From god-like ferrets, to ghostly doggies, and on (this evening) to a "cursed" & withered simian extremity - our mammalian carnival of horrors just keeps on truckin'.

More than any of the five authors we've discussed thus far, W. W. Jacobs' popular reputation rests heavily (if not exclusively) on but one tale (and what an influential and oft-parodied tale it is) - "The Monkey's Paw" (1902).

The popularity of the story has not only guaranteed it the status of evergreen "horror anthology" staple, but also allowed/encouraged it to cross over into the realms of children's literature.¹ Thus it was, in a mediocre children's miscellany, that I first came across a (no doubt abridged) version of it. The mixture of sadness, profound loss and (off-screen) horror stayed with me for years. In this, I very much doubt I'm alone.

So here I am (and we are) many years on - ready, willing and eager to discuss it (while getting mildly pissed, or caffeinated). To keep us company we have the second volume in the "club's" ongoing mixtape/muxtape series - "Dreadful Thoughts Two: Dread by Dawn". Listen to it, wallow in it, and thank our resident DJ Niall Munnelly for putting it all together.

I'm a terrible man for "further ado" - so (without any more of it) let's get comfortable, and begin…

1. And wider pop-consciousness. [back]

Pot the red 'n' screw back, for the yellow, green, brown, blue, pink 'n' black…¹

Near enough to the last minute I know, but I wonder if I might humbly request a Dreadful Thoughts Story Club rescheduling?

One reason is that this Monday (as those who pay attention to calendrical matters will no doubt be aware) is a bank holiday.² Chances are that horror fans might miss the 9 o'clock kick off as they try to squeeze the last few hours out of the weekend in Kilkee, Lahinch, Ballybunion or national/international equivalents.

The more important reason, however, is that Monday night (5th May) sees the conclusion of the World Snooker Championship in Sheffield. Long-time readers will possibly be aware of my love of clunking balls and green baize, but if anyone needs (or wants) reminding then have a quick rummage through these.

1) Chess With Balls

2) More Chess With Balls

3) Triple-X Crucible Hardcore

4) Rockets vs. Grinders

5) Wo kann ich ein kühlschrank magnet kaufen?

6) Manky Toy Monday: Super Pedestal Ball

Getting to the point - the long and the short of it is that I'd like to keep this coming Monday free. If there are no major objections could we switch our "Monkey's Paw" meeting to Tuesday, 6th May, at 9 pm instead? Let me know whadya think.

Story: "The Monkey's Paw"

Meeting: Tuesday, May 6th, 9 p.m.

1. Snooker Loopy [back]
2. In Ireland at least. [back]

What, I ask, does one do when home for a few days with "the sickness"?

Huddle sobbing in the corner munching packets of paracetamol? Maybe. Offer up one's soul to the dark lords for a magical cure? Perhaps. Watch all 5 Planet of the Apes movies back to back?¹ Undoubtedly!

Though the 1968 original remains one of my favourite "genre" films,² I hadn't watched any of the four sequels since I was a (fairly easy to please) schoolboy. The following posts (yes, there'll be more than one) are merely the results of some hastily scribbled and fevered observations made, while propped up on the couch, as the DVDs spun.

1) Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)

Though Leonard Rosenman's delicious soundtrack is a definite highlight (almost the equal of Jerry Goldsmith's classic score for the original PotA), this remains a thoroughly daft and demented slice of late 60s/early 70s Sci-Fi hokum.³

Square-jawed, oiled-up astrohunk Brent (James Fransiscus) not only follows Chuck Heston (R.I.P.) through time and space to Ape City, but does as shameless a Chuck impression as has ever been put on screen. You keep expecting him, in moments of heightened stress and physical torment, to yell out "It's a Madhouse!!". This doppelgänger-ness is even slyly (or perhaps accidentally) acknowledged by Zira's confused exclamation of "Taylor?" when she first sees our beardy hero.⁴

Though the opening, above-ground, sequences are merely fairly dull retreads of scenes from film one, the bonkers-o-meter really swings into overdrive once Brent and Nova go beneath - down into the remains of a shattered New York. There they find (and are captured by) a gang of human survivors ("Eloi" to the Apes' "Morlocks")⁵ who not only retain the power of speech, but have also developed the natty ability to communicate, create illusions, and inflict harm telepathically.⁶

"Fair play to them", you may be thinking, "I hope they righteously kick some monkey arse". A note of caution, however, should now be sounded. They may amount to all that's left of human civilization (in the year 3978) but they're also unhinged religious zealots…

…and (beneath their fleshy masks) - hideous radioactive mutants.

