House of Dark Laughter

House of Dark Laughter
Melissa Napier | Avon Books | 1972 | 176 pages

“There were what was called a woman’s wiles, and she was prepared to use them as much as necessary in order to get the man that she knew she wanted.”

Young art appraiser Betsy Vaughn accepts a position in opulent Dalton Manor to assess a dying man’s estate, and following the well-worn traditions of the inheritance thriller, finds mystery, intrigue, and a possible romance. She is also knocked unconscious several more times than the average heroine.

Employed by Carter Willard, the ailing Mr. Dalton’s personal secretary, Betsy finds herself among a host of antagonistic and scheming relatives, each positioning themselves for an anticipated piece of the estate. The young and beautiful Alice Dalton has assumed the role of caretaker for her stricken older husband, and immediately treats Betsy as an unwelcome outsider. Derek and Lorna, Dalton’s feckless niece and nephew, are less overtly hostile, but clearly impatient to begin spending the family fortune.

Mildly diverting but lacking any distinctive elements to elevate it from a multitude of similar genre entries, House of Dark Laughter delivers enough modest thrills to sustain its short page count: thumping noises from the closed-off wing of the mansion, hazy spectres in the night, the mysterious disappearance of the first Mrs. Dalton and her young infant daughter, and a rash of threats and actual attacks against Betsy.

Even with a slight twist in the final act, after a semi-incapacitated Betsy is dragged through the grounds to a waiting shallow grave, the identity of her antagonists comes without much surprise. Apart from placing herself in enough perilous situations to receive an inordinate number of blows to the back of her head during a few weeks at Dalton Manor, Betsy mostly lacks the crippling meekness and poor decision making so often characterized by the heroines in these women-in-danger tales.

House of Dark Laughter* occupies an easily familiar and comfortable space, while somehow allowing a certain curmudgeonly resistance to rise against its preordained conclusion of hard life lessons learned, the importance of biological family, and the need of a young woman to land her dream man.

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*Editor’s Note: No trace of “dark laughter” exists in the entire text.

One of My Wives is Missing

One of My Wives is Missing
ABC Made-for-Television Movie | Starring Jack Klugman, Elizabeth Ashley, James Franciscus | Written by Peter Stone | Directed by Glenn Jordan | Originally Aired on March 05, 1976

Daniel Corbin (James Franciscus; Beneath the Planet of the Apes) has a problem. His wife, Elizabeth, is missing, and the local small-town police seem uninterested in pursuing the case. Her sudden return, however, elicits an unexpected reaction: Corbin claims that the woman (Elizabeth Ashley; The Carpetbaggers) is not, in fact, his wife.

Inspector Murray Levine (Jack Klugman; The Odd Couple, Quincy), a former New York City detective, takes a break from eating his favorite pastrami sandwiches at the local deli to investigate the unusual claim. The new Mrs. Corbin insists that her husband suffers from a mental condition and has been receiving long-term treatment from a psychiatrist, including prescription drugs, and could potentially be on the brink of a nervous breakdown.

Set almost exclusively in the interior rooms of a remote country resort, the moribund production clearly reflects the stage origins of its source material. Evidence shifts and suspicions turn as characters exit stage right, stage left, or step briefly outside or upstairs. The priest who reintroduces Mrs. Corbin after her disappearance hangs around long enough to eventually nap on the sofa.

James Franciscus brings a golden-boy smugness to his role, although perhaps shouting a few too many lines along the way. Elizabeth Ashley delivers a smoky allure as the femme fatale, changing through a series of nightdresses along the way. Meanwhile, Jack Klugman channels his inner-Quincy, madly gesticulating, chewing up the scenery, and tossing off some groan-worthy comic zingers with fearless aplomb.

One of My Wives is Missing attempts at least one too many puzzle-within-a-puzzle twists—and instances of blanks being fired—before spinning off into a convoluted silliness that defies any continued suspension of disbelief. [Hey, Quincy…er… Detective Levine, instead of neglecting a crime scene and spinning an elaborate charade, how about just collecting some forensic evidence?] Certainly not a lost classic awaiting rediscovery, but a modest curiosity for Quincy fans searching for a cheap YouTube distraction.

The Nightwalker

The Nightwalker | Thomas Tessier | Signet Books | 1979 | 183 pages

Bobby Ives, a disabled Vietnam veteran living in London, struggles with strange, seizure-like episodes, and is haunted by vivid memories of a previous life on a Caribbean island. Experiencing unusual sensations in his hands and feet, he succumbs to violent outbursts that he is unable to rationalize. Slowly opening up emotionally to his English girlfriend, Annie, Bobby is nonetheless frustrated that she continually rejects his offers to move in with him. However, an inexplicably shocking act on the streets of London begins a dark journey that is seemingly beyond his control.

After a series of impulsive attacks on unsuspecting victims in Hyde Park, Bobby fears that he cannot control the rising bloodlust inside himself. Rejecting a conventional diagnosis of migraines offered by his psychologist, Bobby turns to Miss Tanith, a psychic he discovered in the classified ads, in order to confirm his own suspicions regarding his affliction.

“Lupus naturae. Loup-garou. You carry the sign of the wolf.”

The nature of Bobby’s lycanthropy mostly treads an ambiguous line between the physical and the psychological, with a few circumstantial bits of evidence suggesting an actual–if not complete–transformation. Beyond the supernatural, what remains is a dark exploration of a murderous mind, with enough self-awareness to attempt a measure of control over its violent impulses. As such, the standard genre tropes are refreshingly absent, with the exception of the introduction of a silver dagger—the ultimate magical weapon to fatally pierce the heart of the werewolf.

The introduction of Angel, a young punk girl Bobby meets panhandling in the park, adds a few seventies-era dated elements to story, particularly during their visits to the club scene. The conflicted protagonist and the psychic establish such a throwback vibe to the classic werewolf tale that the intrusion of a—however limited–punk aesthetic seems jarring, as do the rather explicit sex scenes. Ultimately, Angel just seems like an extra character added for Bobby to potentially victimize.

The Nightwalker is suffused with a weary fatalism, reflected in the older-than-her-years Miss Tanith, who reluctantly joins the effort to control Bobby’s disease while resigned to the nature of fate to take its predestined course.

The Woman Hunter

The Woman Hunter
Starring Barbara Eden | Robert Vaughn | Stuart Whitman
Written by Brian Clemens | Directed by Bernard L. Kowalski
Made for Television | