Some exciting movie news this week concerning my short horror novel of 2001, CAPE WRATH, in which a warlike Viking spirit brings savage Norse rituals to the modern age. The one project of mine that has probably attracted more interest from film-makers than any other, it’s now been re-optioned again, and the road to pre-production this time looks as if it may be a quick and relatively untroubled one.
In addition, today, and (slightly) in keeping with CAPE
WRATH, which has a kind of folk-horror vibe, I’ll be reviewing and discussing
Lindsey Barraclough’s amazingly atmospheric tale of rural terror, LONG LANKIN.
Okay … LONG LANKIN is steeped in the sun-soaked glories of a blissful English
summer, and it’s now officially autumn, so how, you’re wondering, can it be an appropriate post for this
time of year? Well hell, I enjoyed the book so much that I didn’t want to wait a
whole eight months to talk about it. It’s that simple. You’ll just have to imagine that the
leaves haven’t started shrivelling and falling and that it hasn’t suddenly
turned damp, cool and misty.
If you’re only here for the LONG LANKIN review, you’ll
find it, as usual, at the lower end of today’s blogpost. So be my guest and get
on down there right away. However, if you’ve got a few minutes of your
tea-break left, perhaps you’ll be interested to learn a little more about the
new developments with …
Cape Wrath – the movie
Some readers of this column will be very familiar with my
novel, CAPE WRATH, and some won’t. Others will know the name simply in
reference to the northernmost point of mainland Britain, a place of granite
headlands and roaring surf.
Well, the location is certainly relevant – because that
is where the vast bulk of the novel takes place. If you’ve ever visited it, you’ll
consider it well named. Even by the standards of Northern Scotland, it’s a
dramatic and picturesque place.
Back in 2001, when I first came up with the idea, I couldn’t
think of anywhere more suitable to set my proposed story about an archaeological dig
that goes very, very wrong.
I’ll try not to give away too many SPOILERS, but CAPE WRATH
tells the tale of a university archaeology team, who head north from England to
the rugged isle of Craeghatir (pronounced Crag-a-tar!), which lies several
miles beyond Cape Wrath. As you’d imagine, it’s initially a story of wild winds
and heaving seas, but the island itself is ringed with crags, which shelter its
inland area, a pristine paradise of deep glens, rushing burns and, unlike most
islands in this far corner of Scotland, dense pinewood. It is also wreathed in
superstition.
Somewhere here, according to a recently translated
rune-stone, is the last resting place of Ivar the Boneless, possibly the most infamous
Viking adventurer of them all.
Though almost forgotten today, Ivar, a real
personality of the ninth century, who lived, breathed and slew all over Britain
and Ireland, was renowned for his prowess in battle and his pitiless cruelty (and for being memorably portrayed by Kirk Douglas in the 1958 movie, The Vikings, above).
His obsessive loyalty to the Norse Gods, and his relentless quest to avenge his
father, Ragnar Lodbrok (who was thrown by the English into a pit of vipers) drove him
and his so-called ‘Great Army’ through numerous Christian realms, raping, pillaging,
burning and killing in various elaborate and grotesque ways. According to
written records, the Viking Blood Eagle – a sacrifice to Odin which involved
the victim’s lungs being torn out while he still lived – was only enacted a
handful of times, and yet nearly all those occasions are associated with Ivar
the Boneless.
Though his exploits in life are well documented, what
became of him in death is unknown. Most scholars agree that he died in his bed,
far more peacefully than the majority of those he vanquished, but his burial
place is lost to us. At least, it was until I wrote CAPE WRATH.
In CAPE WRATH, he was entombed by his brother, Halfdan,
on Craeghatir, where he remained undiscovered until Professor Jo Mercy and her
team arrived. If they could find the tomb and then open it, what treasures
would lie within? Ivar was no mere raider; he laid waste kingdoms across the entire western world of the Dark Ages, or so the legends tells, gathering a fabulous trove.
What story would his mouldering bones tell? All kinds of
myths about Ivar abound. That he was seven feet tall. That he was half man / half bear. That he was born a cripple, and somehow overcame this purely through his
aggressive nature. Now the truth would at last be out.
But would something else come out with it?
Why did Halfdan refuse to cremate his brother, as other heroic
Viking leaders were in that age?
Why did he bury him without any fanfare?
Why did he choose this most isolated place?
