Top Thirteen Horror Films, Novels and Short Stories, part V

Scott McMillan is like a rabid dog. That's one reason why he had to flee the East Coast and move out West. He gave the place too much static. There are other reasons, as well, but I'm not inclined to talk about why in polite company. And also, I don't want Mr. McMillan on my ass either. He currently resides somewhere in Washington state, in a cabin, and he's been known to wave his shotgun filled with rock salt at whoever's stupid enough to come his way. In his freetime, Mr. McMillan likes to keep his great web site running, http://lackoftalent.net:8080/satan/, and search for Big Foot. No, I'm not kidding. If you don't believe me, go ahead and drop him a line. Ask him. I dare you.

Top 13 Horror Films

Thirteen horror films to pick out of a cornucopia of fine cinematic fare. Hmmm... how to face the trauma of choosing between Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter and Friday the 13th: A New Beginning? Like science fiction and fantasy, the horror genre seems to be capable of producing mountains of crap. Yet, where there are mountains there are usually gems. All films are available in DVD and VHS format.

1. The Ring (2002) -- I’m going out on a limb and, despite its newness, say this film is destined to be a classic. Beautifully made and at heart a classic ghost story, it also scared the freaking crap out of me. Any movie that has me frantically scrabbling for the light switch when I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom makes the list, regardless of vintage. Stand up performances by everyone involved, eerily beautiful cinematography, and solid production.

2. Bride of Frankenstein (1935) -- James Whale’s followup to 1931's Frankenstein is by far the superior beast of the two. The film is superior in all respects, but it is the actors who really breath life into it. Boris Karloff as The Monster shows a humanity that didn’t exist in his original performance, transforming a mute golem into a sympathetic anti-hero – his final line is epically tragic. With no more than expression, gesture, and bird-like screeching, Elsa Lanchester as The Bride, gives a performance that is nothing less than iconic. Ernest Thesiger is perfect as the reptilian Dr. Pretorius, and Una O’Connor provides some Shakespearean comic relief as Minnie, Dr. Frankenstein’s Maid.

3. Alien (1979) -- Hey, you got your science fiction in my gothic horror! Often imitated, but never equaled, Alien broke the mold for the scifi-horror subgenre while at the same time reviving horror films, which were suffering under the ponderous weight of loads of bad slasher flicks riding the coattails of John Carpenter’s 1978 Halloween. This film wouldn’t be what it is if not for the script of Dan O’Bannon, and manic vision and attention to detail of Ridley Scott (plus a fortuitous encounter with the work of that creepy Swiss bastard, H.R. Giger), but the ensemble cast of Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Tom Skerrit, Harry Dean Stanton, Ian Holm, Yaphet Koto, and John Hurt give the film something special that was never recaptured in any of its numerous spawn.

4. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) -- This tale of lost young people being stalked and killed off is fairly typical of the slasher movies it is the grandpappy of, but director Tobe Hooper’s use of atmosphere is what makes it different than most. Through his camera eye, the sun-ravaged, dustbowl-like environment of Texas is as terror inducing as any pitch black tomb ever was.

5. Prince of Darkness (1987) – I tried not to duplicate any of the films listed by my fellow reviewers, but couldn’t stay away from this tale of a misfit group trying to decipher clues as to an imminent satanic rebirth from beyond. Even with all the cheesy (but loveable) crap typically found in Carpenter’s films, it manages to be really frightening. And oh yes, the staticky dream image transmission mentioned by Lynda E. Rucker will haunt you for the rest of your life.

6. The Return of the Living Dead (1985) – Mall-punks, zombies, a loveable bumbling duo, and a crypto-Nazi mortician – what’s not to love in this directorial debut of scriptmeister Dan O’Bannon. It’s a roller coaster ride of gore, genuine scares, and cheap one liners.

7. Kwaidan (1964) – Director Masaki Kobayashi’s interpretation of four classic Japanese ghost stories from the book of the same name by the late 19th century author Lafcadio Hearn. All four tales stand well on their own, but the best are Black Hair – the story of a samurai who abandons his wife and is literally haunted by his decision, and Hoichi the Earless – the story of a blind novice monk whose talent at singing the ballad of the Battle of Dan-no-Ura brings the unwelcome attention of the ghosts who died in that conflict. The effects are crude and many of the scenes were obviously shot on a sound stage, but in many ways this ads to the appeal of the film.

8. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) – Anti-commie propaganda or not? Who cares, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, while somewhat tame and slow by modern standards is nevertheless an intelligent, paranoid tale of invasion from within. The “escape” scene on the back of the truck is a classic in cinema history.

9. Dead Alive (1992) – This early Peter Jackson zombie flick is considered (and rightly so) more comedy than horror, but horror is more than just scaring the crap out of people. Like Little Shop of Horrors on extremely bad acid. Great characters, a fun story, zombie sex, gushing stumps, and gallon upon gallon of fake blood. Oh yeah, you’ll never eat custard again.

10. Jaws (1975) – Despite living over 70 miles away from the ocean -- the thought of a huge, relentless, man (and child) eating machine scared the hell out of me as a child. Now, as an adult I can appreciate the subtle nuances that make this one of the best films ever made, but it still scares the crap out of me. Even with all the great scary moments, for me the creepiest is when Quint (Robert Shaw) is telling of surviving the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in World War II.

11. Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983) – This is a beautiful production of one of my favorite Ray Bradbury novels. A traveling carnival with a dark and sinister secret comes to town, and young Jim Nightshade is determined to find out what it is. The central characters of Jim and his best friend, Will are very well played and supported by a cast including Jason Robards, Jonathan Pryce, Dianne Ladd, Pam Grier, and the great character actor, Royal Dano.

12. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) – Many silent films are difficult to watch, given our modern expectations, but this one is a visual feast. The story centers around the character of Cesare, a sleep-walking servant and carnival attraction, kept in a coffin-like box by the diabolical Dr. Caligari. The dreamlike theme is continued in the extremely stylized set design – whose influence you can see in the modern works of Tim Burton.

13. Evil Dead II (1987) – Many will tell you that this rewritten, bigger budget remake/sequel of 1981's splatter-comedy epic, The Evil Dead is not as good as the original. I say watch them back to back and decide for yourself. What do you have to lose, except your lunch?

While I await more Top Thirteen Horror lists to come in, I thought that it would be an opportune time to put up some of my old writing. No, I'm not talking about posting my high school journal entries or any thing like that. Don't worry. I'm talking about some of my earlier reviews and articles that I did for various zines and web sites -- stuff that I still like and think perhaps some of you may enjoy reading as well.

The first piece is an interview (my first) that I conducted via email with science-fiction/horror writer, John Shirley. It was done for the Student Advantage web site (now deceased) in October 2000.

Shaping the Rage with John Shirley
Interview by Derek Hill

John Shirley is rock and roll. His dark chords resonate in the memory like few others. Whether he is writing his particular brand of cyber-punk, horror, or grim urban fiction, it all comes out black. But that’s not to say Shirley’s intentions are merely to thrash about and shock. That would be too simple, too . . . safe. There’s a definite method to his madness, even though it may not initially be clear what it is.

For most of his early career Shirley was burning the candle at both ends. He should be dead. But he isn’t. He’s alive and well and writing some of the best stuff of his wild career, one which includes screenwriting credits for the film The Crow, and the novels City Come A-Walkin’, Wetbones, and his newest, Demons.

His official website is http://www.darkecho.com/johnshirley


You began publishing fiction professionally at a young age. Exactly how old were you?

Professionally, I was about nineteen. Less professionally, I'd already been publishing in underground publications of various kinds for several years. I'd already written a novel and a half—Dracula in Love and Transmaniacon, both of which were eventually sold. Dracula in Love was a rather perverse book but had its own level of intense hormone-fueled creativity; Zebra books brings it back into print now and then. A lot of my earlier writing was colored by the political background of the early seventies; the social upheaval of a kind of orgy of taboo-breaking that was going on.

How long after attending Clarion did you begin to write professionally? How did your experiences there influence your writing?

