C.M. Saunders's Blog

Title: X The Unknown (1956)

Year of Release: 1956

Director: Leslie Norman, Joseph Losey

Length: 81 mins

Starring: Dean Jagger, Edward Chapman, Leo McKern, William Lucas, Peter Hammond, Kenneth Cope

X The Unknown is one of the few non-anthology movies in existence to boast more than one director. The official line is that original director, Joseph Losey, who had moved from the US to the UK after being placed on the Hollywood Blacklist (an actual post-WWII blacklist that shunned professionals in the entertainment industry who were with supposed communist sympathisers), ‘fell ill’ and had to be replaced by Leslie (father of Barry) Norman who, incidentally, had been a Major in the British Army. That wasn’t the only early controversy to befall this Hammer production, which had been intended as a sequel to The Quatermass Xperiment (1955). That plan fell through when writer Nigel Kneale refused them permission to use the character of Prof Bernard Quatermass, which rendered a sequel the seminal British sci-fi horror flick meaningless. To all intents and purposes, Dr Adam Royston (Jagger) became the ‘new’ Quatermass. At least for a little while. There was yet more controversy after the film’s release when a distribution deal between Hammer and RKO fell through due to the latter company’s demise, before it resurfaced as RKO Pictures Inc, forcing Hammer to strike an alternative deal with Warner Bros.

Given all this off-screen chaos, it’s a testament to the professionalism of those involved that they managed to come up with anything at all, let alone a film with such a tight, streamlined plot and focused narrative. There is very little superfluous material here. The film begins with a group of British soldiers using a Geiger counter on an exercise in a remote part of Scotland. One of them (Cope) finds an unexpected source of radiation, and then gets himself blown up. Oops. Even worse, for mankind, anyway, the explosion reveals a seemingly bottomless crack in the earth. After a series of strange deaths where the victims appeared to be melted, Dr Royston inexplicably, though mightily impressively, concludes that a form of life that existed in distant prehistory when the Earth’s surface was largely molten had been trapped by the crust of the Earth as it cooled, only to return to the surface periodically in order to seek food from radioactive sources. This ‘form of life,’ unseen on screen until the latter section, turns out to be a dead ringer for the blob from The Blob (1958) which was actually released several years later, and comes more to the fore as the film progresses. Whether or not it was inspired by X The Unknown, is unclear. In any case, can Dr. Royston and his band of merry men find a way to save the world from being melted by the blobby thing (alternatively dubbed ‘throbbing mud’ in some reviews)?

Despite the absurd storyline (which 1950s storyline isn’t absurd?) this is an entertaining film. The acting is superb, though the special effects let it down slightly. I suspect this was in part due to a shortfall created by half the $60,000 budget going towards paying Academy Award winner Jagger’s salary, who had just been given the gong for Best Supporting Actor in the war film Twelve O’Clock High (1949). There is also a notable lack of a female lead, or a female anything. But hey, this was the fifties. Communists were bad and women were in the kitchen. I love the ending which, though ostensibly ambiguous, is actually a stroke of genius. What really stands out for me is the dialogue. Here’s a sample:

Q: What was that?
A: I don’t know, but it shouldn’t have happened.

A brilliant, concise, straight-to-the-point, no frills, typically British response.

At the time of writing X the Unknown has a 6.1/10 rating on IMDb, based on 3 000 audience votes, and a 5.8/10 rating, at critic aggregate Rotten Tomatoes. AllMovie gives it 3/5 stars, and Craig Butler writes: “While it is not a classic of the genre, it’s a very well-made and quite entertaining little flick” A contemporary review on the website Mike’s Take on the Movies, says: “I liked this film the first time I saw it when it turned up on VHS tape thanks to the Hammer line released by Anchor Bay years ago and I still enjoy it after repeated viewings. It’s far from flashy but it’s direct and the thrills are solid for a mid fifties sci-fi flick with some startling F/X from Leaky. Then there’s Dean Jagger. A consummate pro on screen.” LINK

In a highly recommended in-depth review, the blog Scifist 2.0: A Scifi Movie History in Reviews says: “In comparison to the Quatermass films, The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) and their other legendary horror movies, X the Unknown remains a footnote in Hammer’s filmoghraphy. However, it is significant as the film in which some of the core personnel of Hammer’s horror franchise started to coalesce. Many key names are still missing, but X the Unknown for the first time brings together a large number of the artists who would go on to create the Hammer Horror cycle.”

