The Festering By Guy N. Smith

The Festering
By Guy N. Smith
1989 Arrow
Paperback, 191 pages

 

                A word to the wise. If you ever find yourself in a Guy N. Smith novel and you’re thinking of leaving the bustling city life behind for a new, relaxed life in a remote area of England, do not follow your dreams. As the Great Scribbler has shown us over and over again, it is a bad idea.

 

                Mike and Holly Mannion have made such a decision. Mike is an artist, and they have spent every last dime on Garth Cottage because of Holly’s desire to leave the rat race. With very tight expenses, they lose their running water due to a drought; the water pumps in from a stream that is very low. They decide to have a well put in behind the cottage and a dependable company comes in to drill the borehole. They have to go very deep and, unknown to anybody, they drill through a diseased carcass of a man buried there centuries ago.

 

                It starts with the stink. It continues with festering boils that pop up and spew foul custard. It imbues it’s victims with madness and sexual deviations. It ends with death. The work crew is the first to succumb, being closest to the contagion. With water unfit to use, a sludge covered yard, and that permeating stench, the Mannions aren’t pleased with their situation. And wait a minute, aren’t the two of them acting a bit overly amorous with the wrong people?

 

                This is GNS at his most visceral best. The seclusion, the hopelessness, the smell and the discomfort are beautifully portrayed on every page. We get everything we want in a great pulp horror novel: weeping sores, bursting pustules, pointless inappropriate sex, nasty characters whose suffering you can’t wait to witness, and a breathless narrative. And lots of pus and oozing liquids. Two of my favorite words, squelch and slurry, are used numerous times. I smiled as I winced. Perfection.

 

                This has become a tough book to find (and afford) these days due to the fact that it has had but one printing from Arrow Books (though Black Hill books put it out on Kindle in 2012). Add the amazing Terry Oakes cover to the scarcity and you have a collector’s item worth doling out the big bucks for.

The Wilds By Claude Teweles

The Wilds
By Claude Teweles
1989 Dell
Paperback, 213 pages

                Of course, the first reason that you need this book is to pore over Jill Bauman’s amazing cover art. If that doesn’t grab your eye, I don’t know what will. Some readers have complained that despite the cover, this is not a horror book, but I beg to differ. The events that the characters go through are horrific indeed and though this is mainly an adventure story, the horrors are very real. The back cover mentions Deliverance and Lord of the Flies and I can see both in here; humans trying to survive while nature kicks their ass.

 

                A couple of counselors take a group of teen and younger kids on an overnight hike into “The Wilds”, a section of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, to show them how to track and really get along in the wilderness. Gordon, a counselor, is back as the mountain expert, even after a fatal mishap the previous year. He has a lot to prove to himself. Del is a 15 year old who looks and acts older and thinks of himself as an unofficial counselor, though in reality he is still just a kid. Kyle is a moody kid who would rather just be left alone and has a love/ hate relationship with Del. And so the group ascends. What could possibly go wrong?

 

                The tension between Del and Kyle makes them split up going up the mountain, forcing Mr. Dugan, the man in charge, to go look for him and take a near fatal fall. And then Gordon takes a fall, leaving most of the kids to their own devices high up in The Wilds. No problem, right? Until an unexpected blizzard hits. Hey, it was June but up there, there’s always a chance of snow.

 

                Not everyone is going to survive. Each chapter (except one) starts with either Gordon, Del or Kyle’s name and we see things from their point of view and food runs out, hope runs out and nature has its way with them. Each of them has personal baggage that will weigh heavily on them during their ordeal. The smaller kids also worry about “Donner Man” thanks to a campfire story about the Donner Party and the cannibalistic results. The suspense, the tension and yes, the horror really ratchets up to eleven and you can feel The Wilds taking them in. I had the misfortune of reading this during a cold snap in May and I was shivering under the blankets.

 

                This is a top shelf struggle for survival story right here. Fathom Press reissued the book in 2025. Look for it with Julia Teweles as the author as she transitioned in 2007. I will be keeping my eye out for Teweles’ other horror book The Stalker (Zebra Books) because I liked this one a lot.

Demons By Guy N. Smith

Demons
By Guy N. Smith
1987 Arrow
Paperback, 184 pages

                Demons is the sequel to Smith’s 1980 Hamlyn Horror masterpiece Deathbell, which was a visceral, violent and very fast-moving read. This sequel isn’t quite as satisfying as the first one but that isn’t to say that it isn’t worth my giving it a massive recommendation. I was so enthralled with this book that I plowed through it in just
a couple of sittings.

 

                Ten years after the horrid happenings in the first book, the town of Turbury is all but a ghost town. Plans have been made to flood the entire area to make it into a reservoir. A group of kids are poking around the deserted town pre-flooding and rehang the toppled Deathbell in Caelogy Hall. What could possibly go wrong? Well, with each peal of the bell, madness and violence ensues. Even when the town is completely flooded, the bell still has its powers, making the entire reservoir a dangerous place.

