eating people but in the end it doesn’t matter because a catastrophic hurricane is about to kill ninety thousand people. And we’re there for all of it. Crime, horror, sleaze and disaster novel all rolled into one.

Right away we get our first shark kill. A man sitting on the edge of a dock, completely out of the water is attacked when a rushing explosion of sharp-teeth shark-mouth chomps down on his leg and drags him in; a gurgling scream reaches no one’s ears from under the surface of the water.

Our hero Stark shows up at his new Surfside precinct. Yes, our hero’s name is one letter off from the word shark in a book about a killer shark. Stark is taken aback that not only is his superior Liza Sallings a woman, but she is also incredibly hot. You are probably wondering about her bra size. Well don’t worry because Cheatham lets us know it’s a 36D. These first two chapters are the perfect introduction to this book. Here is what’s on the menu, insane shark attacks and porn stars playing the roles of professional career women and neither ever lets up.

Let’s take a quick look at a small sampling of the insanity:

A shark chomping off a person’s head

A bus full of the elderly drowned

Hurricane winds blowing people’s skin right off their bodies

A guy riding a shark

A hurricane orgy with a death count

Undercover at the nude beach

Shark-Stark staring contest

Fires, floods, tan lines, no tan lines, hammerheads, hangovers, legs, pubes, killer pebbles, orgies, guns, tiger sharks, Jaws references, snakes, boobs, police work, bikinis, mothers and children eaten by sharks, incest twins eaten by sharks, cheating wives eaten by sharks, tourists eaten by sharks who are then immediately eaten by a bigger shark, and surprisingly lots of factual information on the ocean, sharks and hurricanes.

I’m going to go a little more in depth from here on out. If this book sounds like something you want to read already, stop reading right now and go buy it from fathompress.com. If you want to hear a little more and don’t mind lite spoilers- as if you could spoil this- stay tuned because there is no way I am not talking about the nude beach scene. I have to tell someone. It’s one of those things.

So, after we get our character introductions, we get Sallings in the world’s smallest bikini driving her and Stark in her yacht/houseboat out to a shipwreck crime scene. We get Stark watching ladies play with their pubes on the nude beach through binoculars from his 20th floor condo. Of course we get interspersing shark attacks throughout all of this. Stark and Sallings start to put together that there is a very big shark behind all these gruesome ocean events. Stark goes out with Sallings and meets a group of her hot younger friends who all want him. Being the good guy that he is he only takes one home. Stark finds a dead body on his first trip to nude beach. When he goes to see the medical examiner to discuss the body, surprise, it’s a woman and she is flirty and pretty hot. She suggests Stark go talk to this shark expert who happens to be in town. You all aren’t going to believe this. Are you ready? It’s a woman and she is smoking hot. She is wearing a thin little low-cut dress and much to Starks’ delight he could see that she was suntanned but didn’t have any bathing suit marks. Hello nude sunbathing Dr. Shark Expert!

From the very first chapter the looming threat of this giant hurricane is approaching. We start to get chapters from the Weather Institute perspective. I’m no meteorologist but Cheatham drops a lot of technical weather data here that sounds completely legit. Also, because it’s his style, there is a young woman who works at the institute trying to get her male co-worker’s attention by not wearing a bra to work. It’s insane! It is literally a sentence about her not wearing a bra at the end of a paragraph about the oncoming hurricane.

During the hurricane finale there are many inventive and hilarious kills but one of my favorites is there is a group of beach party people who decide to have a hurricane party which then turns into an orgy. While a man and woman are going at it, a hurricane wind blows the door off the building and the man who was on top goes right into the cement wall but the woman who is so in the moment doesn’t notice and keeps thrusting her pelvis in the air even after the man is gone.

The hurricane in this book is where I believe Sharknado might have got its premise. Obviously, the town floods during the storm and now we have killer sharks swimming through the streets. Now at the time this was written I don’t know if this was an original idea or maybe a Florida urban legend but in reality, this is something that is extremely rare. And they don’t go around munching people. I saw a few articles about it online. It actually has a bigfoot type legend around it. Google “hurricane shark” and you’re in for a treat.

And finally the undercover at the nude beach scene.

Though our focus has pretty much been on this dang shark eating people up and Stark meeting ladies for some reason we now have our Police Chief yelling at us about catching this rapist on the nude beach. Um. Ok.

Stark and Sallings need to take care of business, and first order of business is heading down to that nude beach to look for clues. You can’t be walking around in your clothes on nude beach asking questions; everyone will know you are cops. So, you must go undercover as nudists. AND it’s going to be a rough job, so you better take super sexy Hispanic officer, Juanita Hernadez.

Down at the beach Hernandez pops it all off and starts piling suntan lotion on. Stark goes next. She starts rubbing oil on him, including a close up of his backside. Sallings is next. The carpet matches the curtains. We take a second and admire all three bodies. Wait isn’t this a book about a killer shark?

While naked and combing the beach looking for clues, a group of dolphins is spotted and mistaken for sharks. But wait! A little boy watches a giant shark jump out of the water and eats a dolphin. A little girl is sitting in the water smacking it with her shovel to get the dolphins to come to her. Hold on! Hold on! Stop the review. What the hell are children doing on the nude beach?! Did the author forget where he was? Yes, he did because Stark happens to notice the shadow of the giant shark heading for the little girl, so he grabs her and scoops her into the air as the shark comes almost completely out of the water and on to the beach. Yes, naked Stark swinging and swaying holding a five-year-old girl in the air while a 20-foot tiger shark is snapping its jaws trying to get a delicious human in its mouth.

Stark puts the girl down and starts hitting the shark with a piece of driftwood. Still naked, mind you! And then throws a couple rocks. This makes the shark angry. It slides back into the water. But as Stark is walking down the beach they notice the shark is following him. Back and forth. Now it’s personal! The two stare each other down. Eyeball to Eyeball. Finally, Hernandez shows up with the bathing suits and automatic rifles but it’s too late the shark has swam off.

Need I say more?! Go buy this book now!

