Horror's Guilty Pleasures |
Return with me now to the glory days of guts, gore, and flesh-eating nightmares.
A time when the paperback cover ruled supreme. I'm talking about the great horror fiction boom of the
1970's and 1980's, of course, when each month dozens upon dozens of cheesy horror novels from major
houses flooded the book racks of your local brick-and-mortar store. The cover was the thing: the more
gruesome, the more grisly, the more gut-wrenching, the better. And nobody did covers like the UK
publishers: NEL, Arrow, Star, Hamyln, Sphere etc.
That isn't to say, of course, that England held a patent on good horror artists--they didn't--but for some
reason, American publishers were simply too conservative on the whole to produce books with maggoty
skulls, impaled women, and cannibals feeding on bloody human hearts. A tradition, unfortunately, that
continues to this day in the lackluster, anemic books put out by those American publishers that even
bother putting out horror at all. Zebra Books, for example, who had a very active horror line in those
days, thought that the pinnacle of horror illustration was the skeleton. And so they pumped out countless
horror novels--most of them pretty bad--and the covers were nearly identical: a cheerleading skeleton, a
skeleton in a baby carriage, and--ooo, this'll get 'em--two skeleton girls playing jumprope.
Not the case in Jolly Old England. Gore and shock was the thing. And love it or hate, it was this kind of
visceral imagery that sold millions of books. Back in the 1980's, when you wanted a horror novel and
nothing else would do, you wanted it to be easily identifiable. You didn't want to grab some lame cozy
mystery or tepid suspense novel and in the UK, there was absolutely no chance of that. Of course, there
were always the pretentious bastards who thought such grisly covers were demeaning to the form, that
great fictional medium that Poe and Hawthorn, some contend, once labored in. I recall one reviewer
calling these covers "the artistic equivalent of two boys poking a dead cat to see if the maggots will come
out." In other words, childish. But since horror fiction speaks directly to the frightened child in us all...why
not? Let us kick our lofty ideals to the curb where they belong and be done with them. We're talking
horror fiction here, people! If good horror is the literary equivalent of anything then it's a scary tale told
around the fire or one of those unpleasant stories kids whisper to each in the dark.
I'm not ashamed to say that I bought dozens of books just for the grotesque covers. There was thrill to it,
I suppose, when someone saw you reading a book with slugs tunneling through a screaming human head
on the cover. The same childish joy I got as a kid dragging squeamish girls to look at a decomposing dog
in a ditch. When you had one of these books in your hand you were saying, "Yeah, I can take it. I got
good nerves and a strong fucking stomach." After all, any fool can read Joyce Carol Oates or John
Updike, but it takes a special kind of mind to appreciate Shaun Hutson!
Anyway, in the UK these kinds of books were called "nasties" and that was an appropriate tag for what
you were to find in their pages. For if you wanted blood, guts, and graphic close-ups of the most
sickening atrocities, then you would not be disappointed. If the nasties had a father, then it was probably
James Herbert, Britain's best-selling horror writer and the author of such absolute gems as The Fog, The
Dark, and The Spear. But it was his first novel, The Rats, that gave birth to the nasties. Plenty of these
books had supernatural horrors or serial killers running about hacking people up, but their real mainstay
was nature run wild. Herbert had created the template with The Rats and it sold like crazy and soon the
bookstores were flooded with novels about spiders and worms, blowflies and jellyfish, mad dogs and
flesh-eating cats, killer pike, snakes, even lamprey and man-eating pigs got in on the fun.
So let us return to those wonderful days when a lover of horror could simply go to any bookstore,
drugstore, or newsstand to get his bloody fix. No muddled covers, no pretentious literary bullshit, no
effeminate teenage vampires, no weak-kneed subtlety, and absolutely no delusions of grandeur.
The horror is the thing...
A time when the paperback cover ruled supreme. I'm talking about the great horror fiction boom of the
1970's and 1980's, of course, when each month dozens upon dozens of cheesy horror novels from major
houses flooded the book racks of your local brick-and-mortar store. The cover was the thing: the more
gruesome, the more grisly, the more gut-wrenching, the better. And nobody did covers like the UK
publishers: NEL, Arrow, Star, Hamyln, Sphere etc.