Trivia Corner:

According to sources, Jimmy Sangster’s original script described the blobby throbby mystery monster thing as being “made up of millions of writhing worm-like segments”capable of slipping through small cracks and forming up again on the other side. This ability is briefly described in the film, but never shown on screen. Even if the movie had had a significantly larger budget, these effects would have been virtually impossible to achieve with the technology of the day.

The Good

The rise of self publishing. There’s still an elitist mentality in some quarters, especially the established old brigade who think that self-publishing doesn’t really count, but what it has done is level the playing field. Writing and publishing books used to be the exclusive domain of the well-off and/or well-educated. Now, there are more publishers then ever before (and I’m not just talking about vanity publishers, though those parasites still exist) and if all else fails literally anyone can write a book and self publish it on platforms like Amazon and Smashwords. It’s very punk. You don’t even need much technical know-how. All you really need is motivation.

The Bad

Also the rise of self publishing. There are two sides to every coin, as they say. There may be more publishers around now than ever before, but most of them don’t have two pennies to rub together. There’s no big advance, and no marketing budget. Most are struggling just to stay afloat. And the self publishing route is even more fraught with danger. The main problem with self-publishing is that most releases sink like stones. Effective marketing is not only expensive, but a complete mystery to most of us.

Plus, there is very little, if any, quality control. There are millions of books published each year, and the number is climbing. Some are brilliant. Some are terrible. Most are somewhere in between. It’s not for me to say what makes a book terrible, suffice to say that just because you CAN write books, it doesn’t mean that you should. I apply the same logic to robbing banks.

The Ugly

Discrimination. For starters, can we all agree that racism, sexism, ageism, classism, elitism, nepotism, and most other isms, are bad? They are divisive, restrictive and create disharmony and hostility. Mankind should have evolved past all that by now. I believe the world should be an even playing field, and your gender, sexuality, age or skin colour shouldn’t affect how other people view you or your work.

Yet apparently in the publishing industry it’s still okay to judge people this way. How often do you see limited submission calls? Some are restricted to gender or sexual persuasion, some to particular countries or territories, others to various minority groups.

An increasing number of markets have things like this in their guidelines:

Seeking original submissions exclusively from people aged 22-24, from Prestatyn, who like the colour purple and currently identify as squirrels.

Okay, that’s an extreme example, but you get the point. Now before you stand up and scream BUT IT’S NOT THE SAME THING! How about you take a minute to ask yourself why? Why isn’t it the same thing? Discrimination is discrimination however you dress it up, and we all have ways of making it more palatable.

The real irony here is that most of these publications claim to advocate equality, yet in practise promote the exact opposite. Instead of erasing the lines that divide people, they are pouring cement on those walls and rubbing their hands with glee as they grow higher and higher. In my mind that is both hypocritical and counterproductive. When did two wrongs make a right?

It makes no difference to me whether the author of whatever I am reading is male, female, black, white, straight, gay, something in between, or whatever. I honestly couldn’t care less. I’m all about the writing. If someone asks me what the last book I read by a [insert label here] author was, I probably wouldn’t be able to answer because I don’t look. Should I? Sexual orientation or race don’t factor into my decision-making.

Can you imagine what would happen if a publisher put out a submission call along the lines of, “Seeking material from straight, white males ONLY.”

There would be a public outcry, and rightly so. That publisher would probably be branded a far-right Nazi and cancelled quicker than Firefly. And if you don’t get the reference, Google is your friend. So why are submission calls specifically requesting work exclusively from other demographics considered okay?

The Solution

Personally, I think publishers would be better served having an ‘open door’ policy, where the story is king (or queen), and people are judged solely on the strength of their work, rather than any number of other variables. That would be refreshing, and altogether more progressive, wouldn’t it?

