The Elementals By Michael McDowell

The Elementals
By Michael McDowell
1981 Avon
Paperback, 292 pages

                McDowell strikes again with another fascinating, impeccably written gem of a horror book. While perhaps not on the level of the previous year’s Cold Moon Over Babylon (but then, what is?) this is a brilliant slice of Southern Gothic with quirky characters, unnerving tension and a sandy, haunted house.

 

                The Savages and the McCrays are two rich white families, joined by marriage, in southern Alabama who share a vacation property called Beldame out on a sandspit on the Gulf of Mexico. Yes, the Gulf of MEXICO. Each family has their own Victorian summer house there and a third house stands unoccupied, being consumed by a sand dune. After the Savage matriarch dies, the families take a June holiday to the property. Luker McCray and his daughter India come down from New York, joining his mother Big Barbara and his sister Leigh, who is married to Dauphin, the deceased woman’s son. Everyone has been to Beldame many times over the years except India; this is her first time. Also on hand is Odessa, the longtime housekeeper for the families.

 

                India gets very interested in the third house and finds that members of both families have a fear of it. This makes her even more obsessed and when she starts seeing things like doors closing and apparitions crawling through the sand, she is determined to learn more despite her own fear. Her photos show things that weren’t there when she took them. She finds out more from Odessa and between the two of them, they try to stop the Elementals, the force that is trying to take them over from the third house.

 

                McDowell’s characterization and dialogue is pure perfection, with a cast of mostly selfish, yet somehow likeable people. Everyone calls their parents by their first names, Luker and 13 year old India skinny-dip together, and Big Barbara finds everything easier to deal with being inebriated. Not your typical family gathering, but they are all fairly tight and when the supernatural starts acting up, their plight is all the more terrifying because of that. Odessa is easily the most grounded character. Sadly, McDowell points out countless times that she is “black”, like we wouldn’t remember that from the other dozens of times it was mentioned. That does fit the rich white folk narrative, however.

 

                The book is a slow burn, meeting and getting to know the families and their history along with the history of Beldame and that third house. When the horrors start taking over, it is pure McDowell mastery, with flowing sand and banging doors and many things going bump in the night. Despite a few things that might not have aged well, it’s impossible not to recommend this book. Nobody wrote horror better than McDowell.

Cat’s Eyes By Lee Jordan

Cat’s Eyes
By Lee Jordan
1983 Signet
Paperback, 216 pages

                Lee Jordan is mystery writer Alan Scholefield and his wife, author Anthea Goddard. Together they wrote a handful of books under the Jordan pseudonym and this one is a taut thriller that keeps up a quick pace for the entire running time. Even necessary flashbacks to fill in plot points do not slow down the narrative and I blew through this short book in just a few sittings. Don’t forget, I’m an extremely slow reader. Not really a horror book, more of a thriller/ mystery, but the authors manage to convey the characters’ fear and discomfort in a way that should please horror buffs.

 

                American Rachel Chater returns to her and her husband’s new home in Sussex Downs, England after a hospital stay, recovering (mostly) from a car accident. She is plagued by dreams featuring a large black cat peering through the window, the cat she swerved to avoid, causing her accident. Her husband has to go to the US for work, leaving Rachel alone with their infant and a part-time caregiver in the secluded house. Strange things happen, like scary phone calls, broken ornaments and the ever-present black cat that keep Rachel in constant anxiety. With a damaged, painful leg and very few friends to help her, every acquaintance becomes a possible threat and Rachel feels that her and her daughter’s lives are in danger. Especially after a suspect near fatal accident with the baby.

 

                Rachel is an extremely paranoid person. She thinks the impossible of the cat and she suspects all of the humans in her life, including her husband, of being out to get her. Of course, she has every right to feel some of that. She harbors guilt for the death of the town fix-it man who she was driving home the night of the accident. As well written as Rachel is, I still got mad at her for being such a cat-hater. The poor cat, also injured in the crash, is just trying to survive and I felt so bad for it. Of course, I had a large black cat resting on either side of me as I read this one. But the authors really did crank up the suspense and Rachels terror felt very real in certain spots.

