New Liz Shaw tale proves a winner so far

A pleasing review has appeared for SENTINELS OF THE NEW DAWN, the 'Companion Chronicle' Dr Who audio drama I recently penned for Big Finish.

The author of said review is Stephen Theaker, writing on his blog:

THEAKER'S QUARTERLY AND PAPERBACKS.

The story concerns Liz Shaw, the Third Doctor's first companion, so admirably played by the cool and sexy Caroline John (pictured, in her heyday), and goes into a little bit of detail about why, back in the early 1970s, she left UNIT and the Doctor's side after a relatively short stint. Caroline performs this story as well, alongside Duncan Wisbey, and does another very smart job. The tale itself is a prequel to LEVIATHAN, a full-cast audio drama Sixth Doctor adventure, which I wrote in 2009, having adapted it from an original but never-screened TV script written by my late-father, Brian Finch, in 1984.

New Dawn are an organisation of political and cultural idealists, whose philosophy is based on a strange combination of modern environmentalism and medieval feudalism, but they are so ruthless that they seek to impose their new order by non-democratic means and think nothing about enforcing it with an array of biomechanical monstrosities.

Anyway, here are some details from Mr. Theaker's review:

It’s a brave writer who asks an English actress with a plummy accent to perform the dialogue of an African dictator (this one plays a crucial role in the plans of the New Dawn), and a braver actress who accepts the challenge, but if that’s all this adventure is remembered for it would be a shame. Caroline John’s Pertwee isn’t perfect either, but there’s never any doubt that we are listening to Elizabeth Shaw. There are interesting reflections from Liz on why things didn’t work out for her at U.N.I.T. – the Doctor’s life is simply too intense for an ordinary human – and we realise how little she got to know him – she doesn’t really know which way he’ll jump with regard to the New Dawn.

The two-episode structure of the Companion Chronicles once again proves a triumph, these two episodes squeezing in so much more than was usual for Liz’s period on the show. The Doctor is for once allowed to be as clever as he really is – there isn’t a lot he can’t sort out in an hour-long adventure when he puts his mind to it!

At the risk of blowing my own trumpet too much, these kind words sit rather nicely with other positive comments recently posted about SENTINELS on the excellent Dr Who forum, GALLIFREY BASE:

A very solid story from anera that's often overlooked. It's good that BF remains true to this earth bound era, and whilst parallels can be drawn with Inferno in moving the story on, this is a story that could easily have appeared on TV. Perhaps of some most recent Companion Chronicles this remains truest to it's television counterpart.

Listened to this whilst shoping in Sainsburys, and loved it, (it really transported me away from the screaming brats and chavy mothers that shop in my local branch!!) Wonderful to hear Caroline John again on these companion Chronicles, and agree with coastalbloke that this era is a little overlooked by the range, maybe because of the non-availablity of artists, I would love to hear one with Liz and Jo together, (but maybe if I want one like that I should write it!) 9 out of 10 for me, should be lower I fogot half my shopping and picked up stuff I didnt need too!

I quite enjoyed this, it was very evocative of the era, and combined with the present-day narration, just felt right.

The Power of Three - 26th Installment

Yep, it's Friday morning and it's coffee break time again. So here are my thoughts on three more of the best horror stories ever written. Once again, I assure you there are no hidden themes or shared subtexts here, even though there does appear to be a 'life after death' thing going on with at least two of them.

As always, these three names came out of the hat entirely by lot. People who read this column regularly are actually stopping believing this, as they say that if I was genuinely picking stories from my 'best ever' list at random, then I would surely have doubled up on several authors by now. It surprises me a little that I haven't, as certain weird wordsmiths figure on my list many times over, but no doubt at some point this discrepancy will be rectified.

For the moment, you'll just have to be patient with these three. Hope they stir some dark memories for you all, and if not, hope they inspire you go out and seek these dark deliberations so that you can find out what all the fuss was about.


The Harrowing Stone by Ben Leech

A selfish academic dreads the forthcoming death of his wife from cancer, as he fears being left alone. Then he hears about a mysterious monolith in a Scottish glen, which has the power to heal. There is one problem – life can only be saved if another life has first been given.

