| Author | Message | ||
     Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Dennis Wheatley... so bad he's good? I came across a complete collection of his "Black Magic" stories in good nick going for next to nothing on the way home last night and couldn't resist snapping them up - including the Duc de Richleau trilogy; 'The Devil Rides Out' (1934), 'Strange Conflict' (1941) & 'Gateway To Hell' (1970) plus the stand alone; 'The Haunting Of Toby Jugg' (1948) , 'To The Devil A Daughter' (1953), 'The Ka Of Gifford Hillary' (1956), 'The Satanist' (1960) & 'They Used Dark Forces' (1964) - wonderful covers all. I had finally got round to reading 'The Devil Rides Out' a year or so ago and have to say I thoroughly enjoyed it - but for all the wrong reasons. The prose, and particularly the dialogue, is so dated and "what ho, chaps, time to show these satanic johnnies a thing or two about British pluck. Rex, to the Bentley... etc" that I it was all I could to do to stop myself reading it aloud in silly voices - yes, that wonderful. Coupled with that the Duc de Richleau's periodic lectures on the workings of witchcraft and black magic (he really is a walking encyclopedia on the subject, Wheatley knew his stuff in this regard) are irresistibly informative and persuasive and always finish with a stern admonission not to mess with the forces of darkness, after he's just told you how to do it! And finally the notorious scenes of black masses, depraved orgies, baby sacrifices and appearances by the Horn-ed One - who has a habit of bending over so they can kiss his ring - have to be read to be believed and still manage to shock when juxtaposed with the jolly high-jinks adventures of the rest of the book - "When I think what that poor gel must be going through, they could be doing anything to her, the cads... etc". This is truly dreadful pulp writing of the corniest kind imaginable but also impossible to put down, I found, with enough incident and narrative drive and unintentional hilarity to keep you turning the pages till the end. I never stopped smiling the whole time I was reading it and feel an odd affection for the old Master Of Darkness now. At very least he provided us with two of the greatest horror films ever made in Britain imho. Anyone have any thoughts on the matter? | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
I'd say he was so bad he was bad - indeed, I did: http://www.horrorreanimated.com/2009/05/20/the-long-awaited-ramsey-campbell-inte rview-by-all-of-us/ | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
Can't disagree with that, sir, but read now his books are so antiquated and OTT they really have gone beyond parody into the realms of pure cheese. 'The Devil Rides Out' is the best worst horror novel I have ever read... side-splittingly funny! No one could ever write a deliberate spoof that works as well imo. The poor man must be gyrating in his tomb lol.  Any time I find myself getting overly po-faced about this great genre of ours I intend to read a Wheatley to bring me back down to earth. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
The Devil Rides Out is a film so vaingloriously dreadful it makes you want to change your TV after watching it. The pompous dialogue, the Blue Peter Satan, the Samsara bloody Ritual bellowed like Christopher Lee expects a standing ovation... easily among the stupid, pointless films I've ever sat through. Having said that, I have a soft spot for Seabury Quinn's quite similar Jules de Grandin stories, because the latter have some nerve and vitality and even wit. And de Grandin could mash de Richleau with one hand tied behind his back. Bring it on! | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.72 |
Joel - The Devil Rides Out, how dare you sir, how dare you. Twas a much appreciated bone-chiller when I was a kid. | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 109.79.65.177 |
What about the chap who raises his eyebrow to show how EVIL he is? It's the Joey Tribiani school of acting. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
I haven't read any Wheatley since I was fourteen, and even thought they were laughable shite back then. I do enjoy the film version of The Devil Rides Out, but like about 90% of Hammer films it's just a bit of jolly nonsense. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.111.142.82 |
Loved the film, NIGHT OF THE DEMON. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
That's not Dennis Wheatley. | ||
| Tom_alaerts (Tom_alaerts) Username: Tom_alaerts Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.78.35.185 |
Night of the Demon is based on the MR James story "Casting the Runes". And it's indeed great. I did kinda like movie The Devil Rides Out, very light-hearted & old-fashioned. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
I thought the Hammer film and more particularly Richard Matheson improved the book more than it deserved. Ally, we know you're teasing. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.111.142.82 |
'That's not Dennis Wheatley.' I know very well that it isn't. I was thinking of 'black magic' stories. In Ramsey's article on that link he discusses both. | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.72 |
Night of the Demon had the same effect on me as it had on Ramsey, and I'm sure many people. I remember the first time I saw it, when my cousin was baby-sitting me, and that she let me stay up to watch it! How I managed to contain the fact I was terrified of going to bed, God only knows. But I will forever remember such accidental kindness as informative as far as my love of horror goes. | ||
| Jonathan (Jonathan) Username: Jonathan Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.143.178.131 |
I too think the film is terrific fun. Though not as comedy gold as Draula AD 1972, which really is unintentionally hilarious. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.166.117.210 |
Jon - did you get my email yesterday, lover?  | ||
| Frank (Frank) Username: Frank Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 85.222.86.72 |
Yes, he did, and then forwarded it to me, with which I posted it on Facebook. Oh, the humanity, the love that dare not speak its name. | ||