 

                Despite a slight lapse in credibility at the ending (do villains really ever reveal the entire scheme with convenient exposition as they go in for the kill?), I have no problem recommending this book. It’s a page turner with plenty of suspenseful passages and an easy to absorb writing style. A nice cover (by Shaw? Looks like it) completes the package and this book can still be found fairly cheap. It’s a good way to spend a few hours.

The Manitou By Graham Masterton

The Manitou
By Graham Masterton
1976 Pinnacle Books
Paperback, 216 pages

 

                I really wish I’d read this back when it came out as it would have turned me on to Masterton’s craziness years before I actually dove in to his work. I’m eternally grateful that I still haven’t seen the film adaptation directed by William Girdler in 1978 because there’s no way I would want to picture our narrator and main character Harry Erskine as Tony Curtis. I promise to watch the film some day but Curtis is not Erskine! Not in my mind’s eye, anyway.

 

                So, Karen Tandy has a lump on her neck and doctors, including a tumor specialist, want to remove it. Nervous, she visits phony psychic Harry Erskine the day before the operation to see if he can figure out her recurring dream. Even though he’s a fake, Erskine sees something in her dream and makes some scary discoveries. Her lump surgery doesn’t happen as it’s revealed that something is growing in her “tumor” and it’s attached to her nervous system. After a séance, things become clearer; Karen has an ancient Native American medicine man named Misquamacus growing on her neck. But of course!

 

                Yeah, this gets bonkers quickly and the reader reaps the rewards. Though X-rays have deformed our medicine man, he still grows to full size (albeit with stunted legs), stretching Karen’s skin and effectively killing her, but she still has a chance. Once he bursts out, he starts to summon demons to fuck up the hospital. With the help of modern medicine man Singing Rock, Dr. Hughes and other medical folks who buy the preposterous story (because nothing else makes sense), can Harry defeat not only Misquamacus but The Old One, an invincible demon?

 

                The Manitou is a ton of fun but don’t expect a fifty year old book to not have plenty of things to make the modern reader squirm. Native Americans are referred to as red Indians, red man, redskins and even savages, all in front of and by Native American characters. Poor Karen, just about the only female in the book, is just there to host the manitou (an Indian Spirit, by the way). If that bothers you, just don’t read it. You’ll miss great gobs of gore (people being turned inside out), cool demons, a bad-ass main monster, and some crazy imagination on the part of Masterton. This book is non-stop from page one and it’s very well written so it’s not like a William W. Johnstone kind of lunacy, but it’s just as nuts. An excellent sense of humor runs throughout too, which helps to accept the interesting but ridiculous storyline.

 

                I normally do not like stories told in the first person but Harry is an affable enough chap where I got over it. Be sure to grab the original Pinnacle edition (which can still be found at a reasonable price) so you can enjoy Ed Soyka’s excellent step-back cover art.

The Amulet By Michael McDowell

The Amulet
By Michael McDowell
1979 Avon
Paperback, 340 pages

                It was high time that I delved into the work of Michael McDowell (1950-1999). Of course, I know Tim Burton’s film Beetlejuice (1988) for which McDowell wrote the story and screenplay, and Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas for which he adapted the screenplay, but I hadn’t read his books. I’m glad that I finally got around to it because this one, his debut novel, is great.

 

                Pine Cone, Alabama in the mid-Sixties is a slow moving, quiet town with a rigid class system and segregation. It’s only source of work is a munitions factory. Sarah Howell works there. Her husband Dean is drafted but is sent back home after a tragic accident with a gun made at that very factory. He is a bandage-wrapped vegetable who is kept company by his mother Jo, a loathsome bitch if there ever was one. This makes Sarah’s dull life even more miserable as she has to keep house for the three of them after a full day at the factory. Then, Jo gives an amulet to one of Dean’s visiting friends to give to his wife. Thus starts the horror.

