The Animals Praise the Antichrist

Alex Older
Crashed Moon Press

It's time to write it all down. I don't know how much longer I'm going to stay. I'm writing it for me and I'm writing it for you, even though you'll probably never see it. I'm talking to you, Christa, and to no one else.
Filled with yearning for lost love, writing against the backdrop of a world in chaos, Alex records an intimate account of his time with Christa, his half-Swedish girlfriend, who disappeared seven years earlier in opaque circumstances.

I was first alerted to this book via David Tibet (of Current 93) enthusing about it on his Instagram page after which Alex very kindly sent me a copy for review and I'm so very glad he did.

With it's roots in the stories of the likes of, in particular, Alan Garner and also in the work of folks such as M. John Harrison and Joel Lane and in the post punk politics of the late 1980s Older has constructed a poignant, supernatural love story of the doomed (not a spoiler) romance between two outsider teens both from neglectful homes who find common ground in their shared love of music and their animosity towards the casual cruelties of the world around them.

As the two - Alex and Christa - meet and develop their relationship and as their mutual alienation from their peers and their families deepen other forces are gathering in their town, grey clad figures with a seemingly intense interest in the two, and in Christa especially, move into the area en masse and the inevitable crossed path becomes a revelatory experience for the couple.

Older takes a refreshingly sedate approach allowing the pair's romance time to establish and develop before its eventual severing (still not a spoiler) and the cataclysmic events that surround it.  The peripheral characters are lightly sketched with just enough detail to intrigue and their motivations, actions and the events they instigate remain as enigmatic as they are catastrophic.

It's a remarkably mature first novel that wears it's influences, or perhaps I should say heritage, on it's sleeve and incorporates it's more unusual elements into the mundane with very satisfying subtlety in what is a spellbinding read.

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The Trials of Koli: Rampart Trilogy 2

M.R. Carey
Orbit

The Trials of Koli is the second novel in M R. Carey’s breathtakingly original Rampart trilogy, set in a strange and deadly world of our own making.
Beyond the walls of Koli’s small village lies a fearsome landscape filled with choker trees, vicious beasts and shunned men. As an exile, Koli’s been forced to journey out into this mysterious, hostile world. But he heard a story, once. A story about lost London, and the mysterious tech of the Old Times that may still be there. If Koli can find it, there may still be a way for him to redeem himself – by saving what’s left of humankind.

I loved the first book of this new trilogy from Mike Carey and had high hopes for this second one that were well met.

Set in a post-apocalyptic 'Ingland' where the population is greatly reduced following 'The Unfinished War' and live in increasingly isolated villages in a country covered in genetically modified plants and animals all of which have a hankering for fleshy, tasty humans.

Thrown out of his village in the first book for purloining some very rare tech - a (subsequently sentient) music player - from the vaults of the controlling family, Koli falls in with a travelling medic and a young girl who'd previously been part of an apocalyptic death cult.

Book 2 continues their travels towards London and we get to meet more of the denizens of the world in the form of the army of the powerful village of Half-Ax and the gentle fisher folk of the lagoon.  We also get to see what was happening back in Koli's former home as Carey flips the narrative over to tell Spinner's story as Koli's childhood friend also finds herself at odds with that self same controlling family and the soldiers of Half-Ax.

What we have is verty much the middle book in a trilogy that tells a solid and enjoyable road story in the same warm, affectionate and engaging style of the first that drops in just enough hints of what's to come to whet the appetite for the series finale.

Buy it here - UK / US.

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City Under the Sea

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West,
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave, there is a movement there!
As if their tops given death
His undivided time.

Known in the US as 'War-Gods of the Deep', 'City Under the Sea' is a Vincent Price helmed movie from American International Pictures home of Price's Phibes movies as well as Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe movies to which this owes much of it's genesis, parts of it's title and flashes of it's script including that opening quote above which paraphrases Poe's poem, 'The City in the Sea' and was one of a number of movies produced by the studio that was lumbered with a Poe related title - see also 'The Conqueror Worm' the entirely irrelevant US title of 'The Witchfinder General'.

Tab Hunter plays mining engineer Ben Harris who along with (Mary Poppins' David Tomlinson) Harold Tufnell-Jones FRA (Fellow of the Rooster Association) is plunged into the submerged city of Lyonesse in pursuit of landlord's daughter Jill Tregillis (Susan Hart).  There they meet Sir Hugh (Vincent Price) and his band of  smugglers who along with their subservient 'gill men'  have been hiding in the sunken city kept alive by the rejuvenating gases of the increasingly active volcano upon which the city is built.