The Rig by Ronald Wilcox

The Rig by Ronald Wilcox

Published by Leisure in 1978

Written review below. Video review here:

Ron Wilcox was born in Holladay Utah in 1934. He attended Brigham Young University and has a master’s degree in arts from Baylor University. He was an actor and a playwright. He wrote four plays and appeared in over sixty. He published one novel, this one, The Rig. He has been a consistent contributor to Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought since the 1960s which featured his poetry. Much of it of a religious nature including an epic poem apptly titled Mormon Epic and Mormon Epic II.

A great white Kenworth was gliding through the desert night. Easing the Roadranger transmission into high thirteen, the man inside lit up a cigarillo, settled in for the long haul.

He seemed sane enough, to himself- a good old boy, a trucker. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore. But something was wrong, terribly wrong. His eyes took on a kind of blankness, cold as the white Bonneville salt flats.

Cold as midnight.

The story starts on Interstate 80 just east of West Wendover Utah. An unnamed trucker is hauling is brand new rig, an acquisition courtesy of his deceased wife’s insurance policy. He sees a VW Bus broken down on the side of the road. He slows down. It’s a woman with a flat tire. Inside the van are her three kids.

The women is relieved to finally see some help out here. She asks the man for help but he only stares. She tells him that her husband is also a trucker and could he maybe radio in and tell him the situation. He ignores her again and pulls a shotgun up the edge of the window. She is now terrified and starts praying. The kids want to know what’s going on. She turns to try and change the tire herself.

Our protagonist, her trucker husband Larry Hatcher, CB handle: True Grit and his friend Axel are at a truck stop an hour down the road. Their rig broke down and they are waiting for mobile mechanic Attila the One to fix it.

Here we get set-up and back story through dialogue. It’s incredibly colorful and completely manly trashy trucker conversation which jumps back and forth from wholesome family talk like Larry’s relationship with his Mormon wife Jean and how he is thinking of converting for the kids and banging lot lizards and truck stop hookers like the one who happens to double as their waitress which his horny friend Axel and some other truckers indeed do take to the storage room and hire her services.

Hey Larry, come join in the fun!

No, no, I can’t. Jean will be here any moment. Plus it would be wrong.

Annnnd… gratuitous gangbang scene on a truck stop waitress hooker. It surprisingly has some detail to it. I had heard Ronald Wilcox was a practicing Mormon when he wrote this so I was really amazed at this graphic and very not-marital sex scene. It gets weirder also. Larry mentally justifies it, pros versus cons, and then dives right in. While he’s pounding away a call comes over on the CB, a pregnant roller-skate has been in a bad accident.

A pregnant roller-skate is trucker lingo for VW Bus. So yes, while cheating on his wife with a prostitute Larry gets the bad news. This thing is skanky already!

Thankfully we don’t get to watch our unnamed antagonist take out Larry’s family. What we do get though is a scene post-murder of our psycho killer; miles away he pulls off the side of the road, puts on an all-black cowboy outfit complete with six shooters, walks out to the pasture and shoots every cow in the field. Then he jerks off. Then he pulls out a knife and cuts off one of the udders. He then hangs it on a hook next to a woman’s severed breast in his frozen meat delivery trailer.

This is a nasty little introduction!

So, what IS the plot here?

After the death of his family Larry is stricken with not only sadness but guilt over what he was doing at the time of their death. He quits working, starts drinking heavily and puts his house up for sale. He doesn’t want to be alive anymore. His buddy Axel tries to talk him into doing a run with him by taking Larry out for some pick-me-up pancakes. A stranger comes and sits at Larry’s table while Axel is in the bathroom. The man says he is a trucker also and wants to join Larry and Axel. No thanks, dork. Stranger insults Axel and leaves.

Our protagonist and antagonist have now met but, number one Larry doesn’t know his family was murdered and number two he has no idea that this looney is the one who did it.

Down the line Larry takes on a job where he has to ride along with this guy who has a name now; Langley. He doesn’t remember him from the pancake house, but he can tell right away that he doesn’t like the guy. Larry assesses him as a wannabe. A poser. He is dressed like he thinks truckers should dress. He overuses trucker lingo. He notices that he is trim and fit probably from lifting weights which in Larry’s mind is for soft men who don’t have that natural masculinity. I’m paraphrasing but daaamnn.

Langley wants nothing more than to be Larry’s best friend. Or just be Larry in general. If you’ve seen the movie The Cable Guy it’s like that but with a serial killer and brutal violence.

This book in general is incredibly suspenseful. The writing is fluid and real, it’s working-class prose and dialogue which means, it’s accessible. Though I am generally the target range audience for this book, it is very specific to truckers. Lots of terminology and culture. In fact, the author almost has a Langley type worship about truckers. He talks about them in the same way people talk about war veterans. Like truckers are hardened soldiers out there on the front lines risking their lives for their country.

But at the same time, there is some very interesting psychological study into the serial killer mind here that predates a lot of the concepts that are now widely known in mainstream culture.

Even though he consciously commits these murders he is also detached. At one point he reads a newspaper article about Larry’s family being killed. He's upset that a fellow trucker whom he considers his brother has been so hurt. Even though, he's the one who did it. Not that he acknowledges that. He decides he's going to find him and help him out. In order to get Larry in a position to need his friendship he takes fiendishly prepared steps, and it works. The Langley character is like an actor playing the part of a regular person. His mind is in two places at once, one taking part in what is happening and the other watching from a distance.

I loved this book so much and though I want to talk about the third act I am just going to leave it completely untouched. The Rig is a book that needs to be re-issued. It’s trashy but clever at the same time. It never slows down or lulls in momentum. This is one of those rare moments where the book is rare and sought after AND it delivers. This is Cape Fear on eighteen wheels drenched in the height of the trucker culture exploitation era of the 70s. It’s filled with brutal violence. It’s a working-class psychological thriller that gives it a noir tone. The every-day-Joe takes on Silence of the Lambs.

My only complaint about this entire novel is the two main characters’ names both starting with the letter L; Larry and Langley. It’s a small gripe and one that doesn’t affect the enjoyment but it will make you stumble every once in awhile and have to reset.