To tell you the truth, Clarion literally (and literarily) saved me from a life of crime. I was a disaffected, alienated, angry young man and going in all the wrong directions in several respects. Clarion gave me an alternative. I sold a story professionally while at Clarion to the Clarion anthology, published by NAL. One of my Clarion teachers--it's a six week thing, a different pro every week, and I've since been a teacher myself--was Terry Carr, who later went on to publish Bill Gibson’s Neuromancer (I'm the one who got Terry interested in Gibson!), and he subsequently published some of my stories in his anthology Universe. Another Clarion teacher, Robert Silverberg, bought two stories from me for other anthologies. This encouraged me to work harder on publishing my novel. Terry also bought one of my first novels, Changeworld, which I had only one manuscript copy of (It was written on an electric typewriter) and which was lost in the mail when I sent it to him, never to be seen again! It's probably just as well. . . So you see being at Clarion was a boon to me professionally. People liked my writing, there, and encouraged me, and stayed in touch afterwards. Although it's not entirely true to say "it's who you know" that helps you, it's partly true. You have to have some ability too. Of course, you can not know any pro editors and still get published out of left field, happens all the time. But it did help to meet them. Though Ursula LeGuin, who was there, didn’t help me get published directly, she encouraged me a great deal and the psychological help in that was invaluable. What was most helpful at Clarion was the harsh, merciless feedback from the other writers there, and the pro writer (or editor) teachers like Harlan Ellison and Avram Davidson and Silverberg and LeGuin and Frank Herbert. They force you to be somewhat objective. Of course one gets privately angry and sullen when criticized--especially if one is young-. When people say "read this and criticize it honestly! Tell me what you really think!" they are LYING nearly every time. They actually only want to hear good things, whatever they may suppose or claim. But at a setting like Clarion you're stuck there, day after day--and you have to learn to live with criticism. Pretty soon you internalize that editorial voice--and you do need that inner editor.

Most musicians have a "day job". Your day job was writing fiction -- how did you balance your creative energies between the two? Was one of them ever more important to you than the other, and at what point (and why) did you decide to concentrate most of your energy on writing?

I had my shot at signing with a major label and major producer, John Hammond at Columbia. He'd just signed Stevie Ray Vaughn and he said he wanted to work with me--I was a singer--if only I'd get rid of the band I was working with. I didn't want to do that and I was very punk-attitudinized at the time, and I rubbed him wrong and then I blew it off and...by the time I realized he was the guy who discovered Dylan and Springsteen, it was too late, he'd had a stroke. You don't get two shots like that in life. I did go on to make a record with a European label, but it did only marginally. And finally I did have to make a choice. I still write lyrics (for the Blue Oyster Cult--their new album Heaven Forbid, is 80% my lyrics), and do a little recording but it's a hobby. You know, at the time I was able to do both partly because of the very understanding young ladies in my life. You may have heard the joke: What do you call a rock musician without a girlfriend? Homeless. Also I married a couple of those generous ladies (not both at once!), and had some kids, and wanted to be responsible to the kids--so I had to do what generated the most money for me, in my life, and that was writing. Also, many women don't like their boyfriends/husbands to be rock singers unless the guy is making a lot of money from it, because there are too many girls in the audience.

You've done your fair share of hard living. You wrote throughout it and came out on the other side stronger than ever. To what do you attribute your survival -- both creative and personal?

Recovery--spirituality--and, frankly, prayer. Staying clean and sober. I have had a couple of brief relapses--a few hours each--but for the most part I've stayed clean for ten years. And before that I was trying to and sometimes getting long periods of staying clean from drugs. I never wrote on drugs though sometimes I wrote about drug related experiences between times. Some drugs are worse than others are, of course--but I can't touch any of them if I want to stay clean because, for an addict, one intoxicant leads to another. Plus I 'got by with a little help from my friends'--my wife Micky, other people who cared about me helped. Learning to be honest helps--people who have a secret life of any kind, who live compartmentally, hiding things from those close to them, are in danger of fragmenting more than their exterior lives, they also fragment their inner lives. If your inner self--your soul, if you want to call it that, or your mind, if you prefer--is fragmented, you can't make conscious choices and you find yourself falling into traps. A little self knowledge helps too--know yourself, and you will see some of the traps that you are setting for yourself. And you can avoid them and learn to stop setting them.

