Specialist 5: Zombie by Errol Lecale

Specialist 5
Zombie
by Errol Lecale (Wilfred McNeilly)

1974, New English Library

Eli Podgram is The Specialist, a wealthy occult investigator who was once a vampire for a couple hours. That fact isn't relevant to the story but takes up a big chunk of the prologue. He's joined by mute virgin psychic Mara and his French servant Hugo. The Chill series also had a woman psychic assistant/potential love interest, don't know how often that comes up in occult investigators of the era.

They go to Haiti to assist a man whose wife had been resurrected as a zombie. Not much plot wise, but things turn real nasty. The wife is gang raped by voodoo cult members in a ceremony to return her soul to her corpse so that she may suffer more for it. Packs of zombies roam the countryside cannibalizing everyone they come across.

Podgram spends a good chunk of the book in astral form snooping around. In a particularly chilling sequence he comes across a man being roasted alive and helps guides the terrified spirit to the afterlife.

Lecale is a pseudonym for Wilfred McNeilly, one of the most common users of the Peter Saxon house name.

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Chain Letter by Ruby Jean Jensen

Chain Letter
by Ruby Jean Jensen
1987, Zebra

Little kid Brian loses his dog in the spooky abandoned nursing home which was also an asylum for the criminally insane. He and his friends find half of a chain letter, see a spooky derelict, and one of them, Shelly, vanishes. The other friend, Abby, sends the chain letter to an older boy she likes. He throws the letter away and ends up driving over a cliff. Abby and Brian make a half assed effort to figure out the chain letter's curse while members of the town are haunted by visions of the missing dog and child. Abby pushes another girl off a cliff and lures Brian to the nursing home. Something happens off-page and Abby drowns in a deep pool of water, the end.

In an epilogue it's explained that Shelly and the dog drowned in the pool, one that search parties somehow missed. Brian's older brother finds the other half of the chain letter, which reveals that sending the chain letter sells your soul to Satan.

I usually don't like to get hung up over the rules, but here being around the letter may or may not result in you mysteriously drowning, sending the letter turns you into a homicidal maniac, throwing the letter away gets you killed, burning it summons a mysterious figure, and holding on to the letter indefinitely has no discernable effect.

The ghosts, spooky bearded man, and haunted asylum don't figure into anything. The chain letter barely does, claiming exactly one victim. While Jensen didn't follow the expected cliché of the chain letter claiming a series of victims, she only replaced it with an ounce of evil child towards the end, spending more time on Brian's dad having an affair with Shelly's mom.

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Warlock by Ray Garton

Warlock
by Ray Garton
1989 Avon

A 17th century warlock is propelled through time and space, followed by a witch-hunter, both landing in late 80s LA. The warlock seeks to put together three hidden pieces of a grimoire which reveals the true name of God, in order that he may read it backwards and undo creation. The witch-hunter teams up with a young woman on a road trip to stop him.

Goes way harder than the movie. The warlock is endowed with "Satan's member" which is his main murder weapon. Haven't seen the movie in a while, but I don't remember the yawning anuses and sagging vaginas of his victims. And I doubt there's a deleted scene of Julian Sands sucking eyeballs out of Mary Woronov's nipples.

Weakest with the banter in the dialogue, which I'm guessing comes straight from the script. Came out two years before the movie was released in America.

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Floater by Gary Brandner

Floater
by Gary Brandner
1988 Fawcett

Twenty years after a high school tragedy, three people are sent mysterious messages about a class reunion they're compelled to attend. One of the more shameless It knockoffs, down to a clown theme.

The titular floater is the astral spirit of their classmate who is able to possess bodies, control car engines, and check credit records from beyond the grave. A good chunk of the book is supposed to be the terror of their inability to leave their hometown, but came across as just frustration with rural shops being closed on weekends.

A hint of creepiness with flashbacks of the floater learning to possess bodies, and I like Brandner's writing, but not much of anything going on here. At least it wasn't 1100 pages.