Like many religious communities, "worship through song" is an important element in their ceremonies. Unlike many religious communities, the object of this worship is a big, shiny (and phallic) "doomsday" bomb. It's a madhouse!!

In one of Beneath's most unforgettable sequences,⁷ humourless cult leader Mendez (Paul Richards) leads us in the the kind of prayer that would have had me desperately trying to stifle (wicked) laughter in my mass-going days.

"Glory be to the bomb and to the Holy Fallout,
As it was in the beginning,
Is now, and ever shall be.
World without end…Amen".

And so on…

The "mutant choir" then decide to inject a bit of oomph into proceedings (and kick it post-apocalyptic) with a blast of that olde-timey favourite, "Almighty bomb!":

Almighty bomb!
Who destroyed all devils!
And created angels!
Behold his glory!⁸

Have a listen -

At this point Brent was, no doubt, grinding his Heston-esque jaw & gazing anxiously about for the nearest exit - but wait - there's more techno-mystic lunacy to come. As distressing as it may be, the only contemporary tune that seems to have survived the apocalypse (and made it as far as the 40th century) is "All Things Bright and Beautiful" - albeit in a mangled, mutant version:

Aside from these musical excesses (and I should point out that the versions here are remixes) the soundtrack is, as previously suggested, terrific. The same, however, cannot really be said for the film as a whole - which is, on one level, probably the weakest of the four sequels. I say "on one level" because though it's "not good" in any conventional sense, its not-good-ness is never anything less than bizarre and interesting.⁹ In that it has the edge over most of the (many) "not good" films being made in the 21st century - which are invariably "not good" in wholly tedious and formulaic ways.

Anyway, any film that ends (as this one does) with a dying Chuck Heston spitting out the words "You bloody bastard!" (to Dr. Zaius) as his hand falls on the switch that activates the bomb and, thus, destroys the Planet of the Apes (a.k.a. Earth), is one well worth watching.

Kaboom!

[The "Ape Chronicles" continues shortly…]

1. I'm excluding Tim Burton's execrable remake. [back]
2. I've probably seen it about 30 times. [back]
3. Though, as we shall see, there's much that can be said in "hokum's" favour. [back]
4. I can barely tell 'em apart, so you can't blame a chimp for being a bit bewildered. [back]
5. But with a reverse. The apes dwell above; they live below. [back]
6. With an amusing (synth-noise-accompanied) nod of the head. [back]
7. Interpret "unforgettable" whatever way you want. [back]
8. Or possibly, "Behold this moment!", or even "Behold his coming!". [back]
9. The same can be said for all the PotA sequels - to a lesser or greater degree. [back]

If you were given the gift of but one wish, one wish in this whole wide world, what would it be?

If you've just shrieked "Wildly rich! Rich beyond the dreams of avarice!", then I fear I can't oblige you. If, instead, you offered the more modest answer of "Why, only for 'The Monkey's Paw' to be subject of the next Dreadful Thoughts Story Club!" then consider your wish fulfilled.¹

W. W. Jacobs' "The Monkey's Paw" (html), (pdf)

Read it, rehearse some witty things to say, and return to this damn'd spot on Monday, May 5th Tuesday, May 6th, at 9 pm. As always, newbies/virgins are most welcome.

In other (related) news a second volume in the Dreadful Thoughts Mixtape series has been initiated. It can be found here and, like before, your contributions are needed. For login details, leave a comment or mail me.

Finally, I promised Midget Wrangler that I would upload an image of the hard-won Filthy Badge "on my person" - so here it is.

It sits snugly beside the DT badge on the strap of my bag and, so far, they are getting along famously. I shall treasure it.

Story: "The Monkey's Paw"

Meeting: Monday, May 5th, Tuesday, May 6th, 9 p.m.

1. And this one does not come with too terrible a curse. [back]

This blog's recent forays into (among other things) the colourful worlds of horror and bestial fan fiction seem to be bearing stranger fruit than I had anticipated.

Where previously I had been busily moderating and deleting (tedious) spam comments that appealed to my perceived need for credit cards and Viagra, the latest batch seem to focus on my (perceived again) weakness for the literary and the hard-core pornographic.

Consider the following for example (received on Tuesday morn):

horror, then a strong thrill of grief, then a desire a necessity to where can i find free lesbian movies the Leas are coming with him he sends directions for all the best kuyftjupzqk¹

The "horror" and "strong thrill of grief" were (as a quick search confirms) emotions felt by Ms. Jane Eyre (in Charlotte Brontë's novel of the same name). The "necessity to…find free lesbian movies", however, does not appear to have been mentioned. I suppose it could be implicit…

In Chapter 17 of JE Adele Varens (the child that Jane becomes governess to at Thornfield Manor) is allowed to "sit up much later than usual" (on the night of a party) as she could not "possibly go to sleep while the doors kept opening and shutting below, and people bustling about".