Your fiction has always been pessimistic, and you have maintained that in recent collections Black Butterflies and Really, Really, Really, Really, Weird Stories. How do you reconcile the present stability of your life with this dark worldview?

I don't know if it's always so pessimistic. If you read my trilogy of novels starting with Eclipse (Babbage Press), and my novel Silicon Embrace, or my recent book Demons, you find that it's horrific, a dark passage, but at the end of the passage something is achieved, someone has grown, someone has survived, usually the dark side has lost, despite a terrible cost. Short stories are often tooled for maximum impact and to make a specific statement--so they tend to be darker, to end darker. Often the stories are a moral allegory, or are trying to throw light on some dark corner of life now; they're trying to describe the dilemmas that the forgotten people fall into. People who've fallen through the chinks--or leapt headfirst through them. I identify with these people even if I'm not one anymore. So the stories--even when dark--are about the human condition, the terrible traps people can be in and they're sympathetic in that sense. Stability in life is always tentative. Life is hard no matter what--I have my share of problems. Stephen King is a wealthy man with a loving family and fame--but he took a walk and some guy ran him down with a van. That's life. It's the artist's job to dramatize that direness, to shine light on it so it can be seen and understood from within the mechanism of the event.

In your fiction and film work, have you ever experienced censorship? As someone who works in Hollywood, what is your take on Democratic VP candidate Joseph Lieberman's call for Hollywood to begin to "self-censor" their films? Do you think this is ever justified?

I haven't had much problem with it. I'm more concerned about the kind of censorship that goes on in the news media (for my article on this see Political and Corporate Censorship in the Land of the Free, by clicking on nonfiction at the authorized John Shirley website). News stories are 'spiked' --that is, stopped--by special interests. An example was dramatized in the recent film The Insider. . . I do think that studios should not market R rated movies to children. This doesn't mean the kids can't see the film if the parents take them or allow it at home--it only means that the advertising is not aimed at them or shoved under their noses. I think that movies like Natural Born Killers are probably irresponsible because the "heroes" are murderers who murder for fun--the film seems to implicitly celebrate murder, rather than exposing it or warning about it or simply using it as a plot point. I think that it would've been more responsible if the studio had said, No, this film is socially irresponsible so we choose not to release it. But I don't think that sort of thing should be imposed by Congress or the laws. We have some limitations now and they are enough. And I think the evidence is that violent films don't imprint people with violent behavior. Violent films may trigger violent behavior on the part of someone who's already deeply pathological--like those kids at Columbine--but something would’ve triggered it anyway. There is a study that suggests that violent videogames and PC games might make aggressive behavior more likely though. But movies are different. I do think that art should usually rule over one's moral concerns--the movie Clockwork Orange is a very meaningful artistic film and it could conceivably be seen as encouraging youth violence (and in fact there was supposedly copycat violence brought on by it) but I think it's such a masterpiece it deserves to be out there. I think Pulp Fiction was real art, a fine film, and yet I suppose it could be considered dangerous to young minds--or some might think so. But I'm glad it was made.

There is a real sense of dissatisfaction with capitalism in the world right now (i.e. the W.T.O. protests around the country and the western world). But prominent bands such as Rage Against the Machine and films such as Fight Club manage to get bankrolled by global corporations (Sony and Fox respectively), while arguably maintaining very anti-capitalist, anti-materialist messages. Do you think that these forms of pop culture are truly subversive, or are they merely just escapist fantasies for the already converted?

It's interesting — Fight Club was a very subversive film. So was the movie They Live, from John Carpenter, a while back. Subversive art is often bankrolled by people who are being ridiculed by those very films. Either they don't get it, they miss the underlying message, as is the case with Fight Club probably, or, in some cases, they think it's healthy to criticize even their own social set, the status quo they belong to. Perhaps some regard it as a sort of social lightning rod. But I think subversive films like Fight Club and American Beauty do affect people. Often not consciously, but on some level they get the message. The movie The Matrix, while not as artistically valid as the Fight Club or American Beauty makes much the same statement--we're caught up in a vast corporate system (seen in purely symbolic form in The Matrix) which has made its consumerist values--its extreme valuation of entertainment for the sake of it, of living in a media dream--the center of our lives. We've moved our center away from our inner lives and our nearby-community and made it something meaningless; we've projected ourselves on a screen. So we feel lost, disoriented, meaningless. People know this, even if they can't articulate it. Movies like Fight Club state it for them. . . I don't know if people are reacting against capitalism per se--but against "captilism uber alles". That is, stupefying, raging unmodified capitalism; capitalism out of control, where everything is done for the sake of business and human concerns are only passingly taken account of. The WTO issue is ultimately about human rights--giving people a real living wage, health care, equal opportunity, a clean environment, does not have to be destructive to capitalism. It only modifies its unhealthiest form and makes it healthy again.