Available from Amazon

Seductions by Ray Garton

Seductions
by Ray Garton
1984, Pinnacle

An alcoholic teacher with the power of precognition stumble across a series of disappearances where the victim only leaves behind a pile of blood. Shapeshifting succubi/incubi that take the form of their victim's desire. Shades of Dead Zone meets The Thing and prefiguring Yuzna's Society with erotic body horror. Garton's first, lean and mean.

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Squirm by Richard Curtis

Squirm
by Richard Curtis
1976 Ace

The novelization of the film, which I'm mostly familiar through MST3K. A downed electrical line causes worms to attack humans. Eventually. Mostly it's a city nerd trying to hook up with a country gal and them finding and losing skeletons.

I'm guessing this was based on the earlier script, though very close to the movie. A flashback to how Roger lost his thumb is the only full new scene. All the characters are described as amazingly attractive, skinny Mick is described as 175 pounds, and the Sheriff is a smooth talking ladies man.

Gorier and with more ambitious effects than the film - Roger's final form is as an ambulatory pile of worms. Biggest loss was that the best line - "You gonna be the worm face" is written as "Now we’ll see what you look like after the worms get you!"

From Amazon https://amzn.to/4ebP9x8

Lot Lizards by Ray Garton

Lot Lizards 
by Ray Garton
Mark V Ziesing, 1991

A group of vampiric lot lizards (sex workers who hang around truck stops) travel with a bestial queen vampire in the back of a truck driven by fat, sleazy trucker familiars, the Carsey brothers. Trucker Bill Ketter, a trucker turned reluctant vamp, hunts the group, finding them at a truck stop where his ex-wife and kids happen to be stranded.

Sleazy, violent, and fun. My only complaint is the short length, as there was a lot of room in the story to expand.

Available from Amazon

Darklings by Ray Garton

Darklings
by Ray Garton
1985 Pinnacle

A black worm falls out of serial killer's nose as he dies in the emergency room. Soon after, people begin pursuing their darkest violent desires. Splatterpunk with monster b-movie roots. The killings are very dark, though this peaks in the middle, and a good balance here of how much of the premise to explain.

Available from Amazon https://amzn.to/3ndfll4

Final Destination: Dead Reckoning by Natasha Rhodes

Final Destination: Dead Reckoning
by Natasha Rhodes
2005, Black Flame

A rock singer in LA has a premonition of a collapsing basement rock venue. After her and a handful of others escape the tragedy, they begin to die off one by one in gory spectacles from convoluted, Rube Goldberg like accidents...is what would have happened in a proper Final Destination novel.

Instead we get 406 pages of the author doing her darndest to not deliver on the formula. I only made it two thirds of the way, in which we get three deaths. First dies of an explosion off page. The second has a brief Rube Goldberg set up, only to get a swerve and someone else dies from mundane failing brakes. Unpredictable enough, except the third death does exactly the same thing.

The death traps work in the movies by building suspense from each step being laid out, the inevitability of the execution, and the gory aftermath. Here we get none of that. The setups are constantly interrupted by cutting away to small talk, to the point I forgot someone was supposed to die. For the third death, a full 17% of the book went by between the set up and the execution, almost all of which was teenage idiots repeating things back and forth to each other.

I appreciate the challenge the franchise has with how to fill time between death scenes, which would be even worse in print, but this has some of the worse padding I've ever seen outside of a Fanthrorpe novel, down to the narration adding "really, really" to adjectives several times. 

Currently not available anywhere on the internet, and you couldn't afford it if it was. Try the fan audiobook from The 80s Slasher Librarian.

Maggie's Grave by David Sodergren

Maggie's Grave
by David Sodergren
2020

The spirit of a woman wrongfully executed as a witch haunts a dying Scottish town, looking for her murdered baby. And by haunt I meant tear everyone apart from the inside out.

As opposed to the emotional gut punch of Dead Girl Blues, this felt more in the direction of splatter comedies like Dead/Alive and Evil Dead 2 without going full slapstick, fun without without trying to be funny.

Available from Amazon

Dead Girl Blues by David Sodergren

Dead Girl Blues
by David Sodergren
2020

Sodergren brings the Giallo to Scotland. On her way to a date, stripper Willow has a woman fall dead into her arms in the streets. This starts her on a path uncovering a snuff film racket, leading her to obsession bordering on madness. Some great set pieces, great suspense, a few twists in the story, and of course, lots of blood.

