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Devilday
Original 1st edition!!
156 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published January 1, 1969
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May 19, 2023
First published in 1969 as Devilday and filmed in 1974 as Madhouse, starring Vincent Price, though the novel and the movie are very different.
The story starts well, with a washed-up Hollywood horror star, Paul Toombs, arriving in southern England to film a TV series based on his most famous movie character Dr Dis (Dr Death in the movie). A young TV journalist is given the job of boosting Toombs’ publicity and keeping his various excesses under control or under wraps.
This is all narrated by the publicist character which is witty enough at first and plausibly depicts the business of TV production of the time. But we hear as much about the narrator’s sex life as the main character, which betrays what the book is really about. Swearing, sex and black magic rituals are more important than a decent story, which waits until more than halfway before getting interesting.
The story starts well, with a washed-up Hollywood horror star, Paul Toombs, arriving in southern England to film a TV series based on his most famous movie character Dr Dis (Dr Death in the movie). A young TV journalist is given the job of boosting Toombs’ publicity and keeping his various excesses under control or under wraps.
This is all narrated by the publicist character which is witty enough at first and plausibly depicts the business of TV production of the time. But we hear as much about the narrator’s sex life as the main character, which betrays what the book is really about. Swearing, sex and black magic rituals are more important than a decent story, which waits until more than halfway before getting interesting.
September 10, 2025
Paul Harvard Toombes is an actor who was born to play Timon of Athens in the Shakespearean play of the same name. But it’s a relatively obscure and unpopular play, so he primarily became a horror actor in Hollywood. His most notable role was as the serial villain Doctor Dis, an immortal who in each chapter had to trick an evil man into buying the secret of immortality–which allowed him to then absorb that man’s lifespan into his own.
This lurid film series was quite popular with fans of the macabre, especially boys on the cusp of puberty. (Dr. Dis often employed such boys as his assistants, lecturing them on the pitfalls of his evil lifestyle.) Toombes really threw himself into the role, wearing a Dr. Dis costume in his day to day life. Unfortunately, he had less savory habits, and when a woman died during a Satanic ritual, the resulting scandal made the studio cancel his contract. (The police were not able to determine who killed her.)
A decade later, when the scandal was mostly nostalgia, Toombes was brought back to star in a Doctor Dis television show. Due to the restrictions on what television could show in the 1960s, it was pretty tame, and viewership dropped off after a couple of seasons. However, Toombes had connections, and one of them had power in a section of British television, so he was imported to do a Doctor Dis series for them.
And hell followed with him.
This paperback is the “movie edition” as Devilday was the basis for the Vincent Price movie Madhouse (1974). “Devilday” is, honestly, a more interesting title, but there we are.
The narrator of the book is Barry Lambert, a television reporter in Southcastle in the southwest of England, whence he had moved from Saltburn(!). An ambitious young man, he is only biding his time until he can move up to the capital and the big time. His boss uses this as an incentive to push Barry into being Toombes’ personal assistant/handler while the actor is in England. Succeed in keeping Toombes from any serious scandal, and the transfer is his. Fail, and Barry will never work in television again.
Barry was a Dr. Dis fan as a lad, and is to an extent looking forward to the job. This does not last long once he actually meets the actor. While the man is a fascinating fellow with a certain dark charisma, he’s also crude, physically repellent, and smells weird (this is because of the “sex salve” he rubs his body with which he claims makes woman attracted to him.) He’s a lecher who hangs out with women far younger than him (and may possibly commit statutory rape), addicted to various illegal drugs, a Satanist, and insists on wearing his Dr. Dis costume almost everywhere.
“Satanist” is perhaps inadequate to describe Toombes’ religious views–he’s a firm believer in reincarnation, including being able to take over already existing people rather than just be born in a new infant, and subscribes to the heresy of Antinomianism. (He’s convinced that he’s already one of God’s favored people, so he doesn’t have to worry about going to Hell for his sins.)
As you can imagine, it’s all Barry can do to keep Toombes from becoming a top headline in the scandal sheets. There’s some rough spots, but once the new Doctor Dis series starts, it becomes a huge hit, bigger than Doctor Who. Everyone loves Dr. Dis, and for a while it looks like things are going to be okay, with Barry needing to be present less and less to smooth things over.
The season is almost wrapped filming before Barry is called to witness a certain ritual…and the result is murder most foul. It just gets worse from there.
Barry is, self-admittedly, kind of a self-centered asshole who mostly cares about his career. He and his girlfriend Julia (a research assistant at the TV studio) have a marked contempt for the old-fashioned fuddy-duddy morality of the previous generation. But even he’s kind of shocked at the things Toombes gets up to and the man’s frankly depraved views on morality. We also learn his father read the Daily Mail, which tells us a bit about how our narrator was brought up.
This is a very Sixties book in some ways. Toombes is favorably compared to Billy Graham by a foolish fan, and “that actor who became governor of California” is mentioned when the fans start talking about making Dr. Dis Prime Minister. Satanists were the go-to villains in British trash literature of the time, and here they’re primarily found among the rich and powerful, though they are not depicted as a coherent conspiracy. Better Black Mass scene than in The Dead Riders.
I don’t recall seeing the Vincent Price movie, but I’m going to guess they ramp up the murders and play the sex stuff waaay down. Even in the more permissive atmosphere of 1974, I doubt a movie could get away with showing the star’s anus or on-screen gay sex.
There’s a decent attempt at mounting suspense for when things will go really bad; we know that Barry will survive, but no one else is necessarily safe.
Late in the book, we have a psychic detective arrive, one of those one-scene wonders who helps resolve the main plot but isn’t otherwise involved, and he’s a doozy. The violence really ramps up for the last chapters.