Chainsaw Terror by Shaun Hutson

The basic backstory of this novel is that a young Shaun Hutson was doing well in the horror paperback publishing world. He had four best-selling novels, Slugs, Spawn, Erebus and Shadows. He was approached by his publishers to write a novelization of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Unfortunately, the rights were more than the publishers wanted to shell out so they said, what the hell, just give us your own chainsaw horror novel. Shaun threw in some other grisly power tools and submitted Chainsaw Terror. The year was 1984. The stores refused it. This was the era in the UK of the video nasties so to have a book suggesting murderous chainsaw violence was a no-no. The publisher, Star took it and rebranded it with the generic title, Come the Night in 1985.

Not exactly as graphicly enticing as Chainsaw Terror. These days the novel, in either form, is rare but particularly in the case of the pulled version of Chainsaw Terror. So, once again to the benefit of vintage paperback horror lovers worldwide, Fathom Press got the rights and republished it under the original title, Chainsaw Terror in beautiful and nowhere near dead mass market paperback size. It also has new classic 80s horror movie homage artwork painted by Stephen Andrade. Justin says that it SHOULD be out by the end of February 2026. Give the man a break if it’s not, he’s at the whim of his printers. Click on this FATHOM PRESS link to purchase.

Video review here. Written review below.

The year is 1978. We are right outside London. A young lad named Ed Briggs is watching TV when his workaholic handyman dad comes home early from work. Hello son, where’s mom?

Mom is upstairs packing her bags. She’s had enough of this loveless marriage. She’s met a new man and in his arm’s is where she will be from now on.

Dad is not into this new arrangement and lets her know how he feels about it with physical violence. He smashes a silver mirror and with a sharp sliver of mirror he repeatedly stabs her. After her last breath escapes her lips, he takes the sliver and slashes his own throat.

At the bedroom door young Ed has been watching in fascination the entire time. The scene is written in pure graphic violence and gore.

The year is now 1983. Ed and his sister Maureen, now adults, are still living in the house. Ed took over Dad’s handyman business. We get a sample of modern-day Ed and his opinions on women. He is on a handyman job, and the woman is being flirty. Asking about his girlfriends. MOCKING HIM. Or so he thinks. He feels embarrassed and humiliated, which makes him angry. Why do women act like that? Because they are sluts who need to be put in their place. It seems Dad’s handyman business isn’t all that Ed took over from his father.

You know what woman doesn’t act like that? Maureen. His dear younger sister Maureen. She’s the kind of woman that Ed could appreciate if you know what I mean.

But poor Maureen does not feel the same way. She hates living with her creepy brother who is always relating them to a married couple. Ed is stifling, controlling and jealous, which is no good because Maureen has met a man and wants to move in with him.

Before Dad died, he sound-proofed the home. He hated outside noises. Maureen finds living in the home depressing. Like living in a vacuum. No sound gets out. The only thing that exists while you are in the house is the people inside. Every sound is pronounced and loud. Dripping water. Creaking Steps. It really sets the tone of trapped isolation.

Ed has made some adjustments to the house himself including peepholes to watch Marueen take baths. While creeping Ed thinks to himself, no one turns him on like Maureen. They belong together. If she were ever to leave, he doesn’t know what he’d do. He goes down to his workshop cellar to contemplate some more. He plays with his chainsaw.

Maureen is done with Ed. He hardly talks. He isolates himself from the world. He makes her very uncomfortable. While venting to her Derbyshire boyfriend Mike, he invites her to come live with him. Finally, Maureen sees an escape, but she is afraid of her brother’s reaction. When she gets home, she tells Ed right away.

Out comes the cleaver and he starts hacking. One in the neck. Chops off her hand. Chops off her head and holds it in front of him. He gets turned on by her headless corpse lying on the floor. Ah man, please don’t go where I think this is going.

Thankfully, not that far but still absolutely brutal. This is total gore described in excruciating detail. Her body and bits gets shoved into a plastic bag. Her decapitated head is taken into their parent’s room and set on a pillow where he gently whispers, “I told you you’d never leave me.”

And there it is, Ed is now an up-and-coming serial killer. Maureen’s boyfriend gets it next when he comes searching. It’s enjoyable to Ed because he was Maureen’s lover but what he’s really looking to do is punish some more women. Typical incel behavior.

We cut to our protagonists. Dave Todd is a reporter doing a story on the seedy side of SoHo. Sex shops, strip clubs and hookers. Dave has made friends with two ladies of the night, Valerie and Amy. We get some emotional investment here as the author shows the beautiful ladies as the wonderful human beings that they are. Shaun Hutson ain’t no incel, he knows what’s up. From a reader standpoint though we know that’s no good. These ladies are probably going to get it.

The writing in this book is vivid. Very colorful. Like if prose was neon lights.

Ed visits SoHo to pick up ladies. He wants to bang them in front of his dead sister’s decapitated head. Different strokes for different folks, right? Being the weirdo that Ed is, he will tell the hookers his real name. What difference does it make, they won’t be around to tell anyone anyway. Or maybe that’s just how off he is.

Let’s stop for a second and check on how Maureen’s head is doing.

“It was in an advanced state of putrefaction now. The skin had lost that waxy sheen and was now dull and flabby. The eyelids were closed, covering the eyes which were now almost fluid- soft mushy balls which looked like coagulated grease. One ear had withered like a flower exposed to flame and the eyebrows and lashes had come away in places. A clear fluid had trickled from both nostrils and solidified on the drooping top lip. The cheeks were sunken, a piece of bone showing through on the left side.”

The rest of the book follows the same trajectory. Ladies go missing. Dave Todd, the reporter, is reminded of a brutal murder he once read about involving someone with the last name as Ed. Dave and Valerie are on their own as they try and figure out what is going on with the missing women and the connection to this son of a murderer.

This is a straight slasher movie. It's one of the adult slashers though. No kids at a camp. This is grimy big city streets. It’s sleazy with it’s neon lights and porn shops and pimps. The ladies working the streets doing what needs to be done and some just like it and that’s just the way it is. In this way it reminded me of an old Men’s Adventure Magazine shocking supposed true feature of the life of a pro. “We just do it for kicks, you suburban squares!”

It’s not cartoonish. There aren’t masked supernatural stalkers with cool theme music. It’s cold, real and unsettling. Taxi Driver meets Driller Killer.

And it leans hard into the gore. We’re talking about Hershell Gordon Lewis type stuff right here.