As with his other books the set up starts as a tribute to a horror subgenre, but he takes it into different directions. This one gets brutal and it's stayed with me for a while.

Available from Amazon

Gnelfs by Sidney Williams

Gnelfs
by Sidney Williams
1991 Pinnacle

A little girl is menaced by Gnelfs, which are Smurf-like children's character and not a porn category, which are manifesting in this reality due to Kabbalistic imagery and a sorcerer for hire. She and her mother are assisted by a mysterious priest who has a Wandering Jew thing going on. A take off on Satanic Panic warning films like Deception of a Generation, with a little bit of Poltergeist and the Exorcist mixed in.

Easily twice as long as it needed to be, with way too much exposition and rationalization, some delivered by the gnelfs themselves.

Ebook, paperback, and audiobook from Amazon

Renegades by Shaun Hutson

Renegades
by Shaun Hutson
1991 Time Warner

Sean Doyle is a cop on the anti-terror squad who plays by his own rules on the hunt for IRA terrorists. David and Laura Callahan are decadent arms dealers who have discovered a stained glass window commissioned by Gilles de Rais which holds the key to eternal life. These two storylines run into each other in a gory bloodbath...eventually.

Doyle is the most absurd renegade cop in literary history, a pure Matthew Holness character, written straight but with enough self awareness that Hutson had to know how silly the whole thing was, but still fun for the ride.

The Dirty Harry meets Hellraiser premise never really takes off, largely because the two ends don't meet until the end, futz around for a few dozen pages, then fizzles out. Not much comes out of the Giles De Rais angle - a demon pops up, gets shot, and disappears, going down easier than most of the terrorists.

Probably fine on it's own merits, but hurt by the lost potential. Cut this in half and ramp up the horror elements and this could have been the greatest story put to page.

Available from Amazon

New Adventures of Frankenstein 4: Frankenstein Meets Dracula by Donald F. Glut

New Adventures of Frankenstein 4
Frankenstein Meets Dracula
by Donald F. Glut
1977 New English Library

Frankenstein's Monster and his buddy, former OGRE agent James Judson, travel to Transylvania in their atomic powered submarine where they accidentally revive Count Dracula. Drac enthralls Judson, forces them back to England, and starts a plan to kidnap Van Helsing's descendant and place his brain in the Monster's body.

Most of the story was setup, and the rest felt like an outline. The Count was suitably repugnant, but just not much going on to fill it out.

Collected in volume one of The New Adventures of Frankenstein Collection

Live Girls by Ray Garton

Live Girls
by Ray Garton
1987 Pocket Books

Glory hole vampire on Time Square. A down on his luck former vigilante magazine feature writer becomes obsessed with a peep show performer after getting a vampiric bj. His would be girlfriend gets sucked into a lesbian vampire relationship, and is helped by a journalist whose sister was killed by vampires.

One part eroticism to four parts sleazy nastiness, just the right ratio. Just enough to justify the obsessiveness without getting romantic. A fun ride as long as you don't worry about the vamps' master plan - unlike Lost Boys or Near Dark there's no romantic angle, and I don't know the endgame for turning every 42nd Street pervert.

Available from Amazon

The Hand of Dracula by Robert Lory

The Dracula Horror Series 2
The Hand of Dracula
by Robert Lory
1973, Pinnacle

Horror meets Men's Adventure in this unique series. Criminologist and telekinetic Dr. Damien Harmon has revived Count Dracula, and keeps him under control through a sliver of wood embedded next to his heart. Aided by former cop Cameron Sanchez and Dracula's thrall Ktara, they fight crime.

Dr. Harmon's niece has a friend falsely accused of murder, and the group vow to clear his name, encountering an evil cult, an inhumanly strong hunchback, and a mob-connected necrophilic undertaker.

Fun enough when things get going, but Lory indulges in almost Rev. Fanthorpe padding, dragging out the most inconsequential actions and conversations for pages on end.