Content note: Some very gruesome murders. On-page sex, not described in detail, but clearly extra-marital. Barry and Julia cheat on each other. Drug abuse. Blasphemy. A fair amount of rough language. Children with spastic disorders are exploited for a publicity stunt, and Barry is kind of ableist towards them. He thinks hairy men are gross. He also equates homosexual people with pedophiles, and has a bit of ethnic prejudice towards Spanish-speakers. Good job we’re not actually supposed to like him.
It’s an okay book of its type, but mostly notable for being the source for a movie; Vincent Price fans might want it as a novelty. It’s long out of print under either title, so you might have to dig to find a readable copy. Recommended to fans of British horror.
This lurid film series was quite popular with fans of the macabre, especially boys on the cusp of puberty. (Dr. Dis often employed such boys as his assistants, lecturing them on the pitfalls of his evil lifestyle.) Toombes really threw himself into the role, wearing a Dr. Dis costume in his day to day life. Unfortunately, he had less savory habits, and when a woman died during a Satanic ritual, the resulting scandal made the studio cancel his contract. (The police were not able to determine who killed her.)
A decade later, when the scandal was mostly nostalgia, Toombes was brought back to star in a Doctor Dis television show. Due to the restrictions on what television could show in the 1960s, it was pretty tame, and viewership dropped off after a couple of seasons. However, Toombes had connections, and one of them had power in a section of British television, so he was imported to do a Doctor Dis series for them.
And hell followed with him.
This paperback is the “movie edition” as Devilday was the basis for the Vincent Price movie Madhouse (1974). “Devilday” is, honestly, a more interesting title, but there we are.
The narrator of the book is Barry Lambert, a television reporter in Southcastle in the southwest of England, whence he had moved from Saltburn(!). An ambitious young man, he is only biding his time until he can move up to the capital and the big time. His boss uses this as an incentive to push Barry into being Toombes’ personal assistant/handler while the actor is in England. Succeed in keeping Toombes from any serious scandal, and the transfer is his. Fail, and Barry will never work in television again.
Barry was a Dr. Dis fan as a lad, and is to an extent looking forward to the job. This does not last long once he actually meets the actor. While the man is a fascinating fellow with a certain dark charisma, he’s also crude, physically repellent, and smells weird (this is because of the “sex salve” he rubs his body with which he claims makes woman attracted to him.) He’s a lecher who hangs out with women far younger than him (and may possibly commit statutory rape), addicted to various illegal drugs, a Satanist, and insists on wearing his Dr. Dis costume almost everywhere.
“Satanist” is perhaps inadequate to describe Toombes’ religious views–he’s a firm believer in reincarnation, including being able to take over already existing people rather than just be born in a new infant, and subscribes to the heresy of Antinomianism. (He’s convinced that he’s already one of God’s favored people, so he doesn’t have to worry about going to Hell for his sins.)
As you can imagine, it’s all Barry can do to keep Toombes from becoming a top headline in the scandal sheets. There’s some rough spots, but once the new Doctor Dis series starts, it becomes a huge hit, bigger than Doctor Who. Everyone loves Dr. Dis, and for a while it looks like things are going to be okay, with Barry needing to be present less and less to smooth things over.
The season is almost wrapped filming before Barry is called to witness a certain ritual…and the result is murder most foul. It just gets worse from there.
Barry is, self-admittedly, kind of a self-centered asshole who mostly cares about his career. He and his girlfriend Julia (a research assistant at the TV studio) have a marked contempt for the old-fashioned fuddy-duddy morality of the previous generation. But even he’s kind of shocked at the things Toombes gets up to and the man’s frankly depraved views on morality. We also learn his father read the Daily Mail, which tells us a bit about how our narrator was brought up.
This is a very Sixties book in some ways. Toombes is favorably compared to Billy Graham by a foolish fan, and “that actor who became governor of California” is mentioned when the fans start talking about making Dr. Dis Prime Minister. Satanists were the go-to villains in British trash literature of the time, and here they’re primarily found among the rich and powerful, though they are not depicted as a coherent conspiracy. Better Black Mass scene than in The Dead Riders.
I don’t recall seeing the Vincent Price movie, but I’m going to guess they ramp up the murders and play the sex stuff waaay down. Even in the more permissive atmosphere of 1974, I doubt a movie could get away with showing the star’s anus or on-screen gay sex.
There’s a decent attempt at mounting suspense for when things will go really bad; we know that Barry will survive, but no one else is necessarily safe.
Late in the book, we have a psychic detective arrive, one of those one-scene wonders who helps resolve the main plot but isn’t otherwise involved, and he’s a doozy. The violence really ramps up for the last chapters.
Content note: Some very gruesome murders. On-page sex, not described in detail, but clearly extra-marital. Barry and Julia cheat on each other. Drug abuse. Blasphemy. A fair amount of rough language. Children with spastic disorders are exploited for a publicity stunt, and Barry is kind of ableist towards them. He thinks hairy men are gross. He also equates homosexual people with pedophiles, and has a bit of ethnic prejudice towards Spanish-speakers. Good job we’re not actually supposed to like him.
It’s an okay book of its type, but mostly notable for being the source for a movie; Vincent Price fans might want it as a novelty. It’s long out of print under either title, so you might have to dig to find a readable copy. Recommended to fans of British horror.
March 25, 2018
Nagyon régóta vadásztam erre a kötetre, és már-már azt latolgattam, hogy egy külföldi antikvárium szolgáltatásait veszem igénybe, amikor rábukkantam, már-már irreálisan olcsón egy magyar eladónál. Összességében inkább érdekes példánya a 70-es évek horrorponyváinak és a satanista/boszorkány-horror alműfajának, mintsem remekmű - de horrorrajongók számára üdítő, gyorsan kiolvasható, mely megéri a ráfordított időt.
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