“Edward was panting for breath. He steadied the McCullough (the chainsaw) and, with a shout of pleasure, drove the monstrous blade forward. It ripped into her, pulverizing the delicate flesh, tearing upwards through her body, the barbs hacking effortlessly onward as he pushed, driving further as they began to churn through her intestines. Blood sprayed in all directions. Now he wrenched it free, briefly hearing the drone of metal on bone as it crunched her pelvis and lower ribs into a thousand splinters. Entrails seemed to snake upwards like the bleeding tentacles of some stricken octopus and a stench so rank it made him sick, wafted up from the riven cavity of her stomach.”

It spends time with the brutality. It's weird to think this was from the 80s. It feels like it was written yesterday with how much it nails the atmosphere. In a modern day lens, it’s easy to look back on slasher movies and pull out all the stops but this pulled it off in the era.

I've never read a horror book like this and to be honest, extreme horror is not my cup of tea. The detailed chunkin’ and cuttin’ up of bodies is a wading pool of gooey guts here. That being said, it’s from the 80s. Their extreme is not the same extreme you would get in some modern day books who fly the extreme flag.

My personal favorite aspect of the book was the sleazy SoHo street-walker parts. If this story was told strictly from their perspective, it would read more like an erotic serial killer thriller. As is though, if you are a fan of the gloriously bloody heyday of 80s slashers, this is the book you’ve been looking for.

The Wilds by Julia Teweles

The Wilds was originally published in 1989.

This is the Fathom Press reprint from 2025.

I interviewed the author, Julia Teweles! The interview is after the review in the video. The written review of the book is below.

Ex-high school driver’s ed teacher and mountain climber extraordinaire turned camp counselor, Gordon Hollos arrives at the Sierra Nevada Mountains to take the kids on the annual hike into the wilds for the ominously named Wolf Gulch Ordeal. He questions why he is even there. Last year they lost a kid. He got left behind and when Gordon found him his stomach was ripped apart by what looked like a wild animal. But what animal would do such a thing and not remain with its kill, he couldn’t figure out. He knows the history of the mountains and ponders on the dread and disaster that has happened in the past. The Wolf Gulch Ordeal passes through the very area that the Donner Party were trapped in.

The Donner party was a group of settlers who in 1846 left their home in Illinois to travel to the new and prosperous California. Due to some bad directions, they got behind on time and didn’t arrive at the mountains until late October. Through the journey in the mountains the snow started to fall and they were trapped. Running out of food and supplies they resorted to eating their dead.

And here we have the first taste of the threat of the antagonist. Mother nature. Gordon alludes to the mountains being cursed. The ghost stories that are associated with the mountain. Is it supernatural or is nature being nature? He has a bad feeling about this year’s hike, but he also knows that if he doesn’t conqueror this feeling right now it will be with him his entire life.

We then meet the kids.

Del is fifteen and six foot four. He’s the popular leader, handsome and strong, all set for a future life of success. He’s genuine and cares about his fellow smaller campers. He feels the need to protect them but also lets them know who is in charge.

Kyle is what will be Del’s competitor for lack of a better word. They are friends but it immediately becomes complex. Kyle has an overbearing father who demands he man up. He doesn’t want a wimp for a son so he signs him up for this strenuous hike through the mountains. Kyle hates his father and at times he feels like not only is Del pressing him like his dad but Del is also the son his dad wishes he had. Kyle is resourceful though and when it comes down to it he can take care of business just like Del. He also has a very dark backstory that adds to the suspense when things start getting desperate.

Speaking of backstory’s our driver’s ed teacher turned camp counselor Gordon once beat the shit out of some smart-ass kid and lost his job for it. How will he react when trouble comes?

It’s hike day. Gordon and newbie camp head director Jerry Dugan gather the kids for a rousing preparation speech. Gordon is dark and serious warning of the very real dangers of the mountain. To make sure the kids are taking it seriously he peppers in a ghost story of the remaining member of the Donner Party; a large German man-eater wandering the wilds looking for stray campers. Jerry is inexperienced and ready for some fun and not thrilled with Gordon’s approach of keeping the kids in line.

The kids are of varying ages and there are lots of kid shenanigans; sneaking liquor, capture the flag, canoe-joust, campfire stories etc. Through these we learn their personalities. There are about ten of them I believe but for the sake of a shorter review we won’t break it all down. I will mention here is where we see the first conflict between Del and Kyle which will propel the narrative later on.

Up the mountain we go. We’re having a great time.

Along the way Del is lured into the woods off the trail. He thinks he hears a babbling brook and wants to see it. He's almost mesmerized. He gets lost almost instantly. He feels like a fool. This is exactly what Gordon had been harping everyone about over and over. He stumbles through the brush looking for an exit and almost falls off a cliff. Are the Wilds trying to kill him?

Our first moment of the possible supernatural tension. The feeling of being disoriented in the forest, the paranoia of what is unseen. The way your mind starts playing tricks on you. If you’ve even been in this scenario, you know how real it is. Wonderfully written and completely eerie.

Next day Gordon forgets his canteen and Kyle offers to go get it. Del says he'll go with him. Kyle doesn’t want to be near Del. He's still mad about the capture the flag incident. He's shitty to him so with hurt feelings Del heads back to the others. Kyle finds the canteen by a river. He jumps in. While in there he thinks he sees a bloated purple face and hands reaching for him. He heads back up the mountains to regroup but gets lost. There is an incident and now the kids and adults are separated.

Del immediately takes charge. It’s a shorter distance to keep going than it is to go back. It starts snowing and decisions must be made. And here you have bulk of the Wilds.

The kids are lost and running out of food. We have the Donner Party seeds planted from the beginning. The narrative hints at supernatural but it could also be madness. We have the ghost stories of the mountains. We have character backstories of grey shade morality waiting to reveal true self when pushed to the limits. This is a very suspenseful thriller. The moments when decisions are being made that will literally determine life and death are intense. I love how far down the characters get. They shed their societal personalities and become something more primitive and animalistic. What is inside each of us when survival is it stake? How does being in this predicament affect your mind? And always out there in the shadows is the threat of something not of this world or is it all just part of the madness?