How about we go one step further and advocate a universal ‘blind’ submission policy where all identifying information is removed from manuscripts and not even the editors know whose work they are reading. That way, there can be no discrimination either way, and only the very best work is selected for publication, thereby giving the reader the best quality product. That should be the primary goal anyway, rather than virtue signalling or furthering whatever political agenda an individual might have.

After all, any self-respecting writer would prefer to have their work published on merit rather than just to tick a box somewhere.

Ask them.

There are a lot of ways to approach this question. The obvious answer would be ‘Because I want to.’ But that would be overly simplistic. Looking at it, it also comes across as belligerent as hell and gives the reader nothing. An alternative would be ‘Because it’s what I read.’ But that’s only slightly less belligerent, and again gives the reader nothing. So I opted to tackle the question from a different angle.

The more I thought about it, the more complex the answer, and the question, became. I realised that at some point in my life there had to be a defining moment. Some event that set me off on this dark path, rather than an alternative path lined with glitter, rainbows, dancing bunnies and jolly unicorns.

Maybe it was the time I sneaked into my older sister’s room to look for her diary, which I planned to use for extortion purposes, and found instead her collection of battered horror paperbacks. I was too young to appreciate the literary merits of said collection, and instead pored over the covers, one of which memorably portrayed a man with an axe buried in his head.

Or was it watching An American Werewolf in London for the first time? On repeated viewings, I began to appreciate the humour more. But back then, it was just horror. Pure, primal, pulse-quickening horror. Two scenes in particular stuck with me, and still do; the Nazi demon home invasion sequence and the chase through the London Underground. Coincidentally, when I moved to London to work for a magazine years later, that very underground station (Tottenham Court Road) was on my daily commute, and it was a very disconcerting experience interchanging there late at night. The place hasn’t changed much.

Another trigger for my love of horror might have been listening to my ex-coal miner grandfather’s stories of the ghostly bwca he and his mates swore they heard deep in the bowels of the earth. Years later, I found that these stories were not unique to Welsh mines. Stephen King wrote about the same phenomena in The Tommyknockers. In fact, people hear the same phantom tapping and knocking noises underground all over the world and always have, yet nobody knows what causes them. I explored this concept further in my recent novella Silent Mine.

Then again, perhaps growing up in a house which may or may not have had a resident poltergeist sparked my interest in horror and the paranormal. I’ve made my peace with that, and haven’t completely ruled out the theory that any perceived activity was a manifestation of my own pubescent telekinetic energy, as per one of the main theories behind the poltergeist phenomenon.

On the other hand, my obsession with horror, the paranormal, and all aspects of the unexplained might be down to a strange encounter involving a huge wooden wardrobe in the back bedroom. That certainly happened before any of those other things, and may well have influenced my thought process for evermore. Maybe if the Wardrobe Incident had never happened, none of those other things would have happened.

So what happened, exactly?

To this day, I don’t even know.

But I know something did.

(Not the actual wardrobe)

One of my earliest memories is having some kind of bad experience with that damned wardrobe and being too young to run away. I remember sitting on the floor, the wardrobe towering over me, overcome with a mixture of helplessness and profound terror. The next thing I know I am at the top of the stairs, too little to tackle them by myself, yelling for my mother. When she finally came, I was too traumatised to even articulate what had happened. All I could do was point.

It might have been something innocuous; a sudden breeze opening the door, gravity making something fall inside and make a noise. Heck, I might just have caught a fleeting glimpse of a rogue dormouse or something.

Or it could have been something so utterly terrifying that I refused to enter that room again, suffered from insomnia for years, and checked myself in to a kind of mental emergency room where my fractured mind still seeks to paper over the cracks. That part of my memory is now hidden from view, obscured. Maybe it will come back one day, maybe it won’t. 

Maybe I don’t want it to.

And maybe that’s why I write horror.

An alternative version of this post first appeared on the website Kendal Reviews

The Dylan Decker novelette, A Christmas Cannibal, has been released as a stand-alone by Undertaker Books as part of their Graveside Reads series, making the perfect gift for the ghoul in your life!

Or for yourself.

Christmas in the badlands is never much fun. But when someone steals his horse and leaves him for dead in a snowstorm, this one has the potential to be Dylan Decker’s worst ever. Or even his last.