 

                The amulet passes through a lot of hands in Pine Cone, from poor to rich, from white to black, from guilty to innocent. Everyone who has it in their possession dies in a violent and hideous manner. (My guess is that the Final Destination creators might have read this book.) You get houses burnings, ceiling fan decaps, a woman eaten by pigs, scalpings, suicides, babies in washing machines and all sundry of beautiful gore and grue. Sarah tries to figure out if the amulet is the cause and drags her friend Becca on her investigation, but nobody believes her preposterous story.

 

                Man, this book really made me turn the pages. Short chapters, thorough (but never boring) descriptions and authentic characters really put me into southern Alabama in the Sixties. Of course, still being segregated, the black population is “colored” but the characters are treated no different than the whites. There is some fat-shaming (Jo’s wickedness has a lot more with her nasty disposition than her weight) but overall, this is Sarah’s story and she is someone with whom I really felt in touch. Of course, most characters are there for the kill and you should know by now how much I love they get the old “set ‘em up, knock ‘em down” treatment. We get a huge body count in this one! And that cover by Don Ivan Punchatz is amazing!

 

                McDowell was a gifted writer and  this is the first time for me that a book has dialog with a Southern dialect that isn’t impossible to understand. No easy feat. Having just ended a job working for a jeweler for over 35 years, this might have been a “right place at the right time” read but I thought it was excellent and am already filling my TBR pile with more of McDowall’s books.

The Night Boat By Robert R. McCammon

The Night Boat
By Robert R. McCammon
1988 Pocket Books
Paperback, 346 pages

                Robert McCammon was one of the titans in the Golden Age of Paperback Horror. His books were everywhere and unanimously praised. I even bought Mystery Walk back in my youth but I never got around to reading it. His books are long, between 350 and 500 (or more) pages and that usually puts me off. I do have a bunch of his books in my “To Be Read” pile so I picked the slimmest one with which to break my cherry. First published in 1980, I had the 1988 Pocket Books first print paperback of The Night Boat sitting there and went for it. Pretty damn good book. I love when that happens.

 

                David Moore is diving in the water outside of Coquina, a Caribbean island that he’s adopted as home, exploring the deep, when he sets off an old depth charge. This uncovers and releases an old World War II Nazi U-Boat which rises to the surface and sticks on the rocks there. Coquina is a small island that was almost burned to the ground during the war and the villagers are not happy to see the boat. They know… it is evil.

 

                They’re right. Moore and the local constable Kip go into the boat and discover the mummified crew. Did they actually see one move? Damn skippy, they did. The skeletal crew go on nightly raids in Coquina, seeking human blood and flesh. This is where the book really worked for me. McCammon’s gory descriptions are fabulous and I was wiggling my feet as I read about the carnage. Drinking blood from bite wounds… “They broke open new rivulets of fluids, like dark wine from fleshy casks.” Oh yeah, that is my kind of poetry! The attacks are pretty chilling and a few times I wondered if skeletons with dried, brown flesh and tattered clothes were standing in the dark outside my bedroom door as I read.

 

                The book is not without its problems, though. Until the halfway mark, every woman is a prostitute, then we get a woman who researches wrecks and seems pretty courageous and capable but she never really gets to shine and she becomes little more than a love interest for Moore. Many of the islanders are referred to only as “the black” by the narrator which just feels wrong in today’s world. (I know, this was written 40+ years ago.) With 100 pages to go to an exciting and fiery climax, a new character is introduced for nothing more than exposition and a barely mentioned character becomes the top dog in the fight against the zombies. It seemed to me that the book could have used some editing or rearranging, but overall I enjoyed it a lot and I look forward to my next McCammon book. Luckily, all of the ones I have on deck have beautiful covers by Rowena Morill, like this one does.

The Curse of Loch Ness By Peter Tremayne

The Curse of Loch Ness
By Peter Tremayne
1979 Sphere
Paperback, 230 pages

                The horror novels of Peter Tremayne (nee Peter Berresford Ellis) are really hit or miss with me. Some have been a real chore to get through (Kiss of the Cobra, Zombie) while some have been excellent and fun reads (Swamp, Snowbeast). With The Curse of Loch Ness, I have finally found my (new) favorite, an exciting tale of family curses, back-stabbing locals and a big lake monster that is more than meets the eye.