Paperback from AbeBooks

The Night Hunter 4: The Shrine by Robert Faulcon

The Night Hunter 4
The Shrine
by Robert Faulcon
1984 Arrow

A local ghost layer uncovers an Arachne shrine in an ancient Roman mine in rural England. The shrine is a psychic battery, draining the energies of several captives held underground.

Dan Brady enters the picture, setting a trap for Arachne agents and the elemental forces under their control. They arrive, four men with rotting animal heads, and the plan dissolves in a rage of death and madness.

Some genuine chills until things go over the top at the end. I've described the Night Hunter as if Nigel Kneale wrote Evil Dead, and we can add a little John Constantine to the characterization, with Brady's single minded focus damning those he comes into contact.

Paperback from Amazon.

Night Shoot by David Sodergren

Night Shoot
by David Sodergren
2019

A film school crew has one day to shoot a soft-core gothic horror film in an isolated Scottish manor, as long as they're out by 8 PM. Not being able to finish the shoot, they sneak back in after nightfall and discover what was hiding in the daytime.

The "film crew in peril" setup is reminiscent of movies like Bloody Pit of Horror or Stage Fright, and a number of novels as explored in this Vault of Evil thread. The body has influences of Richard Laymon, though tightened up and fewer sock changing scenes.

As with his first novel The Forgotten Island, the third person narration has it's own unique voice, which for me could be distracting, ymmv. Excellent gore and monster work, and the characterizations remain grounded, which allows him to go over the top without getting cartoonish.

Ebook and paperback from Amazon

Night Hunter 3: The Ghost Dance by Robert Faulcon

Night Hunter 3

The Ghost Dance

by Robert Faulcon (Robert Holdstock)

A woman from a Sioux reservation is embedded with several native American spirits, through bones and totems implanted under her skin, and sent to rural England. Dan Brady follows leads for his missing family to the same town, and connects with another father whose child has been targeted by Arachne, the secretive occult society of the series.

Less focused than the others, and had to read some events in the end a couple times over to kinda follow what was happening. Took a while to get going, but there are some great scenes. As the woman travels to England, she stops periodically for the spirits to feed, slaughtering a cruise ship, a hospital, and an entire town. Great image of a giant grasshopper feasting on eyes pulled from a pile of severed heads, shades of Eat Them Alive.

Paperback from AbeBooks.

Thrill by Patricia Wallace

Thrill
by Patricia Wallace
1990 Zebra

A billionaire opens a theme park, imaginatively called "The Park". At the end, several rides malfunction, causing several fatalities. In the middle, several hundred pages of nothing. Part of the problem is that the story is a disaster novel, like Towering Inferno or Earthquake, but it's written, and branded, as a horror novel. A story can be both, Jaws comes to mind, but this effectively is a mild drama until the last few pages, though with a foreboding sense that something bad is going to happen from constant foreshadowing that goes nowhere.

The Park itself is vague. There's a high ticket price, with the implication that this is an immersive interactive setup like Westworld, but it isn't  There are three levels. The first two are standard amusement park rides, though the ride cars are usually pods. A roller coaster, a whitewater ride, a dark ride, the usual. If you score enough points, somehow, you go to level 3, which is a paintball game in the woods with robots. The book is set in the future year 1992, and there are a couple of touches, like the guests' ID card doubling as a credit card, which I don't think Disney had by that time.

The story, such that it is, follows the billionaire, his young engineer genius, a nurse, some underprivileged children there for the grand opening, and a couple of guests. There are some minor injuries in the rides, mostly the guests fault. One of the guests gets himself killed (offpage) in an accident while attempting industrial espionage, which is the only horrific element in the fist 90% of the book. At the end the kids fight the robots, who malfunction and shoot lightning out of their hands instead of paintballs, and some guests are killed in malfunctioning rides, all but a couple off page.

Along the way we're teased sabotage, insect swarms, and the ghost of a murderous hermit as the face of the eventual horror. This don't come across as red herrings as much as foreshadowing scenes that never happen. In the end it's magnetic anomalies. Maybe, whatever. The book even runs down the lost threads, not to wrap them up, more to say "I didn't forget, I just don't care".

Unscary, nonsensical, unfocused, dull, and overlong.

Kindle ebook and paperback from Amazon