 

                The book is filled with a number of excellent horror set pieces, especially when workers are attempting to move bodies from the Turbury cemetery to a new place of rest. Coffins and bodies fall from moving trucks, big machinery squashes people and vulnerable humans can’t control a thing. Meanwhile, Vicki Mason, returning from the first book, is attacked by a neighbor who is under the bell’s influence in a harrowing scene. Even the surrounding towns aren’t safe from the ringing of the bell.

 

                This book has all of the earmarks of GNS’s top-shelf work of the period. It is violent as hell, has a whirlwind romance that, even if it isn’t entirely believable, has a certain sweetness to it that offsets some of the grueling horror. The reservoir doesn’t keep its water and as Turbury reemerges from beneath the water, the muddy, dank left-over town is a thing of pure atmospheric horror. Add three hundred hippies, stir and you’ve got a set-up for a spectacular climax.

 

                Terry Oakes provides a beautiful cover, whether it actually depicts a scene in the book or not. Well, it sort of does. Then again, there is no mention of a demon in the book, either though I guess the Seekers of Silence, a Tibetan cult who worship the Deathbell, might as well be demons. While not quite as effective as Deathbell, this is still top tier GNS that will be on my deathbed’s bookshelf, filed next to the first one.

The Beast of Kane By Cliff Twemlow

The Beast of Kane
By Cliff Twemlow
1983 Hamlyn
Paperback, 190 pages

                Do yourself a favor and acquaint yourself with Cliff Twemlow (1933-1993). The best way is through the 2023 film Mancunian Man: The Legendary Life of Cliff Twemlow by Jake West. Twemlow was an actor, screenwriter, bouncer, musician and all-around creative dynamo. He wrote a couple of horror novels, too; this one and The Pike (reviewed here) and I’ve gotta say, the guy was a pretty damn good novelist.

 

                This one takes place in Kane, Canada, seventy miles north of Quebec during a cold and frosty winter. The Gordons want to get their son David a dog for his birthday, and he wants the massive, black Elkhound at the shop. His folks are nervous about the vicious looking beast and say no. No worries… the dog breaks out and comes to David on his own, selling himself to the family. All is well, it would seem, but the local priest thinks otherwise. He thinks the dog might be the devil himself, fulfilling an old prophecy. Even the family vet says the dog is a throwback that seems to have… human blood running in its veins.

 

                Of course, everyone thinks the priest is a crazy old sop. Until the local farm animals get decimated. Wolves are found mutilated. And then the good folks of Kane themselves start getting eaten by the local dogs. Even by the ones who were the victim’s pets! It seems old Elk is their evil leader and they do his bidding. This makes things sticky for the Gordons who really don’t want to crush their boy’s love for his pet. A pet that is using him as his familiar.

 

                This one moves along very quickly and Twemlow has a good grasp of small-town life in the Canadian heartland. The characters are all pretty believable and well formed and when shit goes down, you can feel what the townsfolk do. This book also points out that a drink of whisky will help you get over pretty much any hardship. Even death in the family and madness.

 

                No, it’s not a perfect book but it is a lot of fun at times, especially when the canine attacks are in full bloom. The gore is poured on nice n’ thick, the way I like it. A word of warning, however: there is a lot of doggie-death at one point that might have you reaching over the pet ol’ Rover a little more vigorously. But it’s nothing that two fingers of whisky won’t help you get through.

 

                Both The Pike and The Beast of Kane have been reissued by Severin Films and Encyclopocalypse Publications to coincide with the release of the Cliff Twemlow movie box set!

Bloodshow By Guy N. Smith

Bloodshow
By Guy N. Smith
1987 Arrow
Paperback, 207 pages

 

                A crumbling castle in the Scottish Highlands becomes the site of a horror lovers’ attraction, including the horror-themed Lochside Hotel and the castle’s dungeons filled with animatronic monsters. It sounds like the kind of place that my wife and I would love to visit. Mike and Kim Armstrong chose it for their honeymoon. What could possibly go wrong? Well, the long-dead, real-life Laird of Benahee’s evil spirit might still be around, looking to take out his ire on unsuspecting tourists, so there’s that.

 

                The Armstrongs meet very few people while there; it is the off-season. Oddly enough, the reporter and author that they do connect with both wind up dead, killed in grisly fashion. News of the deaths, of course, attracts macabre thrill-seekers as guests. Kim, for her part, doesn’t seem like much of a horror fan, easily scared and timid as she is. As reality and vivid visions blend under the Laird’s spell, she just wants to leave. Too bad a major hurricane is moving in, battering the hotel and castle, taking out electricity and phones and stranding the guests.

