THE BACKROOM BOOKCASE PART 2 - MORE HORROR AND SCI-FI MOVIE AND TV NOVELISATIONS

In my previous article, I took a look at some of the horror/sci-fi movie and TV novelisations that fight for space on the bookshelves here in the backroom. Time to take a look at a few more...

First up we have William Goldstein's novelisations of his own screenplays for the two Vincent Price Dr Phibes movies - The Abominable Dr. Phibes (here re-named simply Dr Phibes) and Dr. Phibes Rises Again.

The two Phibes movies where noted for being darkly humorous and also incredibly camp. If anything the book versions are even more bizzare. Goldstein takes his original tales of twisted OTT vengence and warps them still further into something that's almost unrecognisable as a conventional book.

Goldstein writes in this weird almost "stream of consciousness" style - the narrative follows the films to a point but is constantly being interrupted and going off into tangents. To be honest they read like Goldstein was blasted out of his mind on various psychedelic substances when he wrote them (hey - it WAS the 70's, chances are he probably was...).

They're not always an easy read but they're definitely interesting. In recent years Goldstein has written several more self published Phibes novels which - if anything - are even more batshit insane than these books are. You can't keep a good man down.

Next up we have Richard Curtis' novelisation of 70's "killer worms attack" shlockfest Squirm.

Perhaps the most noteable thing about this book is its author. Yes - this is the same Richard Curtis who later went on to write the screenplays for Four Weddings And A Funeral and Love Actually. 

I find something quite reassuring about the fact that before he was writing gently comedic scripts about upper middle class English twits falling in love with each other, that Curtis wrote a novel about flesh eating worms chewing hillbilly's faces off. It gives a sense of balance to my world somehow.

Here we have exploitation king Herschell Gordon Lewis' novel of his own movie - Two Thousand Maniacs. Telling the tale of a town full of deep south rednecks with cannibalistic tendencies. 

I've not actually seen the film (I've watched the 00's remake with Robert Englund though - that was pretty good), nor have I actually read this book, even though its sat patiently on my shelves for about 30 years. 

I bought it from the Nottingham branch of Forbidden Planet circa about 1991 (back when Forbidden Planet used to actually be a decent comic/book shop as opposed to the glorified Funko Pops infested toyshop it is nowadays). I'll have to get round to actually reading the thing one day...

The next item is Nigels Kneale's adaptation of his final Quatermass TV serial which was originally broadcast on British TV in 1979. 

The TV version starred John Mills as Professor Bernard Quatermass and differed quite heavily from the previous 50's/60's Quatermass shows in that it was set in a dystopian near future where law and order had broken down, and the alien invaders where only slightly more unsettling than the vicious teenage gangs which terrorise the beleaguered citizens.

Kneale is one of the best sci-fi/horror writers of his generation and  - as to be expected - this is a fantastic book. Kneale takes the TV version and expands on it tenfold, unhindered by the limitations of a 1970's TV budget he takes the concepts and situations of the original script and runs with them.

Quatermass was a legendary sci-fi character and this novelisation gives him the epic send off he truly deserved.

The Anti-Christ has arrived in David Seltzer's book version of The Omen. Whilst the basic story and it's main memorable moments remain the same, theres quite a lot of differences to be found here. The movie is set in the then present day 1970's, for some reason the book version is set in the 1950's - it makes no difference to the story but its weird imagingining characters we've grown used to seeing wearing flares and big collars instead become brylcreemed pipe smokers. 

There are other weird changes as well - the preist who gets impaled on a lightning rod has a different name, Damien's demonic nanny is morbidly obese. Small changes which put the story in a slightly different context and serve no real purpose - strange... 

A good book all the same though.

Next up are the novelisations of the two Omen sequals. I love the tagline on Joseph Howard's Damien - Omen 2 novel - "The First Was Only A Warning..." which seems to say to me "If you thought the first book was shit, THIS is even worse...". Also we get Gordon McGill's version of The Final Conflict (missing it's Omen 3 title for some reason).