It's an engaging enough romp and there's a decidedly low budget feel to the movie that rarely ventures beyond the confines of the studio. Price is uncharacteristically subdued here leaving much of the scenery unchewed whilst John Le Mesurier cuts a delicately sympathetic figure as the Rev Jonathan Ives. Hunter in his first starring role makes for a clumsy lead as does Hart but Tomlinson is well within his comfort zone as the buffoonish Tufnell-Jones.  The movie makes a valiant attempt at replicating the appeal of Jules Verne stories such as '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea' but ultimately falls far short thanks to a lacklustre script and some uninspired direction from Jacques Tournier, here making his last film after a career that included such highlights as 'Cat People' and 'Night of the Demon'.

 

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Queens of the Abyss: Lost Stories from the Women of the Weird

Mike Ashley (ed)
British Library

It is too often accepted that during the 19th and early 20th centuries it was the male writers who developed and pushed the boundaries of the weird tale, with women writers following in their wake—but this is far from the truth. This new anthology follows the instrumental contributions made by women writers to the weird tale, and revives the lost authors of the early pulp magazines along with the often overlooked work of more familiar authors. See the darker side of The Secret Garden author Frances Hodgson Burnett and the sensitively-drawn nightmares of Marie Corelli and Violet Quirk. Hear the captivating voices of Weird Tales magazine contributors Sophie Wenzel Ellis, Greye La Spina, and Margaret St Clair, and bow down to the sensational, surreal, and challenging writers who broke down the barriers of the day. Featuring material never before republished, from the abyssal depths of the British Library vaults.

I've read a fair few of these British Library anthologies now and generally (as is often the case with anthologies) they've been a bit of a mixed bag but leaning towards the good and this one is no exception.

Firstly let's address the word 'Lost' in the title. Yes, for the most part these are all pretty damn obscure stories buut I'm not sure you could ever describe Marjorie Bowen's tale of selfishness and indolence, 'The Bishop of Hell', which I probably have in at least a dozen anthologies in my collection.  May Sinclair's 'The Nature of the Evidence' whilst certainly being more obscure than Bowen's tale again hardly counts as a 'lost' story.  The others though are far less anthologised, some deservedly so, but some proved a real treat.

Mary Braddon's 'A Revelation' opens the book in classic Victorian style all familial intrigue and visions from beyond the grave.  It's a solid but fairly uninspiring sort of story. Marie Corelli has a more religious side on display with her story of love, betrayal and forgiveness in the naively charming 'The Sculptor's Angel' whilst Edith Nesbit follows a similar route but with the forgiveness spurned in 'From the Dead'.  Frances Hodgson Burnett's 'The Christmas In The Fog' is a purportedly true Xmas tale of her travel across the Atlantic, it's very Dickensian and very dull whilst Marie Belloc Lowndes gives us a love story that's too convenient by half.

Alicia Ramsey's 'A Modern Circe' is a slight folklorish tale of seductive witchcraft and murder which would probably have been dragged out to novel length these days but it's quite long enough here.  Greye La Spina's vampire tale 'The Anti-Macassar' on the other hand would have benefitted greatly from more room as what is a sprightly and enjoyable story is almost spoiled by a jarring ending.

We slip into science fiction for Sophie Wenzel Ellis' 'White Lady' as a young man falls in love with a plant he's invented much to the dismay of his fiance.  It's suitably silly but if that premise sounds your sort of thing then I'd rather direct your attention towards Valancourt Books' reprint of Ronald Fraser's fabulously bonkers 'Flower Phantoms'.

G.G. Pendarves - who I'm sure I've read before but can't quite place - provides a real highlight with the creepily brutal 'The Laughing Thing' whereas Lady Eleanor Smith's 'Candlelight' was a witty but ultimately rather pointless farce.  Jessie Douglas Kerruish provides a fun tale of 'The Wonderful Tune' that raises the dead but Margaret St Clair's science fiction tale 'Island of the Hands' just felt out of place.

'The Unwanted' of Mary Elizabeth Counselman's rural Alabamatale is enjoyably daft but with a gentle heart before the book ends strongly with Leonora Carrington's fabulously odd 'The Seventh Horse'.