Not just a harrowing stone but a harrowing tale, as we witness a juxtaposition of two nightmarish possibilities. The slow, agonising and all-too-real wasting to death of a loved one in the grip of terminal cancer, or the devil’s bargain of using pagan magic to restore health even though you know a demonic price will be exacted. It almost seems tasteless in some ways, contrasting tragic realism with high-faluting fantasy, but the deed is done with such skill in this tale – the real and the fantastical blended together like two halves of a single, very real whole – that you can’t help but be mesmerised as developments unfold. At no stage does it feel like we’re in a fairy tale here. Okay, we’re dealing with spells, and highland mist, and enigmatic standing stones, but it is all so powerfully portrayed that the dark force of fatal illness is easily given a run for its money by the even darker force of the netherworld. This story also poses some fairly serious questions: how far would you go?; who would you be prepared to sacrifice? And in the time-honoured tradition of great horror fiction, it offers no easy answers.

First published in SCAREMONGERS, 1997.


The Bird by Thomas Burke

Captain Chudder, a brutal seaman, leads a vile existence. Constantly drunk and violent, he is particularly abusive to a young Chinese boy whom he keeps locked in his cabin. The boy escapes and vows revenge. But he hasn’t allowed for Chudder’s pet – a large white parrot possessed of a devilish intellect.

Even disregarding the issue of child-molestation, this was a shocking story when first published. Chudder is utterly odious as a character, not just because he lacks any redeeming features but because he also lacks any of the romance normally associated with villains in Gothic fiction: he is neither handsome nor cunning nor independently wealthy. He is simply a boorish lout of the sort to be found in any real-life dockland slum. Burke often located his tales in London’s depressed Limehouse district, rarely depicting it in a positive light, though often he half-concealed its grime behind a mirage of Oriental mysticism. Not so in this case. Here, Limehouse is a river-side sewer filled with taverns, brothels, opium dens, and human garbage of every sort. It is a picture of Hell on Earth long before the reader even has a chance to absorb the interwoven subtexts of sexual abuse and of course racism (the interracial relationship between Chudder and the Chinese boy caused as much of a scandal as the obvious implication of homosexuality, never mind the under-age abuse). Of course, the story is written with Burke’s usual eloquence, though not to the point where it detracts from the squalor, or the steadily more sinister presence of the story’s main ‘pulp’ element – the bird!

First published in LIMEHOUSE NIGHTS (pictured), 1916.


Watchers At The Strait Gate by Russell Kirk

It is midnight when Father O’Malley, a tired old priest, is disturbed in his isolated presbytery by a hulking tramp who wants to make a confession. The priest is afraid but knows he has a duty to all wretched souls. The tramp then confesses to murdering six men and announces that he will now show O’Malley the way to salvation.

Russell Kirk reveals his strong religious faith in this powerful dissertation on love, hate, fear and redemption. Simply because of who the author is, we’re in no doubt from the outset that there will be a supernatural twist here, but the growing sense of dread as the veteran clergyman marches through the darkened church to the confessional, a gigantic brutish shadow behind him, is literally palpable. Needless to say, there is far more to this story than mystery and suspense. Kirk’s elegant language perfectly enshrines his complex ideas about morality and responsibility and ultimately the price we may all have to pay for a lack thereof, and is filled with classical and theological allusions and references. The hard-edge of reality is never far away of course. We are also immersed in the misery of the underclass, especially as seen from that uniquely American perspective, where life is a void filled with flophouses, prisons and cheap bars, and where ‘the Watchers’, the dark wraiths of human failure, are never far away. All in all an exquisite ghost story, beautifully written and deeply affecting.

First published in NEW TERRORS 2, 1980.

UK release dates for THE DEVIL'S ROCK

I'm delighted to announce that we at last have the UK release dates for my new horror movie, THE DEVIL'S ROCK.

There is to be a limited cinema release on July 8th, alongside a simultaneous VOD release.

Don't ask me exactly what 'limited' means, but suffice to say that it won't be screening all over the country. Which theatres will actually pick the movie up, I don't yet know, but I'll inform everyone as and when.

However, there is no need for tantrums. Those who don't get to catch the movie at the flicks will only have to wait a couple of days. Because the movie will be issued on DVD all over the UK on July 11th.

A nerve-wracking time now follows for me. I've had one movie cinematically released in the past - that was SPIRIT TRAP back in 2005 (that only got a limited release too, but mainly did its business on DVD) - so it's a familiar sensation, this sense of powerlessness as you wait for the movie-going public to get their mits on what you hope will be seen as a masterpiece. But it's an exciting time as well. Believe it or not, I haven't yet seen a finished cut of the film, so I'm more than a little bit curious myself.