These are both pretty solid novelisations to be fair. The weird thing is that where the Omen novel was set in an incongruous 1950's setting, these two books are both set in the 70's/80's (like the films themselves where). 

This makes no sense when you consider that in the original film Damien is supposed to be about 4 or 5 years old and then we see him as a teenager in the second film. By rights,  in the book versions Damien should be in his mid-twenties come the second book...but he's not - he's still a teenager. Clearly we're in a totally different timeline to the first book. It makes for a strange experience when reading these novels back to back as one saga like I did.

Gordon McGill wrote two further Omen spin-off novels which were not based on films (there was an Omen 4 movie but McGill's book has nothing to do with it - and is probably all the better for it).

Here is Phil Smith's novelisation of grindhouse sci-fi schlocker the Incredible Melting Man. Not a lot to say about this one - Smith does a decent enough job and follows the original pretty much beat for beat. Its a fairly one note story (as anyone who's seen the film will tell you) but the book suffers massively from us not being able to actually see the melting man...well...melt. 

There's some suitabily gory descriptive writing but I do miss the excellent make-up work that the movie boasts. Still, we do get to see it on the brilliant front cover and at least the actings better in the book version...

A bit of an oddity next - Screenwriter John Russo's anthology which collects the novelisation of George A. Romero's Night Of The Living Dead (which Russo co-wrote and produced) and a novelisation of Russo's unmade sequal Return Of The Living Dead.

Unmade sequal ? Well...yes.. it's true there IS a film called Return Of The Living Dead (which Russo also co-wrote) and there's also a novel of that film (which Russo also wrote - confused yet ?) But this isn't it. Instead this is his novel of the proposed sequal that follows on from the original (which the movie version doesn't - now I'M confused !!!!).

Anyway - Russo does a very good job in capturing the claustrophobic atmosphere of Night Of The Living Dead and his alternate Return Of The Living Dead is a damn good read as well. Worth a look.

Staying in the realms of the zombie apocalypse is George A. Romero and Susanna Sparrow's adaptation of the official sequal to Night Of The Living Dead  - Dawn Of The Dead (as opposed to the unofficial sequal Return Of The Living Dead...either version of it...I'll shut up).

The movie is one the most influential horror films ever made and the book - whilst less spectacular or significant - is still a damn good story, well told, and you really can't ask for much more than that.

Just to make things even MORE confusing...we now come to John Russo's novelisation of the ACTUAL film version of Return Of The Living Dead.

This version is a lot less jokey and comes across as more of a legitimate straight horror story as opposed to the more obviously spoofy movie version (which is interesting in itself). Also that has got to be one of the BEST horror book front covers ever - they literally don't make them like that anymore, mores the pity...

Sapphire and Steel was a late 70's/early 80's show about the adventures of two time travelling "elementals" who fight various evil temporal forces and villians. It was basically a more "grown up" version of Doctor Who and was noted mainly for its creepy, unsettling atmosphere.

This novel - written by the show's creator P.J. Hammond - adapts the first episode, its pretty good and certainly captures the eerie atmosphere of the show. They where originally planning to novelise every episode I think, but this obviously didn't sell well enough to warrant any more. A pity.

A bit of a rarity this one - a novelisation of King Kong. It follows the famous movie pretty closely and has some great illustrations inside, which helps to give the book a "classic adventure" feel akin to pulpy old Edgar Rice Burroughs novels. Well worth a look if you can find it.

Finally we have the comic book adaptation of Creepshow. Whilst this not technically a novelisation it IS still a movie adaptation. Stephen King converts his own stories into the comic medium and the truly excellent Bernie Wrightson (one of the best comic artists of all time) provides the absolutely stunning artwork. This a beautiful book to read and own - no horror movie fan/Stephen King fan/comic fan should be without this on thier shelves. Absolutely ESSENTIAL !!!

That just about covers every horror/sci-fi novelisation that I own. Of course, I could go on about the full set of Doctor Who Target novelisations that I own but seeing as that covers 100 and something plus books there's just no room for that here. Maybe they'll get thier own post someday. Maybe we'll return to the Backroom's bookshelves someday (or maybe we wont), only time will tell...