The prose is easily digested, clear and concise. As the book goes on the chapters get shorter. I don’t know if this was on purpose or a happy accident but it really makes you feel like time is running out.

Panic by Chris Curry

Pocket Books 1994

Chris Curry is actually prolific horror author Tamara Thorne.

Video review here. Written review below.

Panic starts in the year 1964. October 1st. It’s a chilly fall day in the fictional Californian town of Santo Verde. The leaves are turning autumn shades and falling from the giant oak tree into the front yard of our seven-year-old protagonist Ricky’s country home. A peaceful time for most folks but unfortunately for Ricky, he has “the sight.” A gift passed down through his Scottish ancestors. When he looks out his window, he knows those aren’t leaves dancing and bobbing around in the wind. They are the Greenjacks; impish little creatures who exist partially on our plane of existence as spectral entities seemingly comprised of misty air. Ricky is the only one in his family who can see them for what they really are. And they know that he can see them, so they taunt him from the windows. “Icky Ricky…Come out and play.” Luckily, they cannot harm him from their cross dimension unless it’s Halloween night. That is when the Greenjacks can enter our world.

They bond together into a giant treelike entity called Big Jack. If they catch someone unconscious, they can enter their body and remain in our world while the soul of the person is banished into the Greenjack world. Or that is what Grandpa Piper says when he tells young Ricky and his twin brother Robin the family folktale. Because the jacks and the pipers are forever connected.

Robin doesn’t have the site and doesn’t believe the Greenjacks are real. At the same time, he also kind of wishes it were true. He wants to trade bodies with the Greenjacks as he was born without legs. If he were a Greenjack he could run and dance around the tree like the legends say.

Halloween night comes. The jacks have converged into Big Jack. Only Ricky knows and is terrified. While playing a practical joke on Ricky, Robin falls from the window and is knocked unconscious. Also at the window is Big Jack.

The next day Robin starts to act strange. He is smiling fiendishly at Ricky while licking their mom’s hair and pajamas from behind her back. He seems to be exploring his surroundings as if for the first time. That night Ricky hears Robin go downstairs and silently follows him. Robin has opened the refrigerator and is licking all the food and putting it back. He grabs the carton of milk, takes a drink and spits it back into the container. Ricky knows Robin is gone and replaced with the Greenjack.

And that is the set up. Genuinely creepy. Something about Robin in the refrigerator licking ham gives me the willies. I was all in and would have been completely content for this story to stay in 1964. But it jumps ahead to 1993. Grown up Ricky living in Las Vegas as a professional consumer advocate with a “funny” column in the paper. I can tell you; he probably wasn’t very good at it because Ricky says nothing even remotely funny in this book. He is a pretty neurotic fella. Even in his grown-up years as a father to two children. His son is five. His daughter is sixteen. His wife was killed in a car crash years ago. His parents were murdered. His brother Robin was killed. No wonder the guy isn’t funny.

Anyway! Chris has inherited his parents’ home back in Santo Verde. He’s actually owned it for years but was too frightened to go back. But now that his daughter has turned sixteen he decides Greenjacks be damned, his daughter isn’t turning mature in Sin City and moves the family out to the old farmhouse.

Will he still see the Greenjacks? Was it all just in his head? What actually happened to his brother Robin? Will his son be the next victim or do they have their sites on Icky Ricky still?

The time period will jump from 93 to 64 and further as we get to hear more of what happened to the Greenjack possessed Robin. Both eras pack a punch. Ricky’s white trash elderly aunt lives at the house. She and her shitty husband and moved in after Ricky’s parents died. They didn’t care for the kids, only for the money. She is now borderline senile and talks about how she used to bang Robin.

And how she is STILL banging Robin.

Which Ricky knows is bullshit because Robin is dead. Right?

This book will give you the creeps. There are hidden passages in the walls. Odd things are happening in the house and we still have the jacks dancing around the tree outside.

The flashback scenes with Robin are unsettling. Ricky has to live years with this maniacal imp possessed brother sleeping on a bed ten feet from his. Robin torments Ricky to no end. And the worst is Halloween night because the only thing a Greenjack wants more than to possess a human is to possess a human with “the sight” so they can still interact with their Greenjack family. And it’s almost Halloween again.

The Night of the Wolf by Frank Belknap Long

Originally published in 1972 by Popular Library

American author born and died in New York. 1910-1994.

Here is the video version. Below is the written review.

The Night of the Wolf is a werewolf story told in the first-person narrative from the perspective of John, an archaeologist, house guest and colleague of Professor Margrave. He is also soon to be his son-in-law as he is dating Margrave’s daughter Doris.

One morning upon visiting Margrave in his home office he discovers his head bashed in. In glorious gory detail. My god, listen to these Cannibal Corpse-esque descriptions Frank is throwing down:

“The entire left side of his head- the side not visible from the door- had been crushed in such hideous a way that the bulge of his forehead had become welded to his cheekbones in a continuous ridge of shattered bone that extended to the tip of his jaw. The flesh of his cheek was shredded as if a buzzsaw had passed down over it, leaving thin flaps of skin dangling from a dozen separate splinters of bone that turned what was left of his features into a horrible red-white disfigurement.”

This is on the second page! I’m very intrigued now as I was mistakenly under the impression that the Frankenstein/Dracula horror series were aimed at young adults.

John finds daughter Dorris, gives her the bad news and puts her to bed while he calls for the doctor. He then goes out to the pool to tell the other house guests, married couple Dan and Helen, the bad news. But before he can get it out Helen has just dived in the pool and isn’t coming up. Dan dives in to save her. Something was tangled around her legs. Straps of material attached to a broken staff with a wolf’s head attached. Obviously, the murder weapon, John thinks.

The doctor shows up pale and frightened. He passed a body with its throat ripped out on the road here. Inside the house we find a splatter fest in the kitchen of what was once the house help. Three more dead bodies. What is causing this carnage and why?

After the police leave it turns out Dorris might have some answers. One day not too long ago a strange man came to visit dad. He was “Oriental” she says. Frustrated with the vague detail John asks, “Chinese??” No. Some kind of Easterner. Ok. The man’s name was Ruschna. He met Margrave in Bulgaria. While eavesdropping Dorris also picked up that the man was accusing Margrave of stealing some artifact and that if he didn’t give it back he was as good as dead. Margrave’s house would burn and him and his daughter would die. Margrave states he doesn’t have the item, it was lost in the shipment. Ruschna leaves in anger.