You originally wrote the "Song of Youth" trilogy back in the 80s, before the Soviet Union had collapsed entirely. With the recent re-publication of the series (newly updated and revised), how do you view the lingering shadow of European fascism in Austria, the Baltics, and the former Yugoslavia?

The re-published Eclipse books are revised and updated--the "New Soviets" of the novels are something explained in the book, so it's no longer outdated. As far as I can see all too much of what was predicted in the Eclipse books is coming true. Racism is on the rise, not on the decline. When people fail to adapt to the stress of wave after wave of new immigrants, the clash of cultures, the increased competition, they tend to look for someone to scapegoat and this makes for an opportunity for demagogues, wannabe dictators. Ethnic rivalries in Eastern Europe are worse than ever. Fascism is back in Austria--the Fascist who recently stepped down only stepped behind the throne and still controls things from there. Eclipse describes the 'social recipe' that could lead to organized international racism returning. It also warns about media manipulation and mind control--like the CIA's real life program to control the media, "Project Truth"--and how they could be used to advance a fascist agenda. Some vast social catastrophe--not 'the end of the world' but a big crack in the world--will make desperate people follow political desperados into the abyss. What sort of catastrophe? Currently the most likely, aside from ecologically induced famine, would be a terrorist-induced plague. Smallpox and anthrax, dumped on millions in America by terrorists who've purchased the viruses from the vast stockpile the Russians built up--and which they no longer have any real control over. In the destabilizing wake of such an attack we could be vulnerable to fascist takeover.

Who are some writers you admire, past and present?

Elmore Leonard, Cormac McCarthy, Edgar Allen Poe, JG Ballard, F Scott Fitzgerald, Mark Twain, Tim Powers (check out his new novel Declare), CS Lewis, GK Chesterton, Herman Hesse, Jacob Needleman, Dorothy Parker, Patrick O'Brien, Richard Stark, Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, Bruce Sterling, Dan Simmons, Jack Vance, Raymond Carver, Rudy Rucker, Marc Laidlaw--I guess that's enough.

You began your career as a writer of sf and moved into horror (and horrific mainstream pieces). To what do you attribute the change in focus?

I don't think I fit the science fiction readership very well. Last time I was at a Worldcon I felt very out of place. I'm just not a very good fit in any genre though there's no doubt I've written a lot of genre fiction. Genre but not generic. I tend to break out of categories. Also I wanted to make statements about the 'real' world too-- about the underworld, so called, the underside of society. About the lost people I mentioned before. SF was not the place to do it--most SF editors don't want to hear about it. And Eclipse is a progressive political statement--the people protesting the WTO would be more likely to dig it than the people reading Jerry Pournelle or Heinlein or even Neal Stephenson. To me those books are more about social and moral issues than politics. But some right-wing or Libertarian SF-types may find them too "political"--because it isn't their politics. Not that I’m politically correct, particularly. I like Dirty Harry movies and enjoyed the movie Starship Troopers--and Troma films.

I understand that Troma is planning on adapting some of your work (or will it be original projects?). Could you elaborate on this?

No deal is yet signed. They did approach me about adapting a couple of my more Troma-esque short stories. I do think Troma films are funny, and that they have their own level of artistry and satirical value. So I'll only be a little embarrassed by the movie. I like Lloyd Kaufman from Troma a lot. He's a great guy, perversely talented. One of the stories would be “Just Like Suzie” from my collection Really, Really, Really, Really, Weird Stories. And it is not politically correct either. Fortunately, not all my stories are Troma-adaptable. Some are not so over the top! Anyway, I won't be writing the script. God only knows what the film would be like...