Why have strange and terrible things happened to everyone
else who has ever come here?
And why do Professor Mercy’s rival academics fear that opening
this ancient tomb could be a very serious mistake?
Okay, no more plot details. I’m afraid it’s the usual
thing. If you want to know more, you have to buy the book. Or alternatively,
hang around until the film is made.
That said ... I don’t want to over-egg the ‘movie development’ pudding.
Like many writers, lots of my work has been optioned for
movie and TV development in the past, and very little of it has ever, in the end, seen the light
of day. CAPE WRATH, itself, was short-listed
for the prestigious Bram Stoker Award in 2002, which drew it to the attention
of a much wider audience than the norm, and saw it optioned for film development almost straight away.
It remained under option, on and off, for roughly the next nine years, during which
time I must have produced at least ten drafts of the script.
Each time, it felt as if we were getting a little bit
closer; at one point we were less than a month from pre-production – I remember
walking around Soho in a daze of excitement that day – but ultimately, events
conspired to prevent it from reaching principle photography.
I’m not complaining, by the way. This is par for the course
when you’re a professional writer, and let’s be honest, if nothing else, it’s
better that your work attracts the attention of film and TV-makers even temporarily than it remains unnoticed by anyone.
The new interest this month, however, comes from Shock Tactics Films
Ltd, and from top screenwriter and novelist, Raymond Khoury, who is probably
best known for his best-selling Knight Templar books. Raymond has been a fan of CAPE
WRATH for some time and has long been keen to write a script. A couple of
friends have asked me about this – how it feels, handing my novel over for
another writer to make his own interpretation. My position is simple. I’m very
busy at the moment with my Heck and Lucy Clayburn novels, and anyway, I’ve already
read Raymond’s script, which is absolutely superb. So why object?
A deal was thus struck, and CAPE WRATH is back under
option. Will it be Development Hell or Development Heaven? You never know with these things,
but it’s always a lot more exciting when a project is going somewhere than when
it’s sitting on your back shelf, gathering dust.
Keep watching this space, and I’ll fill you in on all the
details as they arrive.
An ongoing series of reviews of dark fiction (crime,
thriller, horror and sci-fi) – both old and new – that I have recently read and
enjoyed. I’ll endeavour to keep the SPOILERS to a minimum; there will certainly
be no given-away denouements or exposed twists-in-the-tail, but by the
definition of the word ‘review’, I’m going to be talking about these books in
more than just thumbnail detail, extolling the aspects that I particularly
enjoyed … so I guess if you’d rather not know anything at all about these
pieces of work in advance of reading them yourself, then these particular posts
will not be your thing.
by Lindsey Barraclough (2012)
Outline
It is 1958, and Limehouse resident, Harry Drumm, decides
that he can no longer look after his two daughters. His wife has been confined
to an asylum thanks to an ever worsening mental condition, and he is struggling to
hold down a job. Hoping, for the time being at least, that his girls will have
a better life in the countryside, he sends them to live with their great Aunt
Ida, who occupies Guerdon Hall, a moated manor house in the Essex village of
Bryers Guerdon.
The children, 14-year old Cora, and her 10-year-younger
sister, Mimi, are already disoriented when they arrive in the the remote spot,
and this isn’t helped by the state of the Hall, which is a rotted, Gothic pile
encircled by overgrown marshland, by the village itself, which is very poor, and
especially by Aunt Ida, who is cold, mean-spirited, unflinchingly strict and
seemingly determined to send them back to London at the first opportunity.
On the few occasions she deigns to explain this, she simply says that Bryers
Guerdon is no place for youngsters and promises to write to their father,
demanding that he take them back.
This is fine by Cora and Mimi, who find the house dreary,
damp and stuffy because all its windows are nailed shut, and filled with
frightening paintings which take on new dimensions of terror at night. However,
Harry does not come back to retrieve his daughters, and the lonely duo are
forced to adapt to life in this mysterious village, making friends with two
brothers, Roger and Peter Jotman, who come from a rumbustious but friendly
household, and advise Cora that their aunt has a bad reputation locally. Rumours
hold that she is a witch and that she murdered members of her own family, which
is why she rarely leaves her home except for necessities, and hardly ever
interacts with any of her neighbours.