In case anyone missed it the first time round, here's a link to the movie website and the trailer:

http://thedevilsrock.co.nz/

Pictured above is another scene from the film. Kiwi commandos Ben Grogan (Craig Hall) and Joe Tane (Karlos Drinkwater) enter the enmey compound under cover of darkness, unaware just how terrible a foe awaits them there.

Gina shows a nice face and a scary face

You folks may be interested in a nice little TV interview with Kiwi acrress and star of THE DEVIL'S ROCK, Gina Varela (pictured here cooling off, but still looking hot). The interview comes to us courtesy of New Zealand television, one of whose news crew caught up with the film crew, and Gina in particular, at Cannes during the festival.

CHECK IT OUT

For my own part, it's a strange twist of fate that I came to write a New Zealand horror movie when I was born in the UK and still live here. I've sold a few books in the Southern Hemisphere, and have appeared in several Australian anthologies, but I never thought I'd end up working for a film company located down there.

I can trace it back to my very first contact with director Paul Campion (who has dual British/New Zealand citizenship), when he was looking to make a low-budget horror movie set in London. But the way things have developed since then is quite startling.

THE DEVIL'S ROCK is actually the third movie Paul Campion and I have worked on together, and more may now follow as, in the inimmitable style of the Cannes Film Festival, much business was done and more projects plotted, at least a couple of which have already attracted strong interest from the powers-that-be in New Zealand.

I know it's an oft-quoted phrase, but with regard to this particular matter I can only say 'watch this space'.

With regard to THE DEVIL'S ROCK meanwhile, the good news is that we now have a release schedule for Britain, which will be some time in early July. No firm dates as yet (again, 'watch this space'). As to how many cinemas will take the movie, that's a question I can't yet answer, but keep checking back in - it could well be at a cinema near you.

The Power of Three - 25th Installment

Here’s another trio of terror with which to disturb your Friday morning coffee break routine. Possibly you’ll remember all these three from tremulous times past, but if you don’t I’ve hopefully whetted your appetites to go out and look them up.

Again, all three of these classic chillers were chosen entirely at random. I assure you it’s completely coincidental that this week’s selections include two authors who were also famous for their children’s writing. That was not intentional in any shape of form (Do you think I’m playing games here?) Not that there is much that is child-friendly about the tales I’ve chosen today.

Happy recollections …


Sardonicus by Ray Russell

A London neurosurgeon travels to a castle in Bohemia, where his former sweetheart is married to the local count, a one-time pauper who found wealth by digging his father’s rotting corpse from the grave to retrieve a winning lottery ticket, but in the process so shocked himself that he now wears a perpetual demented grin.

Possibly the most gothic of all gothic stories, not least because it introduces to us one of horror fiction’s most memorable madmen, and also because it literally puts Grand Guignol on the printed page. The condition Risus Sardonicus is actually real, so no matter how horrible this story becomes it’s based on a kernel of truth. Yet the real monstrousness of the character Sardonicus stems not from his gargoyle appearance but from his sheer wickedness. Compared to Cargrave, the morally upright hero, he is the epitome of malevolence. The relish he expresses as he lists the sexual depravities to which his wife will be subjected (and which she will deserve, in his opinion), if Cargrave fails to cure his affliction, is delightfully ghoulish but also plumbs the depths of conscience-free insanity. The environment matches S’s personality to a tee. No grimmer castle has featured in dark literature since Dracula; the surrounding landscape is appropriately bleak, empty and soulless. And the sting in the story’s tail is one of those great twists of well-earned fate, but at the same time it reinforces the story’s key message – no matter how rich the trappings of the supernatural, the worst malignancies in this world are strictly of human origin.

First published in PLAYBOY, 1961.


The Swan Child by Joan Aiken

Two confident kids seeking sponsorship money make cheery rounds of their village. They are advised to avoid a bungalow on the outskirts, but decide they won’t, and here meet a nice lady who agrees to contribute, though she suggests they don’t return for their money after dark. Of course, you can’t tell these youngsters anything.

Okay, it’s a little bit on the nose, this one. Like most of Joan Aiken’s work, it was aimed at a younger readership, but it’s beautifully written and very evocative of long summer days in rural England. It’s also as spooky as Hell. The meeting with the occupant of the bungalow is a masterly scene as our intrepid heroes only slowly begin to notice eerie details: her dirty feet; the scars on her wrists. Once they’ve got away without anything unpleasant happening, it’s quite a relief, though you just know that these two – typical Aiken youngsters, in that they are mannerly but also independent and assertive – are going to drift back there, and indeed there’s a real air of impending doom as they commence the long return journey from their charity walk, the target of which was an ominous figure – the titular swan Child – cut into the hillside by Iron Age mystics. They’re now on their own, they follow endless dusty paths between endless hedgerows, around endless ploughed fields, never meeting anybody, drawing ever closer to the mysterious bungalow as dusk approaches. To say more would be too much of a spoiler, but it’s worth mentioning that there’s a startling turn-around at the finale which, just in case you’d already decided what this was all about, puts everything into an even more uncanny context.

First published in A WHISPER IN THE NIGHT, 1981.


William And Mary by Roald Dahl

A widow is shocked to learn that her controlling husband has arranged for his life to be extended by having his brain preserved in a basin of cerebrospinal fluid, with one eye attached so that he can still watch the world. It isn’t long, however, before she realises that she can turn this to her advantage.

Another of Dhal’s cunning black jokes developed into a full-blooded if somewhat rib-tickling horror story. We are in vintage Dahl territory from the outset, with distinctly non-sentimental characters on all sides – the hospital’s matter-of-fact preparations for William’s death would be quite outrageous, were he not so selfish a person himself. Even Mary – innocent, abused Mary – turns out to be somewhat sly and devious, and maybe even, were we to hang around long enough, a little ‘wanton’. At the same time, fantastical (some would argue ‘nonsensical’) science is never far away. I certainly don’t know if all it takes to keep a disembodied brain alive is to pump it regularly with oxygenated blood, but you get the impression it would work from the scholarly exposition we get here. Of course, we know that the plan is never going to succeed as it was intended, but as always with Dahl’s work, we accept everything at face value and wait eagerly to see villains get their just deserts. Though it’s not perhaps quite as unexpected an ending as we’ve come to anticipate from the master of that sub-genre, the denouement is still very clever and great fun when it arrives. Of course, as so often, the real subtext investigates the latent vindictiveness that lurks within us all, even those of us who on the surface lead such civil and restrained lives.

First published in KISS KISS, 1960.

The Devil's Rock appears to be on a roll

I’ve just returned from the annual Police Federation Conference in Bournemouth to the extraordinarily good news that we have now sold the US rights for The Devil's Rock.

Entertainment One have taken the plunge, and the deal they’ve struck with NZ Film covers not just the United States, but Canada as well.

This adds two new major territories to the three others where we’ve already managed to sell the movie – the UK, New Zealand and the Middle East. Apparently offers were also received during the Cannes Festival for other key territories, though no details can be revealed about those just yet.

There’s a bit more info about this big development HERE, though it's only a snippet.

Obviously these are exciting times. On Monday morning, I was interviewed by the delightful Heather Stott on BBC Radio Manchester. I was a bit nervous, but in the 15 minutes I was allocated – which was a pretty generous slot, given that I was primarily there to promote my own movie – we covered quite a lot of stuff; the background to the film, not to mention my own personal history, (much of it as a copper around Manchester), and so on.

If anyone’s interested, there’s an edited transcript of the interview HERE.

Be quick though. I’m not sure how long that one will stay up.

Pictured above: director of The Devil's Rock, Paul Campion, and one of its stars, Gina Varela. You've seen enough pictures of me, so I'll not bother sticking another one on. Besides, compared to those two handsome devils, I'd probably crack your computer screen.

"Hellgirl" or "Saw with swastikas"? Nice.

"Overwhelmingly positive!"

That's what I'm hearing from Cannes at the moment in terms of audience response to THE DEVIL'S ROCK, which had its first screening on Friday evening, and goes in front of another eager crowd of festival-goers later today.

Apparently the Friday screening was so popular that the theatre doors had to be locked with a significant number of disappointed attendees still outside.

It all sounds excellent, but of course you've got to keep your feet on the ground with regard to these things. As Caesar said to Mark Anthony, "Tha ne'er knows when'th mob can turn against you, lad!"

That said, the first official review of the film is also very encouraging. It comes from Alan Jones writing on http://www.shocktillyoudrop.com/news/topnews.php?id=19165

Alan coined the two phrases "Hellgirl" and "Saw with swastikas". I don't agree entirely with the latter, but he's generally pretty complimentary to the movie, which puts him firmly in my book of cool.

For those who were expecting to hear me gabbling away about the film on BBC Radio Manchester on Friday morning, humblest apologies. The interview has been moved to 10 am on the Heather Stott Show tomorrow (Monday).

Above, for your delectation, I have another (admittedly small) still from the movie. Matthew Sunderland demonstrates the standard Gestapo interrogation technique at the expense of Craig Hall.