 

                It’s not as claustrophobic as it sounds but GNS does put the small cast through their paces. The Armstrongs face a never-ending line-up of horrors. The figures from the cheesy castle sets become all too real: the vampire, the werewolf, the cannibal and more. Kim faces the worst, not knowing if she has actually attempted suicide while in a dream and did she really give birth to that gruesome, toothy slug thing? The Laird’s mind-tricks are varied, gruesome, and always dangerous. A woman capable of exorcism and astral projection is present among the guests. Can she save the day?

 

                This one plows along at a very good pace. It is full of chilling set-pieces, and the gore level is respectably high. The second half of the book is non-stop build-up and gripping action as the reader barrels towards the climax. There is a surprising abundance of religious faith and God stuff in this book; far more than GNS usually offers, but I still score this one high on my Guy N. Smith scale of greatness. Despite a few potential misfires (the mostly neglected skeleton crew of the hotel and the kitschy monster figures on display) this one has everything I need for a few days of happy reading. The cover by Terry Oakes is both wonderfully lurid and kind of cheesy in its own right. Nothing wrong with that. Recommended reading.

The Asylum By John Edward Ames

The Asylum
By John Edward Ames
1994 Zebra
Paperback, 303 pages

 

                This one was pretty tough for me to make it through, but I did.

 

                Stereotype detective Reno Sloan (streeee-rike one!) finds himself and his endless annoying quipping embroiled in bizarre plot where teenagers in New Orleans are suddenly losing their minds and winding up in the Cypress Island Clinic, where they receive treatment and a cure. One patient, with psychic abilities, commits a gruesome suicide and her sister (with whom she can communicate, even post-death) hires the detective to get some answers.

 

                It seems the CIC has more to it than meets the eye. The top dog, Dr. Malachi Feldman (I’m not making that up) has created a new drug that will make the user hallucinate and go nutzoid. What better way to fill the clinic than to get the topical drug on to rich families’ teenagers and “cure” them by just keeping them there. His two cartoon-character henchmen infect the kids, and they sit back and wait. Just got to watch out for those pesky psychic kids. There may be more than one.

 

                OK, the premise here is all right and the improbable ending had some excitement to it but overall, if you don’t like Reno (and really, how could you?), you won’t enjoy the book. He is such a caricature, straight out of a 40s dime detective novel. He gets all the women, even though he disrespects them left and right, and every other character in the book is a paper-thin, cookie-cutter person, merely there for Sloan to play off. Some plot twists fail because it gets hard to remember who is who among the lesser players.

 

                Ames obviously sat at his typewriter with a street map of New Orleans (his home at the time) and traced a line around the city and then just gave directions as our hero Reno stalked the city in his dilapidated car. He mentions most of the obvious spots. (I was waiting for Reno to grab a beignet at Café du Monde, but Ames skipped that landmark.) Ames has a few other horror novels to his credit, but he is mostly known for Western Fiction. I do have one of his other horrors in my huge TBR pile, but I’m not hurrying to read it. And I’m not keeping The Asylum.

The Master By Guy N. Smith

The Master
By Guy N. Smith
1993 Sheridan (1988 Arrow)
Paperback, 208 pages

 

                The real master serves up another dandy one with this book. Set in the Scottish Highlands, this entry is filled with cruelty, obsession and good old evil entities. And a very fast-moving story it is.

 

                Hurst College is a private school for the very rich, for underachieving kids who are dragging their parents down. Drop ‘em off with Headmaster Lazenby and hope for the best. The Master is rough on the teens, both boys and girls, to achieve perfection, both in body and mind. I mean like Nazi-tough. He wants to turn his charges into supermen. And he rides them rough to get them there.

 

                New art teacher Ann, who thought she’d have no chance of getting the job at such an exclusive school, is taken aback when she sees the discipline that is dished out. Punishing exercise schedules, blood sports (I winced at a foxhunt… Smith pulled no punches) and strict diets. It’s a place that would have killed me, personally. And it can do just that if you’re a fairly weak newbie. You see, Lazenby isn’t the only Master. There is also his Master and Lazenby has plans on bringing his crusty old evil ass back to life.

 

                So, there you go. A little Satanic ritual, some sacrifices, a couple of dead kids, doomed virgins, and the inevitable cover-up. Lazenby is a right bastard and as a character, he is so easy to hate. His comparison to Hitler is just and his brain-washed kids blindly follow along. Most of them, anyway. GNS, as usual, makes the setting an integral part of the story, making the cadets’ struggle to please their Master (and his) more difficult because of their isolation. The dank crypt where their ceremonies are held is a great, atmospheric dungeon; Smith lays it on thick and dark.

 

                A highly recommended work from the master himself, Guy N. Smith. The Arrow and Sheridan editions are adorned with a wonderful Terry Oakes cover painting, making this one a must for your shelf.

 

Originally published in GNS2: A Guy N. Smith Fanzine by Chris Elphick