To fill the long, hot days of summer holiday that lie
ahead, the youngsters opt to investigate these rumours for themselves,
exploring the village and its surrounding localities, and finally coming to All
Hallows church, a shunned, semi-abandoned edifice in the woods, its grounds
overhung by the ‘Gypsy Tree,’ where dolls and shoes hang from the branches, and
accessible only by a locked lychgate, carved over the top of which are the
words, Cave Bestiam, which they soon learn are Latin for the ominous phrase,
‘Beware the Beast’.
The more the children put themselves around and the more people
they get to know, the more discomforted Cora becomes. Aunt Ida still hasn’t
accepted them, and constantly scolds her for meddling in things that don’t
concern her, but in addition to this, there are odd, unexplained events. Both girls feel as if some strange, frightening presence is drawing ever closer,
while at the same time they hear whispered voices at night, seemingly trying to
warn them, and even spot what look like the ghosts of children in the derelict
churchyard.
Piece by piece, through a succession of interviews with garrulous
local folk, and their examination of old documents and relics from a troubled
past – in which Cora and Ida’s family in particular, the Guerdons, were
helplessly entrapped – the story emerges that an age-old curse has awakened; something
ancient and evil, which lurks in the encircling marshes, and over the the
centuries has stolen away numerous of the Guerdon children. At one time, his
name was Cain Lankin. He was a real person who lived hereabouts, albeit hideous
to look upon and whose deeds were horrific, consorting with witches not the
least of them. Inevitably, centuries later, decayed and foul, as carnivorous as
ever, and known by the final name they gave him, ‘Long Lankin’ because he barely
even fitted into the gibbet cage, he is now more terrible than ever, and he
drools with hunger for four-year-old Mimi …
Review
As some may already know, the novel, Long Lankin, is
based on an Old English ballad of approximately the same name (though there are
various names, it has to be said: Long Lankyn, Lammikin, Balankin, etc), the
original author of which is unnamed and the date of composition, though
unknown, thought to date back to Elizabethan times at least. It tells the
story of a wealthy woman and her baby who are murdered by a malign being, which
emerges from the marshy woodland surrounding their country home and is admitted
to the residence by an untrustworthy female servant. One version of it is fully
quoted at the start of the book, the sinister opening verse reading as follows:
Says milord to milady, as he mounted his horse:
“Beware of Long Lankin that lives in the moss.”
Says milord to milady, as he went on his way:
“Beware of Long Lankin that lives in the hay.”
In some versions of the song, particularly the older
ones, Lankin is a mason who has not been paid for work he performed on the
property and is seeking to recompense himself with aristocratic blood. But in
others, he is a bogeyman or monster – a Grendel-like figure, though a more
modern, internet-age analogy might be with Slenderman – who is evil merely for
the sake of it and sustains himself on the life-force of infant children.
Suffice to say that in the novel, Long Lankin, Lindsey
Barraclough opts for the second of these explanations, casting Lankin as a dangerous,
malevolent villain of supernatural origin. Though she details where he comes
from, giving him a near-human backstory, it is flavoured with witchcraft and
village superstition. And indeed, rural folklore is very much to the fore in
this tale.
As I write, there is something of a renaissance in
folk-themed horror stories, wherein the focus lies with mysterious rituals and
customs, eerie fables, scary myths and half-told tales that may possess a
kernel of unedifying truth. This is an area where I personally have an
interest, much of my own written horror leaning towards the mythologies of old
Britain, so as Long Lankin satisfies almost all of these criteria, it was
hugely attractive to me from the outset.
That said, I initially hesitated because it is marked as
a YA novel. It’s not for children by any means, but it is certainly aimed at a
slightly younger readership than me. But in the end, I dived in, and I wasn’t
at all disappointed. There isn’t much in the way of sex and violence, as you’d
expect, but this is one exquisitely creepy tale, its setting beautifully
realised.
It’s not just rural England in the 1950s, we’re in the
marshlands of eastern Essex, at the height of a hot, sleepy summer, but Great
Britain is not a happy land. The destructive impact of two world wars can be felt
everywhere: back in smoky London, where city girls Cora and Mimi Drumm hail
from, and out here in the swampy greenwood, where villages are
poverty-stricken, roads impassable, cottages run down, and most of the adult
population tired and cranky. There is also a prominent sense of loss. Many
local men died in the wars that have only recently passed, and there is
scarcely a family of any class that hasn’t been bereaved to a greater or lesser
extent. For a so-called YA novel, this is a painful and grown-up portrayal of a
society that has triumphed over Hitler, but as would always be the case after
such massive conflict, has paid a terrible price.