That isn't to say, of course, that England held a patent on good horror artists--they didn't--but for some
reason, American publishers were simply too conservative on the whole to produce books with maggoty
skulls, impaled women, and cannibals feeding on bloody human hearts. A tradition, unfortunately, that
continues to this day in the lackluster, anemic books put out by those American publishers that even
bother putting out horror at all. Zebra Books, for example, who had a very active horror line in those
days, thought that the pinnacle of horror illustration was the skeleton. And so they pumped out countless
horror novels--most of them pretty bad--and the covers were nearly identical: a cheerleading skeleton, a
skeleton in a baby carriage, and--ooo, this'll get 'em--two skeleton girls playing jumprope.
Not the case in Jolly Old England. Gore and shock was the thing. And love it or hate, it was this kind of
visceral imagery that sold millions of books. Back in the 1980's, when you wanted a horror novel and
nothing else would do, you wanted it to be easily identifiable. You didn't want to grab some lame cozy
mystery or tepid suspense novel and in the UK, there was absolutely no chance of that. Of course, there
were always the pretentious bastards who thought such grisly covers were demeaning to the form, that
great fictional medium that Poe and Hawthorn, some contend, once labored in. I recall one reviewer
calling these covers "the artistic equivalent of two boys poking a dead cat to see if the maggots will come
out." In other words, childish. But since horror fiction speaks directly to the frightened child in us all...why
not? Let us kick our lofty ideals to the curb where they belong and be done with them. We're talking
horror fiction here, people! If good horror is the literary equivalent of anything then it's a scary tale told
around the fire or one of those unpleasant stories kids whisper to each in the dark.
I'm not ashamed to say that I bought dozens of books just for the grotesque covers. There was thrill to it,
I suppose, when someone saw you reading a book with slugs tunneling through a screaming human head
on the cover. The same childish joy I got as a kid dragging squeamish girls to look at a decomposing dog
in a ditch. When you had one of these books in your hand you were saying, "Yeah, I can take it. I got
good nerves and a strong fucking stomach." After all, any fool can read Joyce Carol Oates or John
Updike, but it takes a special kind of mind to appreciate Shaun Hutson!
Anyway, in the UK these kinds of books were called "nasties" and that was an appropriate tag for what
you were to find in their pages. For if you wanted blood, guts, and graphic close-ups of the most
sickening atrocities, then you would not be disappointed. If the nasties had a father, then it was probably
James Herbert, Britain's best-selling horror writer and the author of such absolute gems as The Fog, The
Dark, and The Spear. But it was his first novel, The Rats, that gave birth to the nasties. Plenty of these
books had supernatural horrors or serial killers running about hacking people up, but their real mainstay
was nature run wild. Herbert had created the template with The Rats and it sold like crazy and soon the
bookstores were flooded with novels about spiders and worms, blowflies and jellyfish, mad dogs and
flesh-eating cats, killer pike, snakes, even lamprey and man-eating pigs got in on the fun.
So let us return to those wonderful days when a lover of horror could simply go to any bookstore,
drugstore, or newsstand to get his bloody fix. No muddled covers, no pretentious literary bullshit, no
effeminate teenage vampires, no weak-kneed subtlety, and absolutely no delusions of grandeur.
The horror is the thing...
| THIS MONTH'S GUILTY PLEASURE: |
| ENTIRE CONTENT COPYRIGHT 2010 BY TIM CURRAN tim@corpseking.com |
Check out the archive here
Inseminoid (UK: NEL, 1981)
Tagline: "A far from human birth..."
Since I haven't taken a look at a good grade-Z novelization lately, I thought it
was time and what better than Inseminoid? This was one of those sleazy
British horror flicks pumped out by Norman J. Warren back in the 1970's and
'80's, most of which were just excuses for blatant gore that teetered on the
edge of soft-core porn. In the United States this movie was called Horror
Planet, which is a nice name, but I have no idea why they changed the title
when Inseminoid might just be the finest title of a science-fiction horror film
ever. Period. There's no sense in tip-toeing around the fact that this one was
a rip-off of Ridley Scott's Alien and not a particularly good one, but that
doesn't mean the movie wasn't fun. Anything as absolutely ludicrous as
Tagline: "A far from human birth..."
