Worm (UK: Grafton, 1987)
Tagline: "Something horrible is crawling out of your worst nightmares..."
Well, to start with, it would be hard to imagine a cover that could be much
more intriguing than this one: a giant worm emerging from a tunnel about to
lunch (we hope) on this somewhat stiffly-posed man. This image combined
with that killer tagline is the stuff pulp horror dreams are made of. And
especially when penned by Simon Ian Childrer, yet another pseudonym of the
great John Brosnan who is already known to us here in Horror's Guilty
Pleasures for giving us The Fungus, an absolute feast of creepy-crawly
unpleasantness. Brosnan wrote The Fungus as Harry Adam Knight (HAK)and
Worm as Simon Ian Childer (SIC). An inside joke, no doubt, and one we can
all appreciate. The only question remaining, of course, is whether Worm is
Tagline: "Something horrible is crawling out of your worst nightmares..."
Well, to start with, it would be hard to imagine a cover that could be much
more intriguing than this one: a giant worm emerging from a tunnel about to
lunch (we hope) on this somewhat stiffly-posed man. This image combined
with that killer tagline is the stuff pulp horror dreams are made of. And
especially when penned by Simon Ian Childrer, yet another pseudonym of the
great John Brosnan who is already known to us here in Horror's Guilty
Pleasures for giving us The Fungus, an absolute feast of creepy-crawly
unpleasantness. Brosnan wrote The Fungus as Harry Adam Knight (HAK)and
Worm as Simon Ian Childer (SIC). An inside joke, no doubt, and one we can
all appreciate. The only question remaining, of course, is whether Worm is
truly sick, so let's dive right into this one and see if we get any blood on us.
Our story opens with one of the most powerful set pieces in the novel and one that grabbed me and
would not let me go. An attractive, yet horribly emaciated, blonde woman arrives at Middlesex Hospital
with a grotesquely swollen belly, complaining of abdominal pains right before collapsing into an ungainly
heap. Enter Richard Pryce-Jones, a somewhat arrogant staff surgeon. The woman is taken to the
operating room for an exploratory procedure to find out just what's in her belly (of course, you and I
have already figured that out, haven't we?). Pryce-Jones is delving about in her abdominal cavity when
something bites into his hand--a three-foot worm. Jumping about with the worm attached to his hand,
the scrub nurse comes to his rescue:
"Pryce-Jones stopped his frantic waving of the thing, enabling the nurse to grab hold of it near its
bulbous head. Then she stabbed it with the scalpel. Clear fluid spurted out of the worm as it writhed
with disturbing strength within her grasp."
Childer has great fun with this part and we do, too. Not only is it gruesome, but darkly comedic as our
surgeon dances about trying to shake the worm free, realizing that his future career as perhaps
England's greatest surgeon has now come to an end. He survives and stomps the parasite to a pool of
slime. Oh...what about the patient? She dies.
The set-up. As usual, spoilers abound so be warned.
The unfortunate blonde woman's sister, Olivia, launches her own investigation with the help of a boozy
P.I. named Edward Causey, a somewhat smarmy character who makes his office in a booth at a
Chinese restaurant (you gotta love this guy). Along with an attractive pathologist named Joyce Winters,
Causey begins to put the pieces together. Apparently, Olivia's sister--Laura--a one-time fashion model
with a taste for the wild life was being treated for anorexia at a private clinic in Highgate run by a
shadowy medico named Dr. Shayaz. All roads lead to the clinic and soon enough, our boozy private eye
manages to get the truth from Shayaz. He has genetically altered a variety of parasitic
worms--roundworms, hookworms etc.--for a black gangster called Rashad. Rashad, you see, knows
his secret: Shayaz was formerly Libya's top microbiologist in charge of biological weapons, something
that would no doubt land him in a British prison. Rashad hates the English. During the Mau Mau uprising
in Kenya, Rashad's father was executed by British forces and he vowed revenge on England. Trained
as a terrorist by the Libyans and backed by Gaddafi's money, he is using Shayaz to develop worm
eggs he can release into the London water system that will infect the entire population. Rashad himself
is infected by parasitic worms and saw the British colonial system in Kenya as a parasite eating into his
country. The worm infection he suffers has left him in pain and quite impotent. He enslaves British
women and forces them to make porn movies for Middle Eastern business men. Through the course of
a slim 189 pages, we discover there is a giant worm in the sewers; Dr. Winters because the victim of
Rashad's sexual enslavement; Olivia is infected...and then Causey comes to the rescue to take care of
business. But does he? For at the very end we learn that Causey's daughter from a former marriage
--the only thing he truly cares about--pays the ultimate price for his intervention in Rashad's schemes.
Pros: A very imaginative plot, interesting characters, some cool worm scenes, plenty of sleeze if that's
your thing.