But he isn’t ready to die just yet. He tracks the thief to a nearby town, where the festive season is in full swing, with revenge on his mind. Little does he know that his ordeal is only just beginning, and the ho ho horror is about to go to another level.

This time, Dylan may have bitten off more than he can chew…

A Christmas Cannibal is OUT NOW!

Title: The Orphanage (El Orfanato)

Year of Release: 2007

Director: JA Bayona

Length: 97 mins

Starring: Belén Rueda, Fernando Cayo, Roger Príncep, Mabel Rivera, Montserrat Carulla

This acclaimed co-production between Spain and Mexico is the long-form directorial debut of Barcelona-based director JA Bayona, who went on to direct Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018) and Society of the Snow (2023), which told the story of the Uruguayan rugby team whose plane crashed in the Andes in 1972. Short on both money and experience, for Orfanato, Bayona enlisted the help of Mexican horror legend Guillermo del Toro Gomez, perhaps best known Mimic (1997), The Shape of the Water (2017) and Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (2019). It’s also the first screenplay by Sergio G Sanchez, who was heavily influenced by the classic literature Turn of the Screw by Henry James and Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie, as well as horror movies like The Innocents (1961), The Omen (1976) and Poltergeist (1982). The work was nominated for Best Screenplay at the 2008 Goya Awards after being nominated for no fewer than 14.

The Orphanage opens with some kids playing a game, but you just know things won’t stay this innocent long, in more ways than one. One of these kids is Laura (Rueda) who is adopted only to return to the now-abandoned building thirty years later with her husband (Cayo) and son, Simon (Príncep), with the altruistic intention of turning it into a home for disabled children. Soon after they move in, Simon, who is both adopted and HIV-positive but doesn’t know either (which is certain to make for some pretty awkward family chats at some point) soon starts making friends, kind of unusual given that the place was deserted when they moved in, and starts saying off-kilter things like, “I’m not going to grow up. Like my new friends.” He now has six of these invisible playmates, by the way. He talks about a treasure hunt, presents a box of teeth as a ‘clue,’ and claims that if he finds the treasure he will be granted a wish. He has also taken to drawing creepy pictures of a child with a cloth sack over his head, another massive red flag. Don’t the kids in these films always do stuff like that? By now, it’s pretty clear the old orphanage is haunted and the spirits are exerting their influence on poor Simon. The question now becomes why? Because there is always a ‘why.’ Things are compounded by a visit from a social worker called Benigna (Carulla) who is later spotted acting suspiciously in the grounds. As things escalate, Laura becomes increasingly concerned, and then frantic with worry. All of which seems entirely justified when Simon disappears, driving a wedge between Laura and her husband. This leads to a series of strange discoveries, and as the secret of the orphanage is slowly revealed it turns out Simon is neither the first nor the only child to go missing.

The gothic mansion (the Partarriu Manor) where most of the action takes place is very impressive (pictured below), and some of the cinematography truly stunning. Despite being filmed on location in Llanes, northern Spain, there is a lot of torrential rain (rain in Spain?) and it’s overcast most of the time, which all adds to the menacing mood. The location was chosen due to its diverse natural settings, which Bayona made full use of. It was made in 2007, but looks and feels a lot older. Maybe that was the intention. In 2007 New Line Cinema bought the rights for an English-language remake but that seems to have stalled, and there have been crickets ever since. On this, Bayona noted, “The Americans have all the money in the world but can’t do anything, while we can do whatever we want but don’t have the money,” whilst also pointing out that the American industry doesn’t take chances, and prefers to remake movies that were already hits.

