THE BACKROOM BOOKCASE - HORROR AND SCI-FI FILM NOVELISATIONS

The backroom isn't just home to a tottering stack of horror, sci-fi and exploitation movie DVDs, oh no, its also home to a lovely (and equally tottering) pile of musty old yellowing paperbacks.

Reading was my first love (way way way before films) and it's still one of my favourite pastimes now. 

Of course with me being a big fan of both books and films, the two where bound to intersect at some point. The most obvious way that this can happen is via the existence of the movie novelisation, of which I own a fair few.

Back in the 70's and early 80's Novelisations of movies and TV shows where big business. In the days before you could stream any film you wanted to watch at the touch of a button, or pop a shiny DVD or Blu-Ray into your PlayStation 5 (or even slap a video tape into your VCR) these mass produced, often pulpy books, where the only way to re-experience a favourite movie's story, short of having to make yet another trip to the cinema to re-watch it.

Nowadays they've become less essential - but they're still out there...if you care to look. I'd argue that even with the greater ability to watch movies and shows over and over again that technology has gifted us with, the humble novelisation still has relevance. Afterall, watching a story and reading a story are two totally different experiences  - a film flashes before your eyes, a book, however, places you INSIDE the story itself. You're privy to the private thoughts and motivations of characters in a way that a film (even it has the best actors in the world) can only ever hint at.

 Also, books can override even the shonkiest of special effects - in the cinema of the mind's eye ALL the monsters are real - there are no men in rubber suits or dodgy CGI which will look out of date as soon as it hits the screen. EVERYTHING is as real as the reader wants it to be.

With that in mind, I thought it would make a nice change to take a look at some of the novelisations that inhabit my bookshelves here in the backroom - afterall, you can't spend all your time watching films, you'll get square eyes...

In no specific order (other than where they happen to be placed on my bookshelves) lets now turn our attention to the books themselves...

First on my shelves is everybody's favourite pizza faced, dream stalking, wise cracking, undead child molester... Mr Frederick Krueger esquire. This book by Jeffrey Cooper is more of an anthology than a novel proper, containing three mini-novelisations of the first three films in the Nightmare On Elm Street series. Cooper does a decent enough job of capturing the atmosphere of the movies but the reduced page count doesn't give him much room  to expand on the stories. That extra insight I was talking about above ? You don't get that here. 

What you do get though is a different version of A Nightmare On Elm Street part 3 - Dream Warriors.  I can only imagine Cooper was writing his book using an earlier version of the screenplay because some of the differences from the finished film are quite staggering. It makes for an interesting "alternative reality" version of the familiar story though, so thats something at least.

Stacked next to this on my shelf is the follow up book which novelises parts 4 and 5 in the series. It follows the same format as the previous book only this time the writing duties fall to Joeseph Locke - not that you can really tell any difference in the two writer's styles (let's face it - by this point in the series, the film's where pretty much scripted by committe anyway). As with the previous book - part 5 is very different to what we eventually got onscreen, again - it was most likely novelised from an early draft.

Next up is Guy N. Smith's novelisation of The Ghoul. Smith is best known for his Killer Crabs series of books and is a celebrated pulp horror author with a cult following. His signature style in his original novels involves lots of gore, lots of sex, more gore and even more sex, mixed in with cheesy B-movie style monsters, characters and plots. 

All of the above makes him a natural to novelise a horror movie. Thing is, The Ghoul isn't really that type of story - it's a period gothic horror very much in the Hammer vein. The film includes performances from the likes of Peter Cushing and John Hurt, its about as far away from Smith's usual territory as its possible to get. 

Smith delivers a pretty faithful adaptation, he ramps up the gore slightly but not so much that it loses the atmosphere of the original. Worth checking out, but it's quite rare and expensive to buy online these days (I got lucky and found my copy in a charity shop, I only paid about two quid for it).

Staying in the realms of British horror, we have the first and second volumes of The Hammer Horror Film Omnibus. Like the Freddy Krueger books, these volumes contain four mini-novelisations each of various Hammer films. Book One contains - The Gorgon, The Curse Of Frankenstein, The Revenge Of Frankenstein and The Curse Of The Mummy's Tomb. Whilst the second volume adapts The Reptile, Dracula - Prince Of Darkness, Rasputin - The Mad Monk and The Plague Of The Zombie's.

John Burke is quite a classy writer and brings a sense of style to the proceedings whilst still having plenty of pulpy fun as well. I think I like the second volume the best as it has a bit more variety, but you've also got to love that Frankenstein double bill that forms the heart of the first book.

In the 2010's, the newly revived Hammer Studios released thier own line of original novels and novelisations. Some of these new novelisations where fairly straightforward re-tellings of the original films, where others where completely new "re-imaginings".

At the start of the range, popular Horror author Shaun Hutson gave us two adaptations of The Revenge Of Frankenstein and Twins Of Evil. Both these books follow the original stories fairly faithfully but add some new characters and situations into the mix as well. Rather than being straight up novelisations they're more like expanded versions and are closer to being "legitimate" novels in thier own right. They're pretty good even though Shaun Hutson's work isn't always to everybody's taste.

Hutson also gave us a radically updated version of the 50's Hammer sci-fi movie X - The Unknown. This book falls more into the realms of being a total "re-imagining". The setting is transferred from the 1950's to modern day times, all the characters are a lot younger, hipper, sexier and "cooler" than they are in the original. It's pretty much what you could imagine a remake movie being like. It generally works OK but lacks the charm of the original.

Theres also a particularly harrowing subplot about one of the characters being diagnosed with terminal cancer. It goes to great lengths to describe this character's inner thoughts and emotional turmoil. It's well written but VERY depressing and this "real world" touch does take you out of the hokey B-movie sci-fi fun of the rest of the story. If this kind of thing triggers anxieties in you or if you've recently lost someone to this horrible lousy disease then it might be best to avoid this one. You've been warned...

Doctor Who writer Guy Adams gives us another "re-imagining". This time of Countess Dracula. Adams takes the original semi-true historical story of the Countess Elizabeth Bathory and transposes it to a 1930's Hollywood setting. It really shouldn't work but somehow it does. An all round entertaining horror romp.

The only problem is it's front cover. Why are modern publishers so averse to making horror novels actually LOOK like horror novels ? This looks more like some kind of soppy gothic romance than a book about a woman who smears herself in the blood of murdured virgins to stay youthful. Come on - grow some balls for Christ's sake !!!!

Adams also gave us a more straightforward adaptation of Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter (retitled simply Kronos). Again, Adams does a good job and gives us a very readable swashbuckling tale that swishes along at a rate of knots. 

Adams is a good writer and if anyone reading this enjoyed his Doctor Who and Torchwood related works then I heartily recommend picking these books up as well.

I just realised this piece is running well overlong and I've still got lots more books to talk about. So join me again next time when I'll be returning to the Backroom's library to look at more weird and wonderful movie novelisations.