Since I haven't taken a look at a good grade-Z novelization lately, I thought it
was time and what better than Inseminoid? This was one of those sleazy
British horror flicks pumped out by Norman J. Warren back in the 1970's and
'80's, most of which were just excuses for blatant gore that teetered on the
edge of soft-core porn. In the United States this movie was called Horror
Planet, which is a nice name, but I have no idea why they changed the title
when Inseminoid might just be the finest title of a science-fiction horror film
ever. Period. There's no sense in tip-toeing around the fact that this one was
a rip-off of Ridley Scott's Alien and not a particularly good one, but that
doesn't mean the movie wasn't fun. Anything as absolutely ludicrous as
Inseminoid just has to be fun in some way, now doesn't it? But let's forget for a moment there was such
a movie and we'll pretend that this novel is just a novel and that the author, Larry Miller, wasn't such an
insufferably bad hack.
Our story opens on an alien world as a crew of men and women touch down and inhabit a formerly
abandoned compound. Out exploring some caves, there is a rock slide and they find the sealed tomb of
an ugly alien creature and bring it back to the compound for examination. Even though they have made
an incredible find, most of the characters seem preoccupied by thoughts of sex. And it's no wonder.
See the space service has certain protocol and by-laws. One of these is called Mate-Rotation. An equal
number of men and women always fill out any crew and they are on a sexual rotation basis, meaning
that they switch partners every so often so everyone gets enough variety. You don't have to have sex
with your rotational partner, but you better not have sex with anyone else's either. Sorry, company
rules. This is the background of our novel. As one of our characters, Ricky, a sophisticated intellectual
muses to himself:
"If he'd been asked why he'd become a space archaeologist, sex would have come first on the list,
adventure second and scientific motivation a lowly third."
Anyway, the alien is in the lab. Its glass-like coffin dissolves for unknown reasons and releases a foul
stench as Dr. Karl examines it. Sandy is his assistant. Sandy is on a sex rotation with Dr. Karl and she's
glad of it because Dr. Karl loves blondes with big breasts. Ricky, hurt in the rockslide, is in the lab, too.
Sandy examines him. And even though she's hot for Dr. Karl and is a dedicated medical professional,
she finds herself lusting after Ricky's body:
"Sandy found herself admiring his bulging forearms and solid thighs. Not to mention a certain other
bulging part of his anatomy."
Meanwhile, back to the alien monster. Sandy is certain she saw it move. But neither Dr. Karl or Holly,
the compound commander, believes her. Which makes Sandy fly into a feminine huff. But she recovers.
Ricky, back in his cabin, is overwhelmed by an alien force. He attacks Dr. Karl but Sandy, ever the
quick thinker, karate chops him in the balls. He begins to bleed. He rushes out of the compound where
he cannot breathe but somehow does. Gail goes after him, but Ricky tricks her and her leg is caught in
the airlock. As he advances on her and the crew watches in helpless horror over the video screen (but
for reasons unknown cannot help her), she uses her laser and burns her foot off. Unfortunately, her
thermo unit stopped working and she instantly froze to death. But she got the airlock closed. Ricky then
runs into Kate who wisely burns him with her laser. But it leaves her in a very shaky emotional state. It
was hard for her to kill Ricky because not only were they friends but they were on sexual rotation
together. Kate turns to Commander Holly for support. In the privacy of Holly's cabin, wearing filmy
nighties:
"Holly moved close to Kate, their legs were pressed against each other. From above, the reading
lamp shone down through their nightclothes revealing contrasting bodies. Kate was taller, her breasts
and hips smaller. Holly was muscular and buxom with nicely shaped round hips."
Kate is upset and Holly tells her she has to toughen up, hide her feelings. That's life in the space service
and she better damned well get used to it. But Holly isn't a machine and she admits her inner tender
feelings:
"It's impossible to block out all emotion (she said). All human emotion. I know it has no place on
intergalactic missions like this but hell, you spend two, maybe three months fucking a guy. You get to
like it and you get to like him. Then it's time to rotate and you're landed with someone you can't stand
and he's balling you're best friend."