Is the future bright? Or are we going to crawl around in the dark for awhile?

It'll be a patchwork. I do think we have some disasters in our global future. I think there's a good globalism and a bad globalism. The bad globalism means we let the corporations rule the world; the good one will be global enforcement of Human Rights, and worldwide ecological standards. Before we get there we'll have to learn lessons from ecological catastrophe, massive terrorist bio-attack, and war induced by greed...

Top Thirteen Horror Films, Novels and Short Stories, part IV

Joe Pettit, Jr. is an enigma among men. He walks a dark road, and he walks it alone. At various times "Walkout" Joe has been a stevedore, a male escort, a Mexican wrestler, a bug wrangler, a laboratory guinea pig for clandestine hallucinogenic experiments, and most recently, a politician. When not working "undercover" within the bowels of a used bookstore in Eugene, Oregon, Joe eases his troubled conscience performing music and writing.

13 Horror Novels That Should Be on Your Nightstand

By no means is this to be construed as an ultimate best of list. These are 13 great horror novels that I have read or re-read over the past five years, whose images or ideas have stuck in my head. Because of the constraints of the list (13 choices only), I immediately eliminated the unholy triumvirate of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, and Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, mainly because I assumed that hardcore fans of the genre would have already encountered their dark pleasures. If you haven’t read them yet, get to work. (Go on, what are you waiting for!) I also cut Stephen King and Peter Straub, again because even casual readers of the genre have encountered these two giants (but if you’re wondering, I would have chosen The Regulators and Desperation as one entry for King, and the underrated Shadowland for Straub). When I finally decided to keep the list focused on lesser-known novels, I had to remove one of my all-time favorite novels from the final pick - Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes. Now, without further ado, the list.

1. The Monk (1796) by Matthew Gregory Lewis – Over two hundred years ago, a nineteen-year-old youth steamrolled over the boundaries of the genteel gothic tale, represented by novelists such as Horace Walpole and Ann Radcliffe, with this outrageous tale of a saintly monk seduced into a life of corruption. Even in this jaded age the character of Ambrosia still shocks. You would be hard pressed to find a contemporary villain, outside of Hannibal Lechter, who so gleefully and wholeheartedly embraces the dark path to perdition.

2. Uncle Silas (1864) by J. Sheridan LeFanu – Although remembered mainly for masterly short stories and novellas like Green Tea and Carmilla, LeFanu was quite adept at novel length shockers. Uncle Silas stands as one of his best efforts. Maud Ruthyn suspects that her Uncle, scorned by polite society for some indiscretions in his youth, might be after her father’s estate. Austin Ruthyn believes that Silas isn’t evil, but suffers from the stigma of his past sins. When Austin unexpectedly dies, Maud becomes the ward of Silas and we get to find out what evil truly lurks within his soul. LeFanu’s descriptions of landscapes and storm tossed skies shimmer with an almost hallucinogenic intensity. The dark forces directing the action palpably rise off the page. Laden with an “atmosphere of mystery and the crescendo of impending doom” (as M. R. James, another horror master, noted), Uncle Silas is a perfect novel to read by candlelight on a long winter’s night.

3. Jewel of the Seven Stars (1903) by Bram Stoker – After creating the world’s most famous bloodsucker, Stoker set his sights on mummies, inspired by the Egyptology craze sweeping London. The police investigations into the attack on the scholar Trelawny at the beginning of the book are unintentionally hilarious: the Inspector’s insipid deference to his “social betters” reads like a Monty Python send up on the English class structure. All laughter chokes off when Queen Tera begins to extend her seven fingered reach from beyond the tomb into the drawing room. Stoker’s publishers tinkered with the book’s ending after the initial printing, giving the tale a happy ending that rang false (speculation abounds as to whether Stoker actually wrote the revised ending). Make sure you track down the TOR edition which reproduces the text of the first printing, retaining the book’s original incredibly sad and shocking ending.

