The Space Vampires by Colin Wilson

 

(pb; 1976)

From the back cover

“When Captain Carlsen entered the vast derelict spaceship, he was stunned by its awesome splendor—and shaken by the discovery of its immobilized humanoid passengers.

“Later, after three of those strange aliens had been transported to Earth, his foreboding was more than justified. The creatures were energy vampires whose seductive embraces were fatal, whose lust for vitality was boundless. As they took over the willing bodies of their victims and sexual murders spread terror throughout the land, Carlsen worked toward their destruction—even though he was erotically drawn to the most beautiful vampire of all!”

 

Review

Space is an excellent science fiction/horror novel that deftly balances the older style of classic science fiction novels of the 1950s (with its emphasis on focused and intense scientific explanations, sometimes delivered by talkative aliens), earthier pulpy thrills (R-rated sex, terror, heroes and antagonists who aren’t binary good-or-bad), and classic horror/vampiric tropes and framing. It’s a streamlined, burn-through, real-world believable and sometimes cliffhanger-ish read, one of my favorite books that I’ve read this year. Worth owning, this.

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The resulting R rated film, titled Lifeforce, was released stateside on June 21, 1985. Tobe Hooper directed it, from a screenplay by Dan O’Bannon and Don Jakoby.

Shock Value, by Jason Zinoman

(hb; 2011: non-fiction)

From the inside flap:

"By the later 1960s, horror was stuck in the past, confined mostly to drive-in theaters and exploitation houses, and shunned by critics. Shock Value tells the unlikely story of how an ambitious art form emerged from a mix of commercial extincts and personal passion. Directors like Wes Craven, Roman Polanski, John Carpenter, and Brian DePalma revolutionized the genre in the 1970s, plumbing their deepest anxieties to explode taboos and bring a gritty realism, confrontational style, and political edge to horror. Zinoman recounts how these innovative directors produced such classics as Rosemary's Baby, Carrie, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and Halloween, creating a template for horror that has been relentlessly imitated but whose originality has rarely been matched.

"This new kind of film dispensed with the old vampires and werewolves and instead assaulted audiences with portraits of serial killer, the dark side of surburbia, and a brand of nihilistic violence that had never been seen before. Shock Value tells the improbable stories behind the making of these movies, which remain misunderstood even by some of their most die-hard fans. They were directed by strong-willed and often obsessive young men working largely outside of the confines of Hollywood and on shoestring budgets, and whose success depended as much on creative conflict as vision. But once The Exorcist became the highest-grossing film in America, Hollywood took notice, and horror would never be the same."

Review:

Entertaining and informative, this is an excellent, chock-full-of-interviews and occasionally psychological read for cinematic horror fans and those interested in cinematic style tale-telling.

Worth owning, this.