Cons: Several. Childers had a good idea here but with only 189 pages to work with, the horror of the
worms themselves was put on the back burner to advance the numerous organized crime, political, and
terrorism subplots and, in the process, the novel bogs down, seeming to trip over its somewhat
unwieldy plot elements. After all that Causey suffered through, you think he's going to get a break, but
the murder of his daughter proves otherwise. The downbeat ending was...well, a downer.
Overall: I really wanted to like this one, but it misses the mark again and again. Ghastly, Gruesome,
and Gor-ifying? In places, but unfortunately we never get enough of the worms. Nice plot, good
characters, but we never learn very much about them. Causey's daughter is just an extra that steps in
midpoint through the novel, then shows up at the end to be murdered. We know very little of their
relationship so it never really clicks. This would have been much better if Childers would have
concentrated on what was on the cover of the book.
Three Bloody Skulls out of Five.
Next month's Guilty Pleasure:
"Turn on the tap...and die of terror!"
Our story opens with one of the most powerful set pieces in the novel and one that grabbed me and
would not let me go. An attractive, yet horribly emaciated, blonde woman arrives at Middlesex Hospital
with a grotesquely swollen belly, complaining of abdominal pains right before collapsing into an ungainly
heap. Enter Richard Pryce-Jones, a somewhat arrogant staff surgeon. The woman is taken to the
operating room for an exploratory procedure to find out just what's in her belly (of course, you and I
have already figured that out, haven't we?). Pryce-Jones is delving about in her abdominal cavity when
something bites into his hand--a three-foot worm. Jumping about with the worm attached to his hand,
the scrub nurse comes to his rescue:
"Pryce-Jones stopped his frantic waving of the thing, enabling the nurse to grab hold of it near its
bulbous head. Then she stabbed it with the scalpel. Clear fluid spurted out of the worm as it writhed
with disturbing strength within her grasp."
Childer has great fun with this part and we do, too. Not only is it gruesome, but darkly comedic as our
surgeon dances about trying to shake the worm free, realizing that his future career as perhaps
England's greatest surgeon has now come to an end. He survives and stomps the parasite to a pool of
slime. Oh...what about the patient? She dies.
The set-up. As usual, spoilers abound so be warned.
The unfortunate blonde woman's sister, Olivia, launches her own investigation with the help of a boozy
P.I. named Edward Causey, a somewhat smarmy character who makes his office in a booth at a
Chinese restaurant (you gotta love this guy). Along with an attractive pathologist named Joyce Winters,
Causey begins to put the pieces together. Apparently, Olivia's sister--Laura--a one-time fashion model
with a taste for the wild life was being treated for anorexia at a private clinic in Highgate run by a
shadowy medico named Dr. Shayaz. All roads lead to the clinic and soon enough, our boozy private eye
manages to get the truth from Shayaz. He has genetically altered a variety of parasitic
worms--roundworms, hookworms etc.--for a black gangster called Rashad. Rashad, you see, knows
his secret: Shayaz was formerly Libya's top microbiologist in charge of biological weapons, something
that would no doubt land him in a British prison. Rashad hates the English. During the Mau Mau uprising
in Kenya, Rashad's father was executed by British forces and he vowed revenge on England. Trained
as a terrorist by the Libyans and backed by Gaddafi's money, he is using Shayaz to develop worm
eggs he can release into the London water system that will infect the entire population. Rashad himself
is infected by parasitic worms and saw the British colonial system in Kenya as a parasite eating into his
country. The worm infection he suffers has left him in pain and quite impotent. He enslaves British
women and forces them to make porn movies for Middle Eastern business men. Through the course of
a slim 189 pages, we discover there is a giant worm in the sewers; Dr. Winters because the victim of
Rashad's sexual enslavement; Olivia is infected...and then Causey comes to the rescue to take care of
business. But does he? For at the very end we learn that Causey's daughter from a former marriage
--the only thing he truly cares about--pays the ultimate price for his intervention in Rashad's schemes.
Pros: A very imaginative plot, interesting characters, some cool worm scenes, plenty of sleeze if that's
your thing.
Cons: Several. Childers had a good idea here but with only 189 pages to work with, the horror of the
worms themselves was put on the back burner to advance the numerous organized crime, political, and
terrorism subplots and, in the process, the novel bogs down, seeming to trip over its somewhat
unwieldy plot elements. After all that Causey suffered through, you think he's going to get a break, but
the murder of his daughter proves otherwise. The downbeat ending was...well, a downer.
Overall: I really wanted to like this one, but it misses the mark again and again. Ghastly, Gruesome,
and Gor-ifying? In places, but unfortunately we never get enough of the worms. Nice plot, good
characters, but we never learn very much about them. Causey's daughter is just an extra that steps in
midpoint through the novel, then shows up at the end to be murdered. We know very little of their
relationship so it never really clicks. This would have been much better if Childers would have
concentrated on what was on the cover of the book.
Three Bloody Skulls out of Five.
Next month's Guilty Pleasure:
"Turn on the tap...and die of terror!"