4. The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1927) by H. P. Lovecraft – This short novel, from the man many consider to be the father of the modern Horror story, has all the elements we’ve come to expect from Lovecraft - sensitive and eccentric scholars meddling with forces beyond their comprehension and control; unspeakable horrors from other spheres; strange rituals and incantations; and ancient beings with long, unpronounceable names. The first half of the novel fills in the historical background of Ward’s evil ancestor Joseph Curwen, but reads more like a dusty, historical tome than a dramatic narrative. Lovecraft delivers the goods in the second half though. If the scene where Dr. Willett discovers a room full of yelping, indescribable creatures kept in deep wells doesn’t chill you, check your pulse my friend. You’re already dead.

5. Fear (1940) by L. Ron Hubbard – Rational man of science, Professor James Lowry, an ethnologist, calls down the wrath of demons on his head by publicly professing his lack of belief in their existence. First he loses his hat, along with four hours of time. Then, he loses his grip on reality as sinister voices and menacing figures taunt him, and an ominous stone staircase that leads down into a nether realm mysteriously appears. All the while Lowry tries to unravel the riddle of his missing time despite warnings that when he solves the mystery, he will die. Sure, sixty plus years later after its initial publication, the premise of Hubbard’s early novel has been done to death, and the twist ending isn’t all that surprising. What truly unsettles me as a reader are the surreal episodes where the walls of rationality dissolve and the dark visions claw their way into Lowry’s tenuous hold on reality. Fear demonstrates that even before engaging in the Babylon magickal workings with Jack Parsons or starting his own religion, L. Ron Hubbard was fascinated with the nature of consciousness and the oncoming collision between ancient and modern ways of believing.

6. Witch House (1945) by Evangeline Walton – Although known for fantasy novels, particularly the Mabinogian tetralogy, Walton wrote one horror novel worthy of the masters. Don’t let the two silly covers from the Collier reprints (malignant bunnies with glowing eyes or a ghost escaping from a portrait over the mantelpiece) or the protagonist with the ultra taboo name (Gaylord) scare you off. Walton weaves a tight tale of psychological horror about a family whose ancient ancestors continue their dysfunctional reign from beyond the grave with the help of magic, always with the help of magic.

7. Land of Laughs (1980) by Jonathan Carroll – I realize that the novels of Jonathan Carroll are an acquired taste, but I have yet to meet anyone who didn’t like this first novel. Some might argue that Land of Laughs is not really a horror novel at all. To counter that, I’ll provide a long quote from Arthur Machen’s The White People:

What would your feelings be, seriously, if your cat or your dog began to talk to you, and to dispute with you in human accents? You would be overwhelmed with horror. I am sure of it. And if the roses in your garden sang a weird song, you would go mad. And suppose the stones in the road began to swell and grow before your eyes, and if the pebble that you noticed at night had shot out stony blossoms in the morning?

Some of these things happen in Land of Laughs, along with a few other horrific events. Case closed. And hey, even the dead come back to life.

8. The Ceremonies (1984) by T. E. D. Klein – Cosmic horror rears its head on a small farm in New Jersey. Because Arthur Machen was an undeniable influence on this suspenseful book, I was expecting something, well, grimmer. What surprised me most was the sense of humor running deep in the novel’s veins. Klein takes a typically Lovecraftian theme - the rational man or woman (in this case, Jeremy Freirs, literary scholar of the horror tale and his girlfriend, Carol Conklin, an aspiring dancer) who cannot see the obvious occult danger before their eyes because it is so far removed from their daily life – and mines it for all its comedic potential. But make no mistake; The Ceremonies is a horror novel through and through, one you won’t forget long after the sound of the dragon dies down amidst the tumult of city sounds at the novel’s end.

9. Next, After Lucifer (1987) by Daniel Rhodes – When some readers think of books about expatriates relocating to the south of France, A Year in Provence or Toujours Provence invariably comes to mind. Not for this reader. Sure, Next, After Lucifer has an American professor retiring to the south of France to search out magic and adventure, but the resemblance ends there. Instead of finding good food, strong drink, quaint conversation and inexpensive lodgings among the country folk, Professor McTell stumbles upon black magic, an ancient cursed well, the sinister ruins of a citadel rumored to have housed the Knights Templar, and the spirit of a malignant sorcerer plotting to regain corporeal form. Rhodes crafted his first novel as homage to M. R. James. Judging from the results, it’s obvious he absorbed one of the most important qualities from the master scribe of the ghost story - the ability to sustain an atmosphere of dread and unease until the tale hurtles to its inevitable dark ending.