Exciting stuff. We got what looks to be some werewolf action, some mystery, and some absolute bloodshed. Unfortunately, the pacing grinds down to a dreamlike slow punch here even though the plot doesn’t. I have never read anything like this before where I was so intrigued with what was going on but so bored at the same time.

Even though this was written in 1972 the style is early 20th century. The dialogue is frustrating and awkward. Everything is a casual conversation no matter what is happening. At one point a character has been kidnapped. John and Dan are running out the door to the car in pursuit and stop to discuss the need for urgency. They STOP and discuss the need for urgency. John says to Dan, even if you fall down and scrape your knee don’t lie there, get up and keep moving.

There is a part where John is remembering this vague backstory of an archeological dig in Bulgaria where he sees a wolfman shadow in a cave. He sits down to draw it and it takes him five fucking pages to circle around the point. There is all this philosophy and thoughts on what Rembrandt thinks before he sets down to create art and the whole time you are screaming at the pages, JUST DRAW THE FUCKING WEREWOLF ALREADY.

Speaking of backstory, there isn’t any. Or they don’t go into any more detail than that. John and Margrave digging in a cave in Bulgaria and apparently Ruschna was there even though John doesn’t remember him. And that’s it. No mention of what they found. The wolf staff?? Why Margrave doesn’t mention it to John. What the staff means to Ruschna. Why the werewolf continues to attack even though the staff has been found, broken and thrown in a pool and Margrave is dead. Who threw it in the pool? There are a couple scenes where the werewolf is a black cloud of smoke that appears in the house and can psychokinetically start fires. What? Spoiler alert:

After the werewolf is killed with a silver bullet he turns into a dwarf. Ruschna the normal size man at the beginning is now a dwarf.

I usually don’t complain about stuff adding up if the story is enjoyable but this is a muddled mushy mess. It’s raining all day but when they go out to the woods to track the werewolf they notice footprints in the dust and the dry leaves. An hour ago it was raining and now the ground is dry it’s dusty? You take this kind of stuff and add to it the inability to go from point A to B in a straight line and the strange inactive dialogue and it’s a slog.

Some positives though because this Weird Tales royalty we are talking about. I can’t completely slag him.

The gore is poetry. The plot, though filled with many holes, is fun and pulpy. When the action happens it’s on point, just ignore the meandering discourse.

The man lived to be 93 years old. This was written when he was 71 so I wouldn’t let this deter me from reading any of his earlier output. Unfortunately, around this time his career was trailing off, and he ended up living in pure poverty throughout his remaining years. I can imagine as the 70s came in and there was a new style of horror that was prevalent. Belknap’s style probably seemed very antiquated at the time and not yet old enough to have the classic appeal that it has these days.

The Night Creature by Brian Ball

First published by NEL in 1974 as The Venomous Serpent

The Night Creature, which is what I’ll call it since I read the American edition and I’m a ‘Merican, is a 70s British folk horror novel in league with an Amicus or Hammer film. It’s a slow burn. It’s cheeky at the beginning. When I started it and the first-person narrative started spitting lighthearted pseudo-humorous quips I groaned and almost quit immediately. I shut the book and looked over the cover art. I re-read the back synopsis. No, there is no way this is a comedy novel. I read on and am glad I did.

Video review here. Written review below.

Sally and Andy are young lovers who were attending college back in the city. After dating for four short months they quit school and moved out to the rural area of Derbyshire. They rent a barn to live in/open a shop to sell tourist items like ceramic gnomes, discarded junk sold as antiques and paintings that Sally made herself.

One day Sally finds a monumental brass in a collapsed church located in the nearby ghost town of Stymead. What is a monumental brass you ask? Good question my fellow Americans. A monumental brass is an engraved sheet of brass laid into pavement. They were very popular in England though are located in other European nations also. People would make rubbings of the etching and sell them for big bucks.

So, that is Sally’s plan. She makes a rubbing of the brass and brings it home to Andy. The rubbing features a man and a woman but the woman’s face has been carved out. At each of their feet lies a pet. At the man’s feet is a lion and at the woman’s feet is a dog-like creature.

One night Andy wakes up after a horrendous nightmare. While looking at the rubbing now hanging on his wall, illuminated by moonlight, he thinks he sees movement in the woman’s dress and her pet dog. He’s a little freaked but heads back to bed. In the morning, he sees that one of his two kittens is dead. It looks as if a wild creature snuck into the house and attacked it. He thinks back on last night and the rubbing. While inspecting it he finds a bit of blood on the corner. Odd.

Andy is now freaking out and surprisingly enough Sally sort of believes him about the rubbing. They venture back to Stymead to inspect the brass and the church. The few locals that live there eye them slyly from behind their curtains.

This book is loaded with folksy atmospheric descriptions of rural England. After having blundered that intro with lite comedy I was pleasantly surprised to see it head off in this direction. This is heyday 70s Amicus and Hammer horror film era and this book reads just like one of those movies.

Once again Andy is plagued with a nightmare and the scene from the previous night is played out again only this time amped up. The moonlight is lighting up the whole room. The dust floating in the light gives it a dreamlike feel. The dog is now clearly moving but its legs have become snakes. It slithers up the woman’s body to her heart, where she reaches out and embraces it.

I read this right before falling asleep and had dreams of being out in the woods with snakes and small creatures lurking in the dark. It really creeped me out.

This all happens within four chapters and to tell more detail would spoil it.

The couple investigates the history behind the brass further. Their opinions about the rubbing bring tension to the relationship though at times Sally also seems aloof to the situation. What is going on with her? Who are the people pictured in the brass? Are these things that Andy is seeing real?

Like I said this is radiating classic gothic folk horror atmosphere. The barn they convert into their home was built in 1710. All of the roads are thin and winding country roads. It’s raining and overcast in the day. At night the moon is full and bright in the sky, shining through open windows. You can almost smell the earthy air and feel the cool breeze blowing in.