"I'm glad you understand. I really am. (sez Kate)"
And Holly does understand. She holds Kate. But somehow, their shirts fell open and their breasts
touched. So Holly keeps comforting Kate in a hot lesbo action scene.
Meanwhile...what the hell was this book about? Oh, the alien monster. Right. Back in the lab, both
Sandy and Dr. Karl see the creature move. It's alive! Strapped down to a table, it seems agitated. Like
Lassie, it's trying to tell them something. Sandy, her scientific and analytical mind quickly ascertaining
the problem, says:
"Maybe it wants some breakfast."
Eureka! The alien monster, poor little thing, is hungry. They give it some breakfast sausage, then raw
steaks, eggs, loaves of bread, and finally a frozen chicken. Mr. Alien Monster perks right up. Even
though the monster is active, Dr. Karl decides to go take a nap in his cabin and leaves Sandy to clean
up the mess in the lab. Sandy, ever the obedient large-breasted research scientist, is more than happy
with this task. Cleaning up, she accidentally spills a chemical on her lab coat so she does the only
reasonable thing and strips down to her bra and panties, parading her junk in front of the monster who
begins to get excited. Since the monster is strapped down and quite harmless as such, Sandy decides
to augment her research by bending over the creature and putting her love-melons pretty much right in
the beast's face. And as she does so, she inspects its weird alien penis:
"A pair of foot-long rods joined at the crotch were covered with a slick foreskin that continually rolled
forward and back."
Sandy knows she is imagining things, but it seems as if the creature is becoming sexually aroused:
"Its head was only inches from her large breasts. It had once again become agitated, straining at the
straps..."
Enough scientific pursuits for one day, Sandy turns off the lights and prepares to leave the lab and as
she does so, the alien monster breaks free! It jumps on her! It holds her down! It forces her legs apart
with its lobster claw hands and:
"With unrestrained fervour the creature inserted one of its sexual organs into her womanhood,
pushing the long thin member deeper and deeper, ejaculating into her. Then the second organ
penetrated and ejaculated in the same way.
The creature rose from her body, a body now covered in greasy yellow saliva. The fluid was on
Sandy's face, her breasts and it ran down her thighs."
Such is the fate of Sandy. All she wanted to do was clean up the lab and continue with her scientific
work and look what happened. There are those who might say she was asking for it, that she was a
tease, but I'm not one of them. Anyway, by this point we're not even half way through the novel.
Basically what happens next is that Sandy goes a little alien and gives birth to a set of nasty twins (two
penises, two children, right?). Awful things happen. So awful that the crew members must "comfort"
each other a great deal.
Now, of course, we all know the plot to Ridley Scott's classic Alien: the mining ship Nostromo visits a
bleak, spooky planetoid and discovers the remains of a weird biomechanical alien culture. They find
eggs and this thing jumps out of one of the eggs and grafts itself to one of the astronaut's faces. This
being the ultra-cool Facehugger which falls off and the Chestburster larva bursts free, gets into the
ventilation system, and becomes our predatory monster. But what if you wanted to rip Alien off and
cash-in on it and you didn't want to spend a lot of money? What if you wanted to replace the grim
forbidding atmosphere with, say, lots of T & A? Then you would, like Norman J. Warren, make
Inseminoid. You'd get some actresses who didn't mind taking it off, borrow a set from a 1950's
B-movie, swipe some costumes from Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, and present the world with a
touching story of motherhood about a woman who is raped by an alien monster and gives birth to a
collection of crawly alien spawn. That woman would be Sandy, of course, she of the blonde hair and
large firm breasts...Larry Miller likes to remind us continually of Sandy's joyous globes of delight. If you
read this book, long will you remember them.
Pros: Gimme a minute...there's gotta be something. Oh, the title is pretty cool.
Cons: Is this a bad book? Dear God, it's atrocious. Larry Miller is a terrible writer. The plot makes no
sense. The characters behave irrationally. The alien is your typical rubber monster with a zipper up the
back...save its menacing extraterrestrial penis, that is. The movie is crap, the book is crap.
