Spine Chillers

Halloween may be over for another year, but reader beware, you’re still in for a scare if you pick up these three spook-tacularly haunting reads…

Book Review: DARK MATTER
Written by: Michelle Paver
Published by: Orion, 2011
256pages
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With its cream-coloured snowscape cover and black and white photographs intersecting the fictional account within, teen author Michelle Paver’s first adult horror drew my attention because of its unmistakable visual comparison to Kate Mosse’s so-so period chiller The Winter Ghosts (reviewed HERE).

While I would undoubtedly proclaim Paver’s supernatural tale to be the better read, it is more successful as an intense character piece then a truly thrilling ghost story, with the paranormal proceedings played out few and far between and isolation and paranoia posing more of a pertinent problem for the haunted Arctic explorers than any long dead spirit.

Ghost Train

Book Review: TALES OF TERROR FROM THE TUNNEL’S MOUTH
Written by: Chris Priestley
Published by: Bloomsbury
Released: 2009
260pages
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And so I have reached the end of the line: the third and final (to date) portmanteau Tales of Terror anthology from modern master of the macabre Chris Priestley. What a bittersweet joy it was to disembark from this scenic journey; I really could read these wicked little yarns all day long! I just hope that more instalments are forthcoming following the release of Priestley’s Frankenstein-esque novel, Mr Creecher, in October.

Despite recycling the same storyteller-and-audience framework established in Uncle Montague (click HERE for my review) and Black Ship (HERE), I was still enraptured by the ambiguity which surrounded Tunnel's Mouth's peculiar story time: who is this detail-reluctant Woman in White who has boarded the train to Kings Cross, why is schoolboy Robert Harper so quick to submit to her spectral stories despite his uncertainty towards his curious carriage companion, and what is keeping Robert's neighbouring passengers in such a deep trance-like slumber?

As the train draws to an unexpected stop at the mouth of a foreboding dark tunnel, its steep enbankment cloacking the carriage in an unnatural twilight, the mystery surrounding the strange, unrelenting storyteller steams forward undeterred as logical Robert senses supernatural forces are at work: why else does he keep having such vivid dreams of the make-believe yarns she spins, why else do his legs feel weak and his eyes so heavy at this time of day, and why else can he not rouse the dozing commuters around him?

Priestley shrewdly works in a delightful correlation to the dreadful events in Uncle Montague – making it feel like Robert inhabits the same shared, nightmarish universe as the eccentric teacher from hell – and while the pay off at the climax isn’t as bone-chillingly ghastly as Black Ship’s startling sting in the tale, it is nevertheless a well-worked – and finely set-up – twist even if we all anticipated a twist by this stage in the series anyway.

The short stories themselves are a stronger and more twisted batch than Black Ship’s castrated selection, but then they aren’t restricted to sea-themed scares this time around. From malicious mannequins (“Gerald”) to botanical beasts (“The Glasshouse”) and ferocious fairies (“The Little People”), I was particularly impressed by the variety of imaginative devices employed, even if they are all familiar tropes of the horror genre.

My personal favourite chapter was “A New Governess”, which really captured the creepiness of Victorian-era ghost stories such as The Turn of the Screw and genuinely made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “Gerald”, too, was a devilish voodoo delight at making the innocent deadly, and “Sister Veronica” shocked me in its tortuous brutality because it was the only story which didn’t imply supernatural phenomena (rather juvenile malevolence) in its all-too-plausible horror.


In a CR@B Shell: A strong end to a superb trilogy; Tales of Terror from the Tunnel’s Mouth makes the horrific entertaining without sugar-coating the frights, and I don’t care if it’s meant for a teen audience – I loved it, and I’m exceedingly jealous of Chris Priestley’s effortless knack for sumptuously poetic and evocative prose!
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Fisherman's Fiend

Book Review: TALES OF TERROR FROM THE BLACK SHIP
Written by: Chris Priestley
Published in: 2008
Bloomsbury
242 pages
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Having been so enraptured by gothic anthology Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror (reviewed HERE), I was genuinely ecstatic to discover that it was just the first in a (hopefully not yet finished) series of Tales of Terror from Cambridge author Chris Priestley. Book two, Black Ship, follows Uncle Montague's winning formula of having an obscure storyteller narrating thematically-associated supernatural chronicles to a young protagonist.

This time around we are marooned by a ravenous storm in the isolated cliff-perched dwelling The Old Inn, where home alone siblings Ethan and Cathy Matthew's are the scare-hungry youngsters bewitched by shelter-searching sailor Jonah Thackery's nightmarish ocean-orientated fables. Waiting for their father to return with the medicine they need to cure their ailing sickness, Ethan is guardedly cautious of their yarn-spinning guest, while Cathy seems transfixed and eager to be spooked.

The reveal in penultimate chapter “The Black Ship” that there is both more and less to Thackery's own history is disappointingly predictable, but the absolutely superb and genuinely spine-chilling twist in the conclusive “Wolfsbane” was an unanticipated knockout which raised the bar and blew me away, totally justifying the back cover warning: “This is a seriously scary book – younger readers be warned!”

Regrettably, away from the superior climax, while I still found Black Ship to be a well written and atmospheric collection, I have to admit that the other short stories were not quite up to the high standard set by Uncle Montague. There's a motley medley of macabre monstrosities without doubt – from vampires in the slave cargo (“Piroska”) to giant flesh eating snails (“Nature”), paranormal tattoo's (“Irezumi”) and an escaped exotic creature devastating a crew of scavenging pirates (“The Monkey”) – but, ultimately, none of the tales are as dark, daring or deadly as last time around.


In a CR@B Shell: Lacking the emphatic bite which made Uncle Montague such a ghoulish treat, but nevertheless as engrossing and enjoyably digestible as the original; Tales of Terror from the Black Ship is saved from sinking by a devilishly remarkable eleventh hour shock in the spectacular final chapter. Shades of genius to be shore.
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Tales From the Decrepit

Book Review: UNCLE MONTAGUE'S TALES OF TERROR
Written by: Chris Priestley
Published in: 2007
Bloomsbury
239 pages
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Ostracised by the local children and detached from his cold-hearted parents, little Edgar has taken to visiting his reclusive and eccentric Uncle Montague for company. In his creaky and creepy dilapidated house in the woods, Uncle Montague entertains his young guest with a series of gothic ghost stories, each inspired by the curious artefacts which clutter the man’s living room: a brass telescope, a gilt frame with no picture, a wedding photograph from bygone times, a demon bench end…

Each chapter presents a new chillingly atmospheric story, but after each story is completed, Edgar and his withdrawn uncle’s own story is expanded too. Just where did Uncle Montague get all these bizarre collectables? Why does his butler, Franz, refuse to show his face? Who is it rattling at the windows and running across the upstairs floorboards if Uncle Montague lives alone? Is there any truth to these outlandish tales? All these questions accumulate as the collection continues, climaxing in a final bone-chilling tale of revelation: Uncle Montague’s own.

Some of the yarns are stronger than others – my particular favourites are “The Un-door”, “The Gilt Frame”, “Ghost Story” and “The Demon Bench End”, while “Jinn” and “Offerings” lack definition or intent – but all successfully evoke a macabre ambience and involve child protagonists who invariably meet ghastly ends in wickedly unforeseen twists. If these Tales of Terror are indeed meant for children (they are published by Bloomsbury, after all), the author doesn’t restrain from audaciously shocking deaths and grotesque descriptive passages:

“The features were utterly ruined and looked like something glimpsed in an
abattoir or a nightmare. One side of the face was a hideous mass of gristle and
torn flesh, like a sheep carcass after the rocks have worked it. An unblinking
eye look out from the other side.”

Chris Priestley’s taut but immersive raconteur-befitting prose is complemented by a selection of over-stylised line-drawn illustrations by David Roberts which bring to mind the gothic works of Tim Burton and really help to set the scene: angular tree branches, imposing buildings, never-ending shadows et al. Edgar Allen Poe would undoubtedly approve – and I can only assume Priestley’s protagonist was named as such in homage to the master of the macabre.


In a CR@B Shell: Reader beware you’re in for a scare… Uncle Montague’s Tales of Terror is a remarkable anthology of campfire ghost stories which is delightfully presented and makes for a tense and morbid treat for all ages – just don’t blame me if you get goosebumps!
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