 

                Being the last remaining member of her family, Jeannie Millbuie inherits the old family castle situated overlooking Loch Ness. It’s not an entirely welcoming old pile of stones; there are weird sounds, endless shadowy corridors and the weird caretaker Mrs. Murdo obviously hates her. Most of the old-timey locals seem to have ulterior motives when it comes to Jeannie’s presence, while others just tell her to leave. Just what is going on in Balmacaan Castle?

 

                The tale is told in two parts. The first is Jeannie’s arrival, her exploration of the castle and the area and then, her abduction. The second part involves her boyfriend Tim, who was summoned to meet her in Inverness but now she has disappeared. Granted, things slowed down a tad with the start of the second part. The first section has you guessing and wondering what the curse is, the secret is, then it backtracks while Tim catches up. But he does so quickly enough and the story charges forward.

 

                The monster? Yeah, he’s in there but he’s unlike any theory of the Loch Ness Monster that you’ve ever heard of. First off, in the chapters from the monster’s own point of view, he is referred to as the intelligence. No dumb dinosaur here, though he is a leftover from prehistoric bloodlines. He is the single most sympathetic character in the book, though Jeannie, Tim, and a handful of other interesting humans are also engaging.

 

                Tremayne’s usual flaw of over-explaining and too much exposition are kept in check this time by having the history of the area and the curse told by a few different people at different times. While one of the baddies is explaining it to Jeannie, the narrative is broken up with her being bored and disinterested in the history lesson. Kind of how I felt reading some of the above-mentioned novels. But this one moves quickly and for the most part kept my interest throughout, making for a very satisfying read. The cover art (some say by Terry Oakes, and I can’t see anything to make me disagree) alone is worth the price of admission.

The Tribe By Glenn Chandler

The Tribe
By Glenn Chandler
1981 Hamlyn
Paperback, 187 pages

                This is Chandler’s second and final novel in the horror genre and, hot on the heels of his book The Sanctuary, and the second one of his to earn Hamlyn’s “nasty” designation. I can’t tell you how much I love the fact that Hamlyn has “nasty” as a category! Does this one earn the right to be called a nasty? Yes. Yes it does. Much more so than his previous book.

 

                A bizarre string of cannibal murders have been popping up across England and Detective Chubby Holroyd is put in charge of the perplexing investigation. Trying to find a connection between these homicides is no easy task. A woman eats her fiancé, a man eats his brother, a man kills and cooks his daughter and force-feeds her to his wife… these are the cases that Chubby has to figure out. Looks like a good time to go on that diet; at least give up meat.

 

                Meanwhile, Herbert and Maggie Gunter are at the end of their vacation and back in England. They find themselves in a small village in Kent whose name is familiar to Maggie; a lovely man they had met while on expedition in New Guinea lives there. She calls their daughter and grandson to say they might drop in on him, but they’ll be back home in time for the grandson’s birthday. They don’t make it. Neither of them ever leave anthropologist Allen Briathwaite’s mansion ever again.

 

                With no main characters except for Chubby and his fellow investigators, the first half of the book tends to be a little confusing. You meet a number of characters, but they’re all just set-up for their descent into cannibalism. And what’s with the leering, seemingly alive shrunken heads? After the Gunters get involved, it starts tying together, for both the reader and dear Chubby. It’s a good thing Maggie called her daughter because when they start to investigate as well, you know you’re going to get an explosive ending. And you do.

 

                This is top-shelf gory pulp horror, and it is the very thing we all love about 80s gross-out books. This one is certainly next level (though I would say it is less vile that L.A. Morse’s The Flesh Eaters, 1979 Warner Books) and Chandler’s descriptions hold nothing back. The man roasting his brother’s head and peering “down at the golden brown face” is a scene that stays with you. Nasty for sure. This book gets quite expensive these days, but it is worth the extra dough. You just don’t get books that are this brutal very often.