As I mentioned it's another strong entrant into this series but as has been the case with each of the others I've read it's a little patchy although as I've said often before what didn't work for me may well prove to be your favourite and if you've an interest in strange tales of the early 20th century then you really should be exploring this series.

Buy it here - UK / US.

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Legend of the Werewolf

One of the very few films made by Tyburn Film Productions,`The Legend of the Werewolf ' is a fun and occasionally funny romp very much in the tradition of the classic Hammer films but made at a time (1975) when such films were already seeming pretty old hat alongside US contemporaries such as 'The Exorcist' and 'The Texas Chain Saw Massacre' as well as UK movies like 'Death Line'.

Found running wild in the French woods as a child Etoile had been raised by wolves before being adopted by a circus family and displayed as the 'Wolf Boy'.  As an adult Etoile (David Rintoul - who I think many parents among you will recognise as the voice of 3 Peppa Pig characters including 'Dr Brown Bear') runs away to the city and finds work in a zoo alongside the keeper (Ron Moody).  There he falls in love with a prostitute (Lynn Dalby) but develops an irritating habit of growning hair, fangs and claws and snacking on her clientelle.

Directed by Hammer (and Amicus) veteran Freddie Francis from a script by Anthony Hinds (son of Hammer's founder William Hinds) who also wrote 'The Curse if the Werewolf' for, well, I'm sure you can see the pattern for yourself by now, starring Peter Cushing and with a cameo from Michael Ripper the links to the venerable studio were numerous and overt and the end result is an enjoyable last gasp of the classic British horror.

 

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V for Vendetta

1st March 2022 marks 40 years since the publication of the first issue of Warrior magazine featuring, amongst others,  the very first episode of Alan Moore and David Lloyd's groundbreaking 'V for Vendetta'.

Telling the story of the anarchist revolutionary 'V' as he unleases his plan to take down the fascist 'Norsefire' government that's come to power in the UK following a limited nuclear war that's left much of the world in ruins. He does this concealed behind the iconic imagery of Guy Fawkes and with the (often unwitting / unwilling) help of his young protege Evey.

'V for Vendetta' was to live long past Warrior's demise in early 1985 with DC comics reprinting and completing a coloured version of the story between September 1988 and May 1989 and then of course there was the movie adaptation in 2005. 

Despite the superhero trappings 'V' is a far more complex character than was the norm in comics at that time and his actions throughout the book are often, at the very least, morally ambiguous as Moore led the charge to drag mainstream comics kicking and screaming out of it's comfortable little rut. Indeed one of the things that made Moore's work on 'V for Vendetta' so impressive is that he was doing it at the same time as he was writing other pioneering strips such as 'Marvelman' (later 'Miracleman') and 'The Bojeffries Saga' for the same magazine, 'D.R. & Quinch', 'The Ballad of Halo Jones', 'Skizz' and a barrel full of 'Future Shocks' for 2000AD, 'Captain Britain' for Marvel UK and 'The Saga of the Swamp Thing' for DC.  He even made time to release a 7" single with David J of Bauhaus as 'The Sinister Ducks'.

So, Wyrd Britain would like to take this opportunity doff our capotain hats to thank Moore, Lloyd and the team at Warrior and then DC for bringing us one of the seminal stories of modern comics.

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The Devil Rides Out

For Hammer, director Terence Fisher had a definite penchant for the classics having filmed various stories featuring Dracula both with and without his brides, Frankenstein and his various problematic patchwork monsters, mummies, werewolves, operatic phantoms, both faces of Dr Jekyll, the gorgon and even a couple of outings for Sherlock Holmes where the so called 'great detective' entirely fails to notice that he's transformed into Sir Henry Baskerville in the second one.

In this, one of his final films, Fisher introduced us to the aristocratic occultist 'Nicholas, The Duke de Richleau' (Christopher Lee) in an adaptation of Dennis Wheatley's 1934 novel.  Here, the noble Duke and his good natured compatriot 'Rex Van Ryn' (a dubbed Leon Greene) spring to the aid of another friend 'Simon Aron' (Patrick Mower) who along with the glamorous psychic 'Tanith Carlisle' (Niké Arrighi) has fallen under the influence of satanic high priest 'Mocata' (Charles Gray).

