The Second Hammer Horror Film Omnibus by John Burke

(pb; 1967: movie tie-in/novella collection)

 

From the back cover

“The Reptile

“From the steaming jungles of Borneo to a remote Cornish village came the fiendish curse that turned a lovely young girl into a nameless horror.

 

“Dracula – Prince of Darkness

“Blood mingles with the ashes and so becomes a life-giving force to the evil desires of a Vampire.

 

“Rasputin – The Mad Monk

“Hypnotist, seducer, libertine and drunkard—he ruled the Tsar’s court like a devil incarnate.

 

“The Plague of the Zombies

“Infamous Voodoo ritual casts its barbarous shadow over a village of ‘the undead.’”

 

Overall review

Like its predecessor anthology, Second Hammer is worth owning and reading, with three of the four based-on-screenplay novellas providing for excellent chills; the outlier tale, “Rasputin—The Mad Monk,” is entertaining, vastly improved by Burke’s writing (as is “The Reptile”) but “Rasputin” feels thin when compared to the others.

This slices of Gothic fun and terror book is out of print as far as I know of, so if you’re curious about it and see it for what you consider a reasonable price (do your research), pick it up! You can always sell it to someone who (may) love it more than you.

 

Review, novella by novella

The Reptile: Set in summer 1902 in “the village of Clagmoor in Cornwall, England, known as Larkrise,” a London couple (Harry and Valerie Spaulding) honeymoon in the rustic cottage Harry inherited from his recently dead brother (Charles Edward Spaulding), who died of a mysterious “heart attack.”

Once in Clagmoor, the newly married Spauldings encounter hostility, passive and aggressive, from most of the natives. One of them, inn keeper Tom Bailey, helps them when he can—whilst treading carefully so as to not offend his fellow, longtime patrons. Then there’s quietly hostile, emotionally strained Doctor Franklyn, a theologian, seemingly abusive father of the “lovely” Anna, both of whom are hiding a deadly secret. Will the Spauldings, with aid from Bailey, find out what’s going on with the strange silence surrounding the plague of “heart attacks” which seem to strike those around the Franklyns?

Like Burke’s four adaptations in The Hammer Horror Omnibus (1966), “Reptile” is an entertaining, waste-no-words and creepy-atmospheric tale, with quick-sketch-but-effective characterization and fast-moving action. In the case of “Reptile,” this is a vast improvement on its overlong, thin-story-stretched-to-feature-length film; at best, it was an hourlong short. Good read, especially for those familiar with the film version, or looking for a quick-read Hammer Films Ltd. Fix.

The cinematic counterpart of the same name debuted in England in February 1966; it was released stateside on April 6, 1966. The film was directed by John Gilling, from a screenplay by producer Anthony Hinds.

 

“Dracula – Prince of Darkness”: Charles and Diana Kent, a married couple, are traveling through the Carpathian mountains with Charles’s more conservative brother (Alan) and his shrew of a spouse (Helen) when ill luck befalls them and they find themselves stranded near a castle that not only offers shelter from the relentless rain and the dark forest but—dare they hope?—a telephone. Making them further uneasy is the fact that earlier a local, friendlier-than-other-villagers priest (Shandor) warned them not to go anywhere near the castle but didn’t tell them why.

They quickly find out why they were warned away but it’s too late, as Klove (the unsettling keeper of said castle) reveals himself to be in the service of another, who’s been dead for ten years: Dracula.

Burke again keeps the characters and their (mis)fortunes fast-paced, bloody, Gothic and bold (spectacle-wise) in the way that the best Hammer films are. This eighty-five-page pulp adventure is a febrile and delectable ride with vivid descriptions that thrill (e.g., “. . . making a last appeal to a thousand guardian demons”) and titillate in equal proportion. Excellent adaptation of its source 1966 film, which is also a blast, if I remember right (I haven’t seen it in a few years).

The film version, originally titled Dracula, Prince of Darkness was helmed by Terence Fisher, scripted by Jimmy Sangster and producer Anthony Hinds. It was released in Britain in January 1966.

 

“Rasputin—The Mad Monk”: Set in the early twentieth century (about 1916, the year the real-life Grigori Rasputin was killed), this mix of historical fact and mostly fiction, “Rasputin” is thinly plotted, character-study-intense story, with the titular odious and greedy hypnotist grifter worming his way into the Tsarina’s St. Petersburg court with help from a “struck off the medical register,” sometimes reluctant Dr. Boris Zargo.

Others, including everyman Peter Vassilievitch, set out to stop the lascivious, wily con artist. Can they stop him before he makes everyone around him his puppet, slaves to his seemingly inexhaustible desires?

Burke’s pulpy and tightly edited writing elevates this thinly plotted, eighty-four-page story into something worth reading (can’t comment on its 1966 source film iteration; I haven’t seen it in decades). Solid, good read, this.

Don Sharp directed “Rasputin”’s film version. Producer Anthony Hinds wrote the screenplay. It was released in Britain on February 20,1966.

 

“The Plague of the Zombies”: Religion (Haitian voodoo), capitalism, romance, their resulting zombies, and death come together in this (again) tautly penned Gothic-in-a-Cornish-village story, solid in its themes, content and overall delivery. This entertaining, fast-moving and excellent different take on zombies is a great, short-ish (eighty-two pages long) tale, worth owning and reading. I don’t remember the film which I haven’t seen in a while, but I seem to remember thinking this is one of the better non-classic monsters horror films Hammer put out.

Directed by John Gilling, “Plague”’s cinematic counterpart received a wide release in Britain on January 9, 1966. Peter Bryan wrote its screenplay.