The Orphanage reportedly received a standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival, and when it was released in cinemas became the second highest grossing debut ever for a Spanish film. It was also a hit with international audiences. At the time of writing the film has an 87% approval rating on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes based on 181 reviews, with an average rating of 7.4/10. The critical consensus reads, “Deeply unnerving and surprisingly poignant, The Orphanage is an atmospheric, beautifully crafted haunted house horror film that earns scares with a minimum of blood.” Pulitzer Prize winning film critic Roger Ebert said the film is “deliberately aimed at viewers with developed attention spans. It lingers to create atmosphere, a sense of place, a sympathy with the characters, instead of rushing into cheap thrills.” A more contemporary review in The Film Magazine says: “The Orphanage might be one the most moving ghost stories ever put to film, and throughout its deliberate, slow-burn telling of a pitch-black gothic mystery it never loses touch with its beating heart. It’s about lost, forgotten, mistreated children and how pain can be passed on decades down the line, but ultimately also that love, care and kindness saves lives and prevents the next generation being both metaphorically and literally haunted.”

On the negative side, the film drew criticism for its ending and several reviewers picked up on the fact that at its core the film is about grief and the mental toll it takes, with some suggesting it is a depiction of a bereaved parent’s slow descent into madness drawing comparisons with The Babadook (2014). Tellingly, this is never definitively addressed.

Trivia Corner:

Though uncredited, Guillermo del Toro Gomez plays the doctor at the Emergency Ward who treats Laura after she injures her leg looking for Simon.

Happy to report that my drabble, Girl’s Night, has been included in the latest edition of Flash Phantoms ezine.

I do love a good drabble, and there’s a lot going on in this one. I was determined to stick to my usual modus operandi of lulling the reader into a false sense of security before hitting them with a gut punch at the end, but it’s a lot more difficult to achieve when you only have 100 words to play with.

Still, mission accomplished. I think.

Girl’s Night is free to read HERE.

I love horror stories set on boats or in secluded cabins deep in the woods. Or, absolute best case scenario, a cabin on a boat. I don’t know why. Must be the sense of isolation. Here, I got exactly what I wanted, even if the boat in question is moored and now functions as a kind of research facility. In his work for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Charlie Book has been living aboard and studying the Christabel, a 19th century freighter that lies half-sunken off the coast of Galveston, which now houses a mangrove forest complete with snakes, crabs, and other wildlife. After overcoming tragedy, everything seems to be going well in Book’s life. Right up to the point his ex Ruby shows up with another woman and a baby in tow begging for shelter from an approaching storm, both literal and figurative. Book is naturally wary at first, especially when tall tales of witches, covens, and magic abound. But soon old feelings resurface and he sees an unlikely shot at redemption, if he can only make it through the night alive. But when he realises what he is up against, that might be more difficult than he first imagined.

Apart from the unique setting, I thought one of the strengths of this atmospheric horror thriller is its relentless pace and the revelations (along with the action) come thick and fast. Though the story is certainly fantastical, it somehow manages to retain an element of realism and the characters are fleshed out and relatable, though not to the point that they become overbearing. That said, several of the secondary characters did have very similar traits and it was easy to lose track of them, especially when the story raced toward its climax. My main complaint however, and I realise this might be considered peak pedantry, is the MC’s name. Reading a book about a man called Book just didn’t sit right, especially when he talks about books.

Admittedly, I think this is the first Christopher Golden novel I have read so I am not overly familiar with his style, summarised by one source as being “characterised by a blend of immersive horror, compelling character development, and brisk pacing, often exploring themes of folklore, mythology, and human nature.”

But it probably won’t be the last.

Night Birds is available in paperback and eBook formats on Titan Books from 18 September 2025. You canalso catch Christopher Golden on tour with Tim Lebbon throughout the UK.

I thought after my rant against Tracks II a while back, I should redress the balance by writing something to celebrate one of the greatest albums ever made hitting fifty. Yes, fifty. That’s fifty years. The Bruce Springsteen’s seminal third album was released worldwide on 25 August 1975, and to celebrate the auspicious occasion I have been spinning it a lot this week. Or whatever the correct terminology is when applied to MP3 files. It’s not my favourite album by any means. It’s not even my favourite Bruce album (that honour will always go to Darkness on the Edge of Town). But Born to Run is undeniably brilliant. From start to finish it’s a journey, evoking cinematic landscapes signposted by teen angst, lost love, gang violence, and above all, that sense of frustration and crushing isolation that so often haunts people from small towns. At its core, it’s an album of hope and inspiration, which may help explain why it resonated so widely and with so many.