Often cited as Fisher's best movie it certainly is a fantastically entertaining black magic romp filled with magic circles, spells, demonic conjuring, high speed chases and timely interventions. The script by 'I Am Legend' author Richard Matheson is breathless and it's cast, also featuring future prime minister Paul Eddington, are faultless with Gray in particular dripping with malice - as an aside I heartily recommend you take the time to watch him eat a ghost in 'The Gourmet'.  I have always thought the ending to be something of a cop out but it's not a huge problem given how much fun the rest of the movie is.

Buy it here - UK / US.

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The Secret of Dorian Gray

Co-produced by regular Jesus Franco producer Harry Alan Towers, the man behind the series of 'Fu Manchu' films based on the books of Sax Rohmer and starring Christopher Lee, 'The Secret of Dorian Gray' was an Anglo, American, Italian, German attempt at relocating Wilde's novel into the world of late 1960s London in what they describe on screen "A modern allegory based.on the work of Oscar Wilde".

European movie heart-throb Helmut Berger makes for a suitably callous and narcissistic lead ever youthful and rampaging across Europe in a hedonistic, orgiastic, spree as, back home, hidden away in the attic his portrait degenerates. Supporting him are two screen stalwarts in Richard Todd (Asylum, House of Long Shadows) as the artist 'Basil Hallward' and Herbert Lom (The Pink Panther) as corrupting influence 'Henry Wotton' both of whom help distract from the sometimes clumsy acting and dubbing of various members of the cast.

Admittedly I'm stretching my own rules here as this is barely a British movie but to my tastes it's mix of 60s Italian eroticism and the permissiveness of fashionable, swinging London with Wilde's fin de siècle classic makes for the perfect amalgam. And, combined with some fabulous set and costume design, the cinematographers eye of director Massimo Dallamano (who had worked with Sergio Leone on both 'A Fistful of Dollars' and 'For A Few Dollars More') and an amazing soundtrack from Peppino de Luca & Carlo Pes - played by I Marc 4 - this is a real favourite around here.

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Ghost Story

Three years after he made his directorial debut with the Jekyll and Hyde adaptation 'I, Monster' for Amicus Stephen Weeks took matters into his own hands with a script he co-wrote with Philip Norman and Rosemary Sutcliff that locates itself in that most classic of settings, the haunted house.

Three university acquaintances meet up at an uninhabited country pile for a weekend of shooting. The mismatched trio, wet and needy Talbot (Larry Dann), bullying Duller (Vivian Mackerrell) and aloof McFayden (Murray Melvin), are, we soon discover, barely on nodding terms and have been gathered together to test whether their presence in the house will bring forth the ghost. Living up to his name the blunt Duller, despite his fervent desire to see a ghost finds nothing but frustration and boredom,  MacFayden is unsettled but it's the sensitive Talbot who via a creepy porcelain doll is thrown back in time into the middle of the avaricious and incestuous history of the previous inhabitants of the house, brother and sister Sophy (Marianne Faithfull) and Robert (Leigh Lawson) and their maid Rennie (Penelope Keith) along with the doctor (Anthony Bate) and Matron (Barbara Shelley) of the nearby asylum.

'Ghost Story' was obviously made on a budget much of which I suspect was used up on the odd decision to film mostly in India.  Weeks does conjure up an effectively creepy atmosphere via some unusual camera angles, some effective visual sleight of hand and a great score from Pink Floyd collaborator Ron Geesin but the film is poorly lit and let down by some truly desperate acting from the main cast and, particularly in the early part of the film some clumsy attempts at comedy.  It does have its moments though and as it builds to a climax there are some very effective moments including one sequence that put me in mind of the glorious hallucinatory ending of the Ealing classic 'Dead of Night' and in the final reckoning 'Ghost Story' provides some entertaining no budget creepiness.

Buy it here - UK / US.

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I, Monster

After Hammer studios had three goes at turning Robert Louis Stevenson's classic novella 'Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' into a movie ('The Ugly Duckling', 'The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll' & 'Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde') each time without particularly bothering with the actual story Amicus decided to have a sneaky go at it despite not actually owning the rights.  To do this screenwriter (and studio head) Milton Subotsky decided to change the names of the main characters along with the title but keep most everything else the same, pretty subtle right?

In this version Freud obsessed psychiatrist Dr Charles Marlowe (Christopher Lee) invents a potion that "destroys the super-ego" rendering people either utterly docile, or competely amoral.  It's not long - following two human tests and an animal one that makes this very much not a film for cat lovers - before Marlowe is testing it on himself whereupon he transforms into a grinning, psycopathic, hedonist named Edward Blake.