10. Ancient Images (1989) by Ramsey Campbell / Flicker (1991) by Theodore Roszak – I’m a sucker for stories about lost films, especially those purported to exert an evil influence. In Ancient Images, the film in question is Tower of Fear, a lost final collaboration between Boris Karloff and Bela Legosi, which disappeared before it premiered. Clues to the mystery behind why the film went missing film lie in the town where most of its footage was shot, Redfield, known for producing uncannily delicious wheat. Flicker deals with a missing director and his suppressed films. Max Castle, a German who began his career during the Expressionist period, emigrated to Hollywood in the ‘30s where he was confined to making B-movies or to helping more commercially successful directors, such as Orson Welles, craft their opuses. In 1942, he was lost at sea, a passenger on a boat torpedoed by the Nazis. Jonathan Gates becomes obsessed with Castle’s disturbing films, especially when he finds they contain hidden images detailing secret rituals in honor of the Gnostic god Abraxis. Each novel is flawed in it’s own way: Campbell’s ends too abruptly, and Roszak can be overly discursive and pedantic. What lingers in my mind is the characters’ infectious love of film in both novels, and both authors’ descriptions of the sickening thrill and exaltation of uncovering secret and forbidden knowledge housed within a work of art.

11. Bone Music (1995) by Alan Rodgers – On his deathbed, legendary bluesman Robert Johnson, writhing in agony from the poison in his gut, sings Judgment Day in an act of vengeance towards the meanness of this old world. Now Judgment Day isn’t any old song. It’s a song of uncanny beauty. All living bluesmen know it, but only in bits and pieces. Only the Hoodoo Doctors - the great bluesmen who have died in the eyes of the world, but remain alive in another level of reality - know it in its entirety, and they dare not sing it. For Judgment Day, performed in its entirety, will destroy the Eye of the World, a lens that acts as a barrier between hell and earth. Robert Johnson’s foolish and prideful act didn’t destroy the Eye, only damaged it. But fifty years later, a little girl who died of cancer is brought back to life, setting off a chain of events leading to the re-weakening of the Eye and an apocalyptic showdown in New Orleans. Alan Rodgers pulls off the amazing feat of constructing a homegrown Hoodoo Blues mythology which reads like it was birthed whole into the world the first time a black man laid hold of a six string guitar and crooned the blues. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

12. The Between (1995) by Tananarive Due – Hilton James cheated death when he was a boy. Thirty years later, he’s a successful social worker, married to Dade County’s only African American judge and has two beautiful children. Only his world is starting to unravel as a racist man (who his wife prosecuted in an earlier trial) stalks his family, and the boundaries between his dreaming life and his waking life start to dissolve. Suddenly Hilton has to confront the possibility that his borrowed time might be up. This astonishing first novel by African American writer Tananarive Due deftly negotiates the surreal territory that lies between life and death, dreaming and waking, and the spirit and the material. What chills me the most is the sense of demons, spirits and elementals at play in the very air around the James family. Due provides a firm grounding in reality with the detailed scenes involving Hilton’s professional and home life, which only makes the slip into the Between all the more unsettling. This is the kind of book Toni Morrison would write if she were to focus solely on the horror genre.

13. Santa Steps Out (1998) by Robert Devereaux – There’s a million ways this twisted little book could have gone wrong. But after the hilarious opening scene where God returns from vacation to find that the Archangel Michael and a few other trusted members of the angelic choir have not only reverted to their former pagan selves, but have allowed the unthinkable to happen (namely allowed Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy to cross paths), you know you’re in the hands of a demented genius. Santa has a reputation for being a generous man. Santa Steps Out demonstrates, very graphically, how generous the jolly old fat man really is. When you finally get past the shock value of seeing beloved childhood icons such as Santa, The Tooth Fairy, Mrs. Claus and the Easter Bunny acting out in shameful ways, you’ll find that Devereaux has crafted a beautiful and, at times horrifying, ode to the life-force that flames within us all. You’ll never look at a Christmas Coca-Cola ad or that mall imposter in the same way again. Not for the easily offended or the faint of heart. Really.