The young characters of Sally and Andy are written perfectly as happy-go-lucky youngsters with not much life experience. They aren’t a bitter old arguing couple. It’s pleasant to spend time with them. Their motives and actions feel exactly what a twenty-year-old couple would do. The characters from the two towns they interact with are colorful in their stereotypical characterizations. The scowling unwelcoming townie. The poor and shabby, superstitious rural yokel interacting with the college educated city youngsters is always an enjoyable trope. A local constable warns Andy, no one would venture to Stymead on May Day. Don’t you know it’s Walpurgis Night?

The evil is mysterious and ancient. It builds its attack slowly from the shadows, each encounter one step closer to the inevitable doom. It’s not groundbreaking but it is classic pulp horror. Subtle and slow with ever building tension. Nothing too graphic though there is some bloodshed. This is one to read at night in the dark with only a book light on.

Shambleau by C.L. Moore

This story first appeared in the November 1933 issue of Weird Tales and was Catherine Lucille Moore’s first paying story. She went by the moniker C.L. Moore to hide her author side hustle from her day-time banker job. It also might have had to with the fact that she wrote the story there. In order to stay busy during a lull she was practicing her typing speed. From memory she started typing the poem, The Haystack in the Flood. After a typo stating that there was a red running figure, she was so amused by the visual that she asked herself, why was the woman running and who was she running from. And with that she dove right in to the opening line of Shambleau.

Written review below. Video review here:

Weird Tales editor, Farnsworth Wright kept a tally on which stories were most popular. Shambleau was the second most popular story to ever be published in Weird Tales. The first being A Merritt’s “The Woman of the Wood.” – note to self. Find that story. Third was The Outsider by H.P. Lovecraft.

Here is what our man H.P. had to say about Shambleau:

Shambleau is great stuff, too. It begins magnificently, on just the right note of terror, and with black intimations of the unknown. The subtle evil of the Entity, as suggested by the unexplained horror of the people, is extremely powerful—and the description of the Thing itself when unmasked is no letdown. Like “The House of the Worm”, it has real atmosphere and tension—rare thing amidst the pulp traditions of brisk, cheerful, staccato prose and lifeless stock characters and images. The one major fault is the conventional interplanetary setting. That weakens and dilutes the effect of both by introducing a parallel or rival wonder and by removing it from reality. Of course, a very remote setting had to be chosen for so unknown marvel—but some place like India, Africa, or the Amazon jungle might have been used…with the horror made more local. I trust your revisions may make Mrs. Moore’s second story as striking and interesting as this one.

—H. P. Lovecraft to Farnsworth Wright, 21 Nov 1933, Lovecraft Annual 8.38-39

And now that you’ve had a master’s review, here is a novice review:

The basic premise: Interplanetary smuggler bandit Northwest Smith is kicking around a small Earth colony on Mars waiting for his connection to arrive. The cries of an angry mob yelling Shambleau pursue a young woman running for her life. Though he is no crusader, he feels for the girl and decides to step in. The mob, angry and confused as to why he would want to protect a Shambleau, eventually dispersed. The girl is shapely and attractive with brown skin, cat eyes, small sharp teeth and what appears to be red hair under her turban. She doesn’t really speak any languages, Smith knows so when he asks her why the mob was after her there is no reply. Northwest decides it’s too dangerous for her on the streets and takes her back to his hotel room. He leaves her there while he goes out to conduct business.

He comes back drunk and surprised to still see her. In his drunken state he revaluates the situation and her banging body in spite of those weird cat eyes. She is flirty. He goes in for the kiss and is simultaneously turned and completely repulsed. He shoves her away, throws some blankets on the floor and tells her, that’s where she’ll be sleeping.

Something is odd about the girl. Why were those town people chasing her? He is starting to doubt his decision in inviting this girl back to his room. She sits in the darkness. Never eats. Eye’s him strangely. Yet, he doesn’t kick her out. Who or what is this strange woman?

And that’s the set-up.

H.P. wasn’t kidding when he commented on the atmosphere and tension. First off it doesn’t feel like a science fiction story. This is horror story straight to the bone. I read that when she first envisioned the character Northwest Smith he was more of a Western character, and that is what this story feels like in atmosphere. Yes, there are Venusians, and we’re on Mars but it has a western flavor to it. Northwest, an infamous smuggler with questionable morality, all dressed in leather, carries his blaster…eh hem, I mean his heat beam gun, sorry I didn’t mean to insinuate that this is Han Solo because… it is. The more pulp I read the more I see the “inspirations.” But there the Stars Wars ends, and the story becomes an ancient mythic horror story.

The woman is mesmerizing. She’s odd but not creepy at first. She was a victim and Northwest saved her life. What is there to worry about? Moore slowly builds that tension though. This isn’t some monster on the edge of the darkness hunting you. This is something that shouldn’t even be a threat, five feet from your bed. Staring at you when your eyes open in the middle of the night. This story will make you uncomfortable. The ending reminds me of how Karl Kolchak would reflect on the story at the end of every one of his episodes. It is an exposition reflection that hints at the nature of addiction. Having something almost kill you, bring you pleasure and the fortitude to walk away.

Caedmon Records released a spoken word version of Shambleau read by C.L. Moore herself in 1980. They knew what they were doing because they even got paperback cover artist Kelly Freas to paint the cover. It goes for around $25-$35 but there is someone selling a Near Mint for $90.

Hear the record here:

Read Shambleau on the internet archive: Shambleau

Bad Ronald by John Holbrook Vance (AKA Jack Vance)

Originally released by Ballantine 1973 as a paperback original.

This review is for the upcoming reissue from Fathom Press on their horror imprint Savage Harvest. It is available for pre-order right now and will be shipping this summer.

Jack Vance was born in 1916 and died in 2013 at the age of 96. He attended UC Berkely. Was an electrician at Pearl Harbor but quit one month before the bombing took place. Crazy how life goes, eh? One small decision and he could have ended up dead and unknown instead of being a successful author still celebrated to this day. Later, he joined up with the Merchant Marine. He wrote jazz reviews for his college paper. He was a Bay Area Bohemian. Built his own house with a hand carved wooden ceiling from Kashmir. Was best friends with Frank Herbert and Poul Anderson. Moved to Chapala Mexico with the Herberts for a while. Lived in a houseboat he built with friends Herbert and Anderson. He was most well-known for his fantasy and science fiction books including the incredibly popular Dying Earth series. He was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerer’s Guild of America whose purpose was to promote the sword and sorcery genre. He is a multiple Hugo and Nebula award winning author. He also wrote 3 mystery novels under the house name of Ellery Queen. As far as I can tell Bad Ronald is only foray into the thriller/horror genre.