'I, Monster' has long had a poor reputation mostly due to it's studio bound and slightly talky script and Amicus were never at their best when parroting Hammer's gothic pretentions but with a strong central performance aided by typically solid support from a much underused Peter Cushing and some fairly bog standard support from the reliably terrible Mike Raven it's a solid enough adaptation that's perhaps slightly over-reverential of the source material making it drag a bit as he stretches the story out to fill the run time.

Buy it here UK

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Bloody New Year

It's 1987 and in an improbable series of events five English teenagers and one American find themselves shipwrecked on an island after fleeing an angry trio of be-denimed fairground workers named Dad, Ace and The Bear.  On the island they discover a hotel all decked out to celebrate New Year, in June, where they each experience inexplicable events before falling prey to the spirits in the hotel and the angry fairground folk.

The cast are uniformly terrible and as such you'll be glad to see the back of them and will care little when they meet their timely demise.

This was the fifth and final horror that director Norman J. Warren made between 1977 ('Satan's Slave') and 1987 and is certainly the weakest.  It has some dumb fun ideas but unfortunately they're all ones we've seen before in better movies by the likes of Fulci and Raimi but if you think of it as a big silly tribute to the various things and folks it's cribbed from then it makes for a fun, relentlessly daft, ride.

Buy it here - UK / US.



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Don't Open Till Christmas

Someone is offing Santas in this wonderfully terrible 1984 slasher directed by and starring Edmund Purdom.  

Featuring a brief cameo from Caroline Munro this is a low low budget, barely cohesive (or coherent) attempt at the video nasty market that is neither gory enough nor T&A enough to work.  Various Santas are subjected to some inventive ends whilst the murders are investigated by the most inept coppers this side of Keystone but uninspired acting and directing means it never really gets going although it does trigger some unintentional chuckles along the way.

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The Maze

Here we have another episode from the early 1980s ITV series 'Shades of Darkness' which featured elaborate period pieces adapted from ghostly tales from the heyday of the genre by authors such as May Sinclair, Agatha Christie and Walter de la Mare.  'The Maze' was written by the lesser known C.H.B. Kitchin and revolves around Catherine Frode (Francesca Annis), her husband Arthur (James Bolam) and her daughter Daisy (Sky Macaskill) and an unexpected visitor (Duncan Preston) from Catherine's past within the garden maze of the her childhood home.

Directed by Peter Hammond, who'd cut his teeth on shows such as 'The Avengers', 'Out of the Unknown', 'Tales of the Unexpected' and 'King of the Castle' and who would go on to direct a number of episodes of the various Jeremy Brett 'Sherlock Holmes' series, this is a sumptuous and subtle ghost story of love and redemption which along with 'The Intercessor' is one of the stand out episodes of the series.

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The Alchemists of Sound

Established in 1958 by Desmond Briscoe and Daphne Oram the BBC Radiophonic Workshop's purpose was to create innovative sounds to be used in radio and television shows. Now most widely remembered for it's groundbreaking work on Doctor Who  the Workshop provided startlingly innovative sounds and music for countless shows.

This documentary, first shown in 2003, gives a fascinating overview of this treasured institution and provided a timely celebration of the various talents that found a home there giving many of us a first glimpse of the people who had quickened our pulses and fueled our imaginations.

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War Games With Caroline

The inaugural series of the long running kids drama show Dramarama revolved around - happily for us here - 'Spooky' stories. We've featured episodes from the series on Wyrd Britain before - see here and here - and this episode, 'War Games With Caroline', was the one that launched the series.

It's 1982 and Kevin (Wayne Norman) is obsessed by war and war games and with a desk full of 'Warlord' comics who is once again in trouble for it and stuck in detention with his sniffly teacher Mr Lilly (Adam Bareham).  Visiting the teacher to prepare for Founder's Day is an old teacher Mrs Rawley (Faith Brook) whilst Kevin gets visited by a student, Caroline (Lucy Durham-Matthews), who insists it's 1944 and who's worried about an imminent German doodlebug attack on the school.

While some of the acting is of the usual drama school type and the story is a little obvious there's much to like here especially thanks to director John Woods who conjours up some nicely spooky vibes through his simple but effective use of a very mobile camera, some unusual camera angles, a fabulously bizarre corridor scene that would have felt very much at home in an episode of Sapphire and Steel and some great use of shadows that make this ghostly timeslip tale well worth a watch.

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