A slightly different slant on this later than usual up-sitting is offered by the following recent slice of spam:

…for she declared she could not possibly go to sleep mature lesbians dildoing in the office a step which sank instead of raising me in the scale of social kuyftjupzqk

We've all (I'm sure) been in just this situation. It's the night before a big exam (or job interview) and the furious sound of "mature lesbians dildoing in the office" destroys any chance of a peaceful night's sleep.

Also, living above (or beside) such a debauched office would clearly sink (instead of raise) you in the "scale of social kuyftjupzqk". It's easy to say "Just ignore social kuyftjupzqk!" (and all its pieties and hypocrisies) but the reality is that we're all insecure slaves to it.

1. He/She who "sends directions for all the best kuyftjupzqk" is surely a self-help guru of some potency. [back]

News has reached me of a tremendously groovy conference being organised by the good people from The Irish Journal of Gothic and Horror Studies (a publication that fills a significant gap in Irish academic life).

Entitled "It Came from the 1950s: Popular Culture, Popular Anxieties" (and being held in Trinity College, Dublin on the 15th and 16th of May) it offers plenty to stir the blood of Horror/Sci-Fi enthusiasts.

Highlights include talks by David J. Skal¹ & Kim Newman,² discussions of "The Fifties Hammer Invasion" & "The Image of the Female Juvenile Delinquent in the 1950s", and (tying in with an early Dreadful Thoughts offering) a paper on "Night of the Demon and British Occultism in the 1950s".

Best of all, it costs not a penny. All you have to do (to ensure your spot) is send an email here confirming your attendance.

If that offer of free fun and stimulation doesn't move you, then I despair. You're probably a pod-person.

I'll be attending on both days - so 'twould be splendid to see any regular readers, Dreadful Thinkers, or pint-buying stalkers there. Let me know.

What: "It Came from the 1950s: Popular Culture, Popular Anxieties".

Where: Trinity College, Dublin (Botany Building).

When: Thursday 15th & Friday 16th of May (full schedule here).

1. He of the indispensable The Monster Show. If you haven't read it, do so this instant. [back]
2. Of…a million and one things, though I'll always be most grateful to him for his editing of my much-loved (and much-thumbed) BFI Companion to Horror. [back]

Welcome ye night wanderers, ye fumblers in the deep & fear-filled dark. Welcome to the fourth instalment of the interweb's dreadfulest story club.

On the menu (Mmm…) tonight - Edith Wharton's shaggy ghost-dog story "Kerfol".

Though, like many of her contemporaries, Wharton was of the opinion that certain aspects of modernity have proven disagreeable to ghosts (and "the ghostly"), she doesn't wholeheartedly embrace the commonly articulated view (attributed by her to Osbert Sitwell) that "ghosts went out when electricity came in":

"What drives ghosts away is not the aspidistra or the electric cooker; I can imagine them more wistfully haunting a mean house in a dull street than the battlemented castle with its boring stage properties."¹

What the ghost really needs, she tells us, is "not echoing passages and hidden doors behind tapestry, but only continuity and silence". For "where a ghost has once appeared it seems to hanker to appear again; and it obviously prefers the silent hours, when at last the wireless has ceased its jazz".²

This may indeed be true. If it is then it begs questions of our (finished & sequenced) Dreadful Thoughts muxtape. Will the "tape", as I had hoped, add to the spooky atmosphere of our meetings or will it, instead, serve only to deafen the encroaching spirits - driving them scuttling toward the door? Time well tell I suppose - and the latter (potential) result may actually be a bonus depending on the state of your nerves.

But enough. Those of you with club badges - wear 'em. Their mystical properties will either keep you safe from the perils of the otherworld, or damn you for all eternity (I haven't worked out which yet).

Booze (or herbal teas) at the ready? Good…let us begin.

P.S: Club member "Wunderkammer" has created his own dreadful companion to our mixtape. It can be found here. Enjoy.

1. Wharton, Edith The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton (London: Virago, 1996), pg. 3. [back]
2. Ibid. [back]

As the "Dreadful Thoughts" club badges begin to wing their way around this wide world (i.e. Ireland) my thoughts have turned from the sunlit plains of munificence to the shadowy valleys of greed. I've enjoyed being a giver - but now it's time to take something (badge-shaped) back.

Midget Wrangler (spurred on by Damien Mulley) recently introduced us to the "Filthy" badge - a scarce and highly-desirable item awarded to those bloggers who've managed to plumb the depths (or should that be scale the heights?) of delicious dirtiness. What follows is my modest bid for this rare prize.

Though the universes of Star Trek, Buffy and Harry Potter (!) have been thoroughly probed and penetrated by writers of slash/adult fan fiction, there remain, I'm happy to say, some niche (and outré) areas of "fandom" that have yet to be fully explored. While, for instance, the Buffy section on (the indispensable) adultfanfiction.net bursts at its seams with over 3500 tales,¹ the My Little Pony archive can boast but one sad, solitary entry - "Belle of the Ball Until Dawn Comes". Admittedly, this may be one more entry than you expected…

Getting it on for the titillation and entertainment of…I'm not sure who exactly,² are the below pair - Twinkle Twirl (L) & Star Catcher (R):

While daylight hours no doubt find them prancing gaily about the fields and meadows of Ponyland, they're at play of a different sort once night falls:

"Star Catcher!" She breathed. "HARDER!" She panted in a breathy equine sort of way, shivering.

He thrust into her harder still, gasping as he did.. IN and OUT…. in and out… back and forth… faster and faster… "Oh! TWINKLE!" He called out heavily. "Twinkle Twirl… you're wonderful…!!!!!"

Hmmm. Though I may have forgotten (due to the nepenthean effects of passion), I don't think that I've ever called out - at the moment of climax - "Oh! [insert name here].. you're wonderful…!!!!!"

It's probably a (little) pony thing…as (unless I'm not doing 'it' right) is the panty, equine, breathy-shivering (not to mention the nibbling, biting and "loving head butts").

Given the tight shorts, moustaches, Hawaiian shirts, camp & arch Englishmen, purring & pistoning Ferrari engines (etc) - it's quite surprising that the adventures of Thomas Sullivan Magnum IV (et al) have not been more enthusiastically "slashed".

Again we find but one lone example, though that makes up for the general lack by giving us good 'n' juicy stuff. In "Peeping" we're introduced to two colourful (but fairly obvious) pairings - Rick/T.C. (I always suspected as much) and Magnum/Higgins (that bitchy, but affectionate, verbal sparring was a dead give-away). Kicking us off in gentle fashion is the former couple:

Rick stared at the broad back of his best friend and lover. Walking over, Rick wrapped his arm around his lover’s waist. Leaning over he rested his head on his beloved’s shoulder. Turning his head, he kissed his lover’s neck, then reached for his lover’s glass and drank the whiskey.

"Rick! Stop that."

"Sorry T.C…." Rick kissed T.C. again, "But I love to kiss you with whisky lips."

"And I love to taste you with whisky tongue."

All so well and so tender, but the motor is quickly revved up a few notches:

Using his strong hand, so gentle on the joystick of a copter, so firm on his lover's flesh. He caressed his lover’s cock, squeezing and massaging until he could feel his lover rocking and whining for T.C. to bring him off.

I'll never look at T.C.'s "chopper"…

…in quite the same way again…

One assumes that this intimate exchange is but the warm-up for the main event - the Magnum/Higgy bonkfest - but no. Their love act is but an afterthought and takes place entirely "off-screen". That doesn't, however, prevent the build-up from from being anything less than the stuff of high hilarity:

Magnum walked back to his brilliant red Ferrari and started the engine. Half way back to his cottage he called ahead to the house.

"Hello, Mildred?" Magnum said as Higgin’s [sic] wife answered.

"Yes?"

"Tell Higgy to go into the cottage and be naked, ass up when I get home. I’m about 15 minutes away."

That's it! The end! "Higgy" waits (forever), "ass up" and naked in the cottage. What happens next is left to our fertile & licentious imaginations. Lovers of explosive crescendos and "money shots" will, no doubt, feel somewhat teased and cheated.³

Badge, please.⁴

1. And features one story ("My Own Demons") that lists the following perplexing - and mildly terrifying - codes in its summary: Abuse, Anal, Angst, AU/AR, BDSM, B-Mod, Bond, BP, DP, F/F, H/C, HJ, Humil, Language, MC, OC, Oral, Other, Preg, S&M, SH, Slave, SoloF, SoloM, Tort, Toys, Trans, UST, WAFF, WIP, Yuri. [back]
2. What fetish, one wonders, is being catered for here? [back]
3. And what's this with a Mrs. Higgins? I always thought (even before reading this) that Mr. H was a "man's man"…if you get my meaning. [back]
4. I can't finish without mentioning a classic line from a Captain Scarlet/Captain Blue story - "Hush Adam, I feel the same way, you were just braver than me, I may be indestructible, but my heart isn't." Genius. [back]