Video review here. Written review below:

The basic premise: Pampered incel mamma’s boy Ronald Wilby gets socially rejected and takes out frustration by killing a neighbor girl. Mom builds false wall in their house to hide Ronald. She eventually dies. House is sold, with Ronald still in the walls, to a young family with three daughters. Ronald is bad.

I have a friend who went out with his girlfriend one night. They come home, hang out, watch a movie and then go to bed. In the middle of the night a stranger crawls into bed with them. She screams. The cops are called. They catch the guy. He is a mentally unstable individual. Apparently, he climbed in an open window and was hiding in the shower the entire night. So, every time they went to the bathroom this stranger was in there with them. Hiding behind the shower curtain. Two feet away.

There is something about a stranger in your home that is so much creepier than being accosted on the street. In your home you feel safe. Your guard is down. You are at your most vulnerable. You wouldn’t think that a story told from the perspective of a guy trapped in a walled-up bathroom for pretty much an entire book would be exciting, but you’d be wrong. Vance plays on the vulnerability of the victims. Like watching a mouse dropped into a snake’s cage. You feel the peril the mouse is in though they don’t seem to notice. It doesn’t even realize it’s in danger. It’s stress through empathy. You see through Ronald’s eyes, but you feel through the family’s inescapable danger.

The character of Ronald Wilby is a psychological study into a detached mind. He knows what he wants but lacks the ability or caring to think from someone else’s perspective. The story starts with Ronald and his mother celebrating his 17th birthday. It’s just the two of them in their giant Victorian home. No friends attend. No one mentions that no friends attend. I was reminded of the relationship between Ignatius Riley and his mother in Confederacy of Dunces. Ronald is even described in a similar way; big, overweight and somewhat lazy oaf, who considers himself an intellectual. Though, unlike Ignatius he doesn’t have the mental chops. He works hard on his fantasy book, Atranta though, and his mom has dreams of him being a doctor. There is a lot of delusion going on in the Wilby household.

Ronald is infatuated with his blond classmate, Laurel, who lives down the street. After his birthday party he strolls down to her house in his new safari jacket. She’s out back in the pool with her friends. He creeps around the house and then goes out back. Everyone is polite but pretty much ignores him. He is disgusted by how she acts flirty with the boys he views as beneath him. How dare she stroll around in a tiny bikini. In his head he owns her. The group gets out of the pool and heads out leaving Ronald sitting alone poolside. He broods and simmers in his hate. On the walk home an eleven-year-old girl runs into him on her bike. She has blond hair just like Laurel. He decides to take his lust and hate out on her, drags her out to the woods and rapes her. It’s all natural to him. He tells her maybe they can do it again sometime. She tells him she’s going to the police. He strangles her to death without a second thought. He doesn’t want to go to jail though so he buries the body. Her parents start yelling her name and he panics, leaving his jacket behind.

Back home he tells his mother the girl seduced him and threatened him. Her death was an accident. The mom’s reaction is only worry for her son and his future of being a doctor. The two quickly build a wall that covers up the bathroom downstairs. Ronald will live in there until she can save the money to move them elsewhere.

The cops search for Ronald. His mother tells them he ran off. Ronald lives behind the wall diving further into his psychosis.

Mom dies not too long after. His estranged father, who still owns the house, puts it up for sale. It is bought by a family with three teenage daughters. It couldn’t be more perfect for Ronald.

And there is the set up for Bad Ronald. We spend a lot of time in Ronald’s head as he decides which of the teenager daughters is his favorite and why. Which mouse the snake is going to eat first.

He makes peeps holes to watch better. Associates the girls with the characters in his fantasy world of Atranta. Sneaks out at night to steal food from the fridge or in the daytime to read a diary. Members of the family notice that food has been eaten and items aren’t as they should be but they joke about a ghost or blame it on each other.

Vance nails the narcissistic sociopathic entitlement of the killer. Every other human being is beneath him and only here for his pleasure. He delights in watching them struggle. He gets off when they suffer at his hands. At the same time, he has a twisted reality where he assumes they are in a relationship, and they will eventually go off and live together someday. This isn’t someone who broke into your house to steal some money, he wants you and will kill without guilt or hesitation. He is terrifying.

This is suspense. You’re on the edge of your seat wondering how it’s going to play out. And the best part is that it’s not obvious. This is a dark story and as much as you want to see Ronald taken down, I could see him surviving and it being left open so that he could be in your next house.

Absolutely one of the best reads of the year.

It was made in to a TV movie in 1974. I was hoping it was on youtube for free like most made for TV movies but unfortunately it isn’t. I watched some clips of it and was surprised to see that Ronald was this little twerp. He looks like he’s 5’7 120 pounds. No. That’s not intimidating. The Ronald the book describes and what was in my head the whole time was Vincent D’Onofrio in Full Metal Jacket. Imagine waking up in the middle of the night and seeing that guy in your house. Movie Ronald I could pick up and just chuck through a window. If I walked into the kitchen at night and saw private Pyle going through the fridge I would crap my pants.

Something else that I noticed they changed in the movie, when Ronald kills the girl at the beginning it was on purpose. He knew what he was doing, and it increased the tension for the rest of the book. In the movie he argues with the girl for running into him and then shoves her and she falls and hits her head on a rock. So, it was an accident that only created the scenario for why he was living in the walls. Which, once you take out the sociopathic killer aspect, you kind of just have some little dweeby guy with bad luck living in your walls. Not nearly as threatening.

It looks like it was also made into a movie in France in 1992 called Méchant garçon which translates to, bad boy. Once again, I can’t find it to watch but I did find these French book editions which are way better than their US counterparts. None of them will compare with Steven Andrede has come up with for this edition though. It's not finished but have seen preliminaries and finally this book will get a cover worthy of what's inside.