Overall: By this point you're probably assuming that I'm not recommending this one. And I'm not...unless
you need a good laugh. Because this book is hilarious! Buy it. Read it. Revel in the sheer badness of it.
It may be one of the funniest things you'll ever read (and don't forget about Sandy's breasts, because
Larry Miller never did...I think he was typing with one hand).
Two Bloody Skulls out of Five for sheer gross ineptitude.
Next month's Guilty Pleasure:
"A winged terror which flies by night--feeding on death and destruction."
a movie and we'll pretend that this novel is just a novel and that the author, Larry Miller, wasn't such an
insufferably bad hack.
Our story opens on an alien world as a crew of men and women touch down and inhabit a formerly
abandoned compound. Out exploring some caves, there is a rock slide and they find the sealed tomb of
an ugly alien creature and bring it back to the compound for examination. Even though they have made
an incredible find, most of the characters seem preoccupied by thoughts of sex. And it's no wonder.
See the space service has certain protocol and by-laws. One of these is called Mate-Rotation. An equal
number of men and women always fill out any crew and they are on a sexual rotation basis, meaning
that they switch partners every so often so everyone gets enough variety. You don't have to have sex
with your rotational partner, but you better not have sex with anyone else's either. Sorry, company
rules. This is the background of our novel. As one of our characters, Ricky, a sophisticated intellectual
muses to himself:
"If he'd been asked why he'd become a space archaeologist, sex would have come first on the list,
adventure second and scientific motivation a lowly third."
Anyway, the alien is in the lab. Its glass-like coffin dissolves for unknown reasons and releases a foul
stench as Dr. Karl examines it. Sandy is his assistant. Sandy is on a sex rotation with Dr. Karl and she's
glad of it because Dr. Karl loves blondes with big breasts. Ricky, hurt in the rockslide, is in the lab, too.
Sandy examines him. And even though she's hot for Dr. Karl and is a dedicated medical professional,
she finds herself lusting after Ricky's body:
"Sandy found herself admiring his bulging forearms and solid thighs. Not to mention a certain other
bulging part of his anatomy."
Meanwhile, back to the alien monster. Sandy is certain she saw it move. But neither Dr. Karl or Holly,
the compound commander, believes her. Which makes Sandy fly into a feminine huff. But she recovers.
Ricky, back in his cabin, is overwhelmed by an alien force. He attacks Dr. Karl but Sandy, ever the
quick thinker, karate chops him in the balls. He begins to bleed. He rushes out of the compound where
he cannot breathe but somehow does. Gail goes after him, but Ricky tricks her and her leg is caught in
the airlock. As he advances on her and the crew watches in helpless horror over the video screen (but
for reasons unknown cannot help her), she uses her laser and burns her foot off. Unfortunately, her
thermo unit stopped working and she instantly froze to death. But she got the airlock closed. Ricky then
runs into Kate who wisely burns him with her laser. But it leaves her in a very shaky emotional state. It
was hard for her to kill Ricky because not only were they friends but they were on sexual rotation
together. Kate turns to Commander Holly for support. In the privacy of Holly's cabin, wearing filmy
nighties:
"Holly moved close to Kate, their legs were pressed against each other. From above, the reading
lamp shone down through their nightclothes revealing contrasting bodies. Kate was taller, her breasts
and hips smaller. Holly was muscular and buxom with nicely shaped round hips."
Kate is upset and Holly tells her she has to toughen up, hide her feelings. That's life in the space service
and she better damned well get used to it. But Holly isn't a machine and she admits her inner tender
feelings:
"It's impossible to block out all emotion (she said). All human emotion. I know it has no place on
intergalactic missions like this but hell, you spend two, maybe three months fucking a guy. You get to
like it and you get to like him. Then it's time to rotate and you're landed with someone you can't stand
and he's balling you're best friend."
"I'm glad you understand. I really am. (sez Kate)"
And Holly does understand. She holds Kate. But somehow, their shirts fell open and their breasts
touched. So Holly keeps comforting Kate in a hot lesbo action scene.
Meanwhile...what the hell was this book about? Oh, the alien monster. Right. Back in the lab, both
Sandy and Dr. Karl see the creature move. It's alive! Strapped down to a table, it seems agitated. Like
Lassie, it's trying to tell them something. Sandy, her scientific and analytical mind quickly ascertaining
the problem, says:
"Maybe it wants some breakfast."