Of course, all this embitterment contrasts neatly with the
book’s younger cast, who, in the way of children the world over, breeze their
way through the summer holidays, oblivious to adult woes, playing and generally
having fun (until the nightmare figure of Lankin arrives, of course). This enables
Barraclough to indulge in some outstanding character work.
In Cora, Roger, Mimi and Peter, but in the older two
children particularly, she creates a bunch of believable, happy-go-lucky
youngsters, who, despite the hardships and privations of their everyday lives,
are inquisitive, excitable and eager to ramble around the sun-drenched countryside,
never letting anything so mundane as low-quality food, hand-me-down clothes, a
clip round the ear or even a spooky old graveyard get them down. But these aren’t just the scampering, barefoot urchins of Enid Blyton.
There’s a work ethic among these post-war brats, and a sense of duty: they do as
they’re told, helping their parents out where they can and taking
responsibility for their younger siblings because they live in a real but damaged world,
which they know must be rebuilt. At the same time, each one is clearly an
individual, with habits and traits specifically designed for them by the different
lifestyles they up until now have led; Roger carefree for example, Cora sadder
and more serious.
It’s the same with the adults. They are colourful but
often multi-layered: Mrs Jotman, the ever-tired country housewife, who
nevertheless is more of a mum to Cora and Mimi than their own mother has ever
been; Harry Drumm, the Jack-the-lad Eastender, a chirpy character who, despite
endless promises, never seems able to live up to his kids’ expectations; Gussie,
the mad old cat-lady with her stumpy teeth and foul-smelling home, and a deep
knowledge of rural lore forced upon her by terrible experiences during her
girlhood; Mr Thorston, the scholarly, university-educated cottager who had so
much to offer the world and gave it up so that he could look after his ailing
wife; and Ida Eastfield, the stern auntie figure, but also the most complex
person in this tale, and the one around whom most pathos is woven – because
though she is unfriendly to the children and loses her temper easily, deep down
this is through fear and guilt rather than dislike, and because she knows what
lurks beyond the manor moat, her own tragic history intricately entwined with
it, the horror of which is more than she can stand.
Which brings us at last to Cain Lankin, also a tragic
figure, an outcast, a leper, a person so reviled in his day that his apparent
death went unlamented. Yes, all the best monsters are able to touch
some nerve inside us, to make us feel sorry for them, even if in this
case it is only brief. Cain Lankin, we feel, was destined to do evil from his
earliest days, and when he appears to us now in the 20th century, he’s adopted
that mantle to its fullest extent. Whatever cruelties he and his lady-friend
suffered, he has now repaid them a hundred times more often than necessary, and
he continues to do so with obsessive, vampire-like relish.
Inevitably, it is Lankin who provides some of the most
frightening moments in this book. And, YA or not, they are genuinely hair-raising. There is more than a touch of MR James when his hideous, emaciated
form comes creeping in the night, crawling through the undergrowth on all-fours
as he closes silently on his unsuspecting prey. But to say any more about
that would be the ultimate spoiler.
If I have any criticism at all, it’s that I’m not
massively sold on the novel’s division into three separate and regularly
changing POVs – Cora’s, Roger’s and Ida’s. I’m not sure it adds anything to
the narrative, which proceeds at its own stately pace and is all the more
compelling because of it, layer upon layer of mystery being added as the story
unfolds. But ultimately, it doesn’t spoil anything either, so I’m not really
complaining.
The main thing is – don’t be put off by Long Lankin’s YA
status. This is an effective and atmospheric horror novel, not exactly pacy,
but richly evocative of rural England in the old days, with its long, hot
summers, its village spells, its carven lychgates and its ancient, ancestral
curses.
If that’s the stuff you’re looking for, you won’t be
disappointed.
Usually, as you probably know by now, I like to complete
my book reviews with a bit of fantasy casting, should the project ever make it
to the screen. On this occasion, though, I’m going to pass for two reasons.
Firstly, Long Lankin is constructed around its child cast, and I don’t know
enough about the current best child actors, so it would be a pointless effort.
Secondly, because it has already been optioned for development by a British
company … so, here’s hoping for a TV production as good (and as scary) as the
source material.
(The image at the top of today’s column comes from the 2007 Viking movie, Pathfinder).
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