In hindsight, this album was Springsteen’s sliding doors moment. Having been signed by Columbia Records as a Bob Dylan clone in 1972, his first pair of albums (Greetings from Asbury Park, and The Wild, the Innocent, & The E Street Shuffle) didn’t exactly set the world alight. With the record company expecting a return on their investment, this third effort probably represented his last shot at stardom. And he knew it. Born to Run took 14 months to record, which was practically unheard of in the Seventies when most major label artists were putting out two albums a year. The title track alone reputedly took six months to perfect, with the Boss famously complaining that he heard sounds in his head that he couldn’t replicate in the studio. It was produced by Springsteen himself, aided by current manager Mike Appel and future manager Jon Landau, who tied themselves (and each other) in knots trying to capture something akin to Phil Spector’s legendary ‘Wall of Sound.’ The tensions led to a lot of soul searching, some very awkward conversations, and ultimately several departures with David Sancious and Ernest Carter being replaced in the E Street band by Roy Bittan and Mighty Max Weinberg on piano and drums respectively. Appel himself would soon be on the way out himself, which led to a lengthy legal battle which finally ended with Springsteen buying himself out of his own contract.

So what about the music? Well, you should already know all about that but if you don’t, here we go. Eight tracks totalling just shy of forty minutes kicking off with Thunder Road, one of the most recognisable songs in the Springsteen arsenal. With it’s haunting harmonica and piano, it’s a slightly understated introduction, before the balance is redressed with the punchy one-two combo of Tenth Avenue Freeze Out and Night. The ‘wall of sound’ production is already in evidence, but really comes into its own with the climax of the epic Backstreets which rounds out side one of the vinyl and cassette. I mention this because more than one critic has pointed out how vital the sequencing was, with its ‘four corners’ approach meaning each side of the recording starts on an uplifting, optimistic tone before sinking into lyrical drudgery and fraught pessimism, with lyrics touching on fear, betrayal, revenge, and violence. This concept is never more evident than when ‘side two’ kicks off with the immortal Born to Run, which perfectly encapsulates that sense of missing out that we all felt as teenagers, the unshakable belief that everything was happening somewhere else and all you had to do was get there. This is followed by She’s the One, a song about romantic obsession, and the album closes with Meeting Across the River and the immortal Jungleland, two similarly-themed tracks about the darker side of the American Dream with the latter weighing in at over nine minutes and featuring a timeless extended sax solo from Clarence Clemons.

Though not officially a concept album, it has been said many times that Born to Run has a very cinematic feel, with each track hitting like a mini opera, or a vignette attached to a broader work. Several critics have pointed out that the album is driven by actions, such as running, meeting, hiding and riving. These characters are in perpetual motion, if not literally then figuratively. It is indeed a journey for the listener from start to finish, the road possessing the ability to ‘take you anywhere’ and therefore offering a means of escape. There is a feeling that the highway offers a sense of hope or even belonging, and it becomes a metaphor for everything missing in the narrator’s life. Springsteen himself has said that it was all well and good packing all these characters in their cars and sending them off to chase their dreams, but then he had to figure out what happened to them all. Leaving was the beginning of the story, not the end. Interestingly, over the years another school of thought has emerged suggesting that the road described on Born to Run constitutes an antidote to the politically-charged climate it was released into typified by assassinations and the Vietnam War, which ultimately represented an escape from the American Dream rather than way to attain it.

The numbers leave little to the imagination. Released on 25 August 1975, BTR peaked at number 3 on the Billboard charts, back when it meant something, and by the end of the year had sold upwards of 700,000 copies. In 2022 it was certified seven-times platinum by the RIAA in the US and had sold 10 million copies worldwide. These days you can find it on ‘best album’ lists everywhere and Springsteen’s set lists are invariably studded with representatives, probably more-so than any of his other albums. Upon release, it received almost universal acclaim with Rolling Stone magazine commenting that, “Springsteen enhances romanticized American themes with his majestic sound, ideal style of rock and roll, evocative lyrics, and an impassioned delivery,” and the New York Times calling it a ‘masterpiece’ of punk poetry and one of the great records of recent years. Perhaps more pertinently in the grand scheme of things, it also marked the transition from Springsteen’s folk-inspired origins to global rock superstar, which now seems obvious but at the time didn’t please everybody, especially folkie types already scarred by Bob Dylan’s defection a decade earlier. But as anyone can see, rock n’ roll was always the Boss’s true calling and tramps like us, baby we were born to run.

Riding east through the Rockies in the aftermath of his ordeal at Silent Mine, career loner Dylan Decker gets tangled up with a grizzly bear, and then finds himself neck-deep in an even more dangerous situation.

The town of Dudsville has been plagued by an anomalous creature dubbed the Winged Terror for longer than most folks there can remember. Dylan is tempted to keep riding. Not his problem. But he but feels indebted to the townspeople who showed him kindness in the aftermath of the grizzly fight, and when the Winged Terror drops in, he agrees to join a small posse in a bid to rid the town of the evil beast once and for all.

But is the posse hunting the Winged Terror, or is the Winged Terror hunting them?

A battle rages through the foothills of the Rockies as Dylan and his friends match wits with a beast unlike anything he’s faced before. Can they bring down the Winged Terror, or will the monster slip away to terrorize another generation? .

Blood Lake, the latest Dylan Decker adventure, is out now on Undertaker Books

My latest novella, Tethered, is out now on 13 Days Publishing. What follows is the afterword from the novella, edited to remove spoilers.

Many of the so-called Internet rituals described in the story are real. That’s not to say that they actually work. But they are ‘real’ in the sense that they have been written about and discussed extensively online. I changed a few crucial details in my descriptions, especially that of the Elevator Game. I’m not saying I’m a believer, but I don’t want it on my conscience if one of my readers tries one of these things and ends up in an alternate dimension or something. Lots of people have tried the Elevator Game, with mixed results. They usually end up disappointed. However, as alluded to in this book, it might be worth noting that if it actually worked, they probably wouldn’t be in a position to tell anyone about it.

The death of Elisa Lam in 2013 is often linked to the Elevator Game because of the genuinely unsettling surveillance footage which emerged of her acting strangely in an elevator. Her demise is still shrouded in mystery and often cited as one of the most bizarre deaths in recent years. Was it an accident? Murder? Suicide? Or something altogether stranger?

Nobody knows, and ultimately, that’s what makes it so chilling. The other cases mentioned of people being found dead in water tanks are also real, and I am sure there are lots more that haven’t been so widely publicized. The Cecil Hotel (since rebranded as Stay on Main) in Los Angeles is a place with a very weird history, and Richmond House is also an actual building in Southampton, albeit with a slightly more mundane background. 

The summer of 2018 saw the arrival of a British reality TV show called The Circle, where a group of strangers were kept segregated and could only communicate with each other via a special social networking platform only they could access. One participant used his girlfriend’s pictures, and suckered everyone else into thinking he was someone he wasn’t. He won the first prize. I was fascinated by the way he manipulated the other players. It just goes to show that in an online world, you can be whoever you want to be. It also shows that even if there are red flags, the majority of people will ignore them and believe what they want to believe. I wanted to do something similar with the reader in Tethered. Anyone familiar with my work will know how much I love twist endings. I hoped to string you along for a while, feeding you just enough information so you think you know what will happen, and pull the rug out from under your feet. Then, just as you were getting your bearings, I wanted to do it again.

You may notice how integral the number 14 is to the plot. After setting sail from Southampton, a city integral to the plot of Tethered, the Titanic hit the iceberg on 14th April, the Cecil Hotel has 14 floors (Richmond House has only 13, I changed it for effect) my version of the Elevator Game has 14 steps, and both the serial killer Richard Ramirez and the ‘Man in Black’ from Tethered needed 14 victims. I thought this would be a bit more original than the usual 13. Regular readers of mine might also note that it fits in with one of my previous books,  Apartment 14F. That story is about an English teacher living in China and realising his apartment is haunted. The Chinese take numerology very seriously. Every number is symbolic. Mainly because of the phonetic similarity when pronounced in Mandarin, the numbers ‘one’ and ‘four’ have come to signify loneliness and death, two predominant themes in both that book and Tethered.

Tethered is out now on paperback and ebook.