Eureka! The alien monster, poor little thing, is hungry. They give it some breakfast sausage, then raw
steaks, eggs, loaves of bread, and finally a frozen chicken. Mr. Alien Monster perks right up. Even
though the monster is active, Dr. Karl decides to go take a nap in his cabin and leaves Sandy to clean
up the mess in the lab. Sandy, ever the obedient large-breasted research scientist, is more than happy
with this task. Cleaning up, she accidentally spills a chemical on her lab coat so she does the only
reasonable thing and strips down to her bra and panties, parading her junk in front of the monster who
begins to get excited. Since the monster is strapped down and quite harmless as such, Sandy decides
to augment her research by bending over the creature and putting her love-melons pretty much right in
the beast's face. And as she does so, she inspects its weird alien penis:
"A pair of foot-long rods joined at the crotch were covered with a slick foreskin that continually rolled
forward and back."
Sandy knows she is imagining things, but it seems as if the creature is becoming sexually aroused:
"Its head was only inches from her large breasts. It had once again become agitated, straining at the
straps..."
Enough scientific pursuits for one day, Sandy turns off the lights and prepares to leave the lab and as
she does so, the alien monster breaks free! It jumps on her! It holds her down! It forces her legs apart
with its lobster claw hands and:
"With unrestrained fervour the creature inserted one of its sexual organs into her womanhood,
pushing the long thin member deeper and deeper, ejaculating into her. Then the second organ
penetrated and ejaculated in the same way.
The creature rose from her body, a body now covered in greasy yellow saliva. The fluid was on
Sandy's face, her breasts and it ran down her thighs."
Such is the fate of Sandy. All she wanted to do was clean up the lab and continue with her scientific
work and look what happened. There are those who might say she was asking for it, that she was a
tease, but I'm not one of them. Anyway, by this point we're not even half way through the novel.
Basically what happens next is that Sandy goes a little alien and gives birth to a set of nasty twins (two
penises, two children, right?). Awful things happen. So awful that the crew members must "comfort"
each other a great deal.
Now, of course, we all know the plot to Ridley Scott's classic Alien: the mining ship Nostromo visits a
bleak, spooky planetoid and discovers the remains of a weird biomechanical alien culture. They find
eggs and this thing jumps out of one of the eggs and grafts itself to one of the astronaut's faces. This
being the ultra-cool Facehugger which falls off and the Chestburster larva bursts free, gets into the
ventilation system, and becomes our predatory monster. But what if you wanted to rip Alien off and
cash-in on it and you didn't want to spend a lot of money? What if you wanted to replace the grim
forbidding atmosphere with, say, lots of T & A? Then you would, like Norman J. Warren, make
Inseminoid. You'd get some actresses who didn't mind taking it off, borrow a set from a 1950's
B-movie, swipe some costumes from Rocky Jones, Space Ranger, and present the world with a
touching story of motherhood about a woman who is raped by an alien monster and gives birth to a
collection of crawly alien spawn. That woman would be Sandy, of course, she of the blonde hair and
large firm breasts...Larry Miller likes to remind us continually of Sandy's joyous globes of delight. If you
read this book, long will you remember them.
Pros: Gimme a minute...there's gotta be something. Oh, the title is pretty cool.
Cons: Is this a bad book? Dear God, it's atrocious. Larry Miller is a terrible writer. The plot makes no
sense. The characters behave irrationally. The alien is your typical rubber monster with a zipper up the
back...save its menacing extraterrestrial penis, that is. The movie is crap, the book is crap.
Overall: By this point you're probably assuming that I'm not recommending this one. And I'm not...unless
you need a good laugh. Because this book is hilarious! Buy it. Read it. Revel in the sheer badness of it.
It may be one of the funniest things you'll ever read (and don't forget about Sandy's breasts, because
Larry Miller never did...I think he was typing with one hand).
Two Bloody Skulls out of Five for sheer gross ineptitude.
Next month's Guilty Pleasure:
"A winged terror which flies by night--feeding on death and destruction."