| Jonathan (Jonathan) Username: Jonathan Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.143.178.131 |
Gary, I think I did but can you send it again? It may have got accidentally purged. No, no - Gary and I's love dare speak it's name - that's what makes it so disturbing! | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
"I know very well that it isn't. I was thinking of 'black magic' stories. In Ramsey's article on that link he discusses both." Sorry! I'd forgotten what I said in that interview apart from the Wheatley bit. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 194.32.31.1 |
'The Devil Rides Out' is a wonderful horror movie, for my money the most purely entertaining film Hammer Studios ever produced AND I consider 'To The Devil A Daughter' easily their best and scariest horror and one of the finest made in the 1970s (that glorious decade). Both stand as prime examples of great cinema coming from rubbish literature and should have been included in that other thread. Can anyone name the other Hammer movie based on a Dennis Wheatley novel? I've read two of Seabury Quinn's Jules de Grandin stories and have to agree with Joel - they are priceless nonsense just made to be read aloud with eyes rolling madly in the head; 'The House Of Horror' (1926) & 'Clair de Lune' (1947). Ah, for that complete three volume set... I suspect The League Of Gentlemen may have been secret admirers of the works of Messrs Wheatley & Quinn. Also Richard Marsh's 'The Beetle' comes from the same rich vein of stiff upper-lippery in the face of unimaginable ghastliness. Great stuff!  | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.178.83.106 |
Can anyone name the other Hammer movie based on a Dennis Wheatley novel? The Lost Continent? | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 88.111.142.82 |
'Sorry! I'd forgotten what I said in that interview apart from the Wheatley bit.' Enjoyed reading it. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
It is indeed 'The Lost Continent'... a film so brilliantly, ridiculously bonkers as to defy belief - and probably the closest cinema will ever come to an accurate portrayal of Wheatley's writing. I love it also for all the wrong reasons! | ||
| Simon Bestwick (Simon_b) Username: Simon_b Registered: 10-2008 Posted From: 86.24.209.217 |
The book of 'The Devil Rides Out' is the only Wheatley I've been able to read all the way through. The film is much better having been touched by the hand of Richard Matheson. As Zed says, great silly fun. But it does include one of my favourite horror one-liners: 'Alright, I'm going. I will not be back... but something will.' Classic. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.252.106 |
Stevie, my favourite Jules de Grandin moment follows an encounter with an Egyptian mummy. After successfully dispatching the creature, de Grandin is relaxing at home with his trusted friend and companion: "Friend Trowbridge, did you happen to notice how detestably dry and dusty that mummy was?... Tiens, it was as the Atlantic Ocean compared to the dryness of Jules de Grandin at this moment!" (While conservative in many respects, de Grandin was a dedicated opponent of Prohibition.) I'm not aware of any de Grandin pastiches out there. Maybe it's the copyright. Or maybe it's the crapness. Genuinely rather good de Grandin stories include 'Clare de Lune', 'The Jest of Warburg Tantavul', 'The Chapel of Mystic Horror' and a few others. The 'best of' collection The Phantom Fighter is good, and the Pocket Books six-volume selection (only a third of the whole story cycle) has its merits, though a recent re-read on my part stalled after two volumes due to a growing sense of predictability. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Joel, they're beyond pastiche as is Wheatley. The dialogue is so hilarious and the horrors so camp I sometimes wonder if they didn't know what they were at... you must read 'The Beetle' as well if you're into this stuff, it's actually very witty. I'm going to have to get the complete Jules de Grandin now as well. | ||
| John Llewellyn Probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.122.209.76 |
I have the Battered Silicon Despatch Box 3 volume De Grandin set but try as I might I've never finished it on account of the stories getting VERY repetitive. Old SQ knew how to work the pulps, though. Nearly all the stories have a lady stripped down to at least her undies which pretty much guaranteed his story would get the cover painting. And as for Dennis Wheatley...ah...my comments will have to wait until I have a little more time, but for the moment I'll just say that Lady P & I were away the other weekend and a copy of 'They Used Dark Forces' was in our hotel room. I have to confess I have to applaud the sheer bravado of any author who starts off a novel with an introduction 'written by' his fictitious hero thanking the author for portraying him and his adventures in such a good light and promising a case of his favourite champagne for a job well done. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Robert Aickman admired The Beetle - not only, I think, out of family loyalty. | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
I read 'The Beeetle' last year, Ramsey, and wrote up my thoughts on the "What Are You Reading" thread. It's a great book, as ripping a good read as anything by Arthur Conan Doyle, and has one of the most original monsters I've come across and many moments of effective horror but is just so outrageous in every other respect that I genuinely thought I was reading a modern piss-take or pastiche of Victorian pulp fiction. I'd class it as horror/adventure/comedy and just about as far removed from the writings of Robert Aickman as it is possible to imagine. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Ah, but that was 'The Beeetle', not The Beetle... | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
Oops! | ||
| Stevie Walsh (Stephenw) Username: Stephenw Registered: 03-2009 Posted From: 82.17.252.126 |
I don't even mean unintentional comedy with 'The Beetle' but deliberate passages of pure farce and sub-Wildean comedy of manners. Like the old Universal horror films with their quaint moments of comic relief. It is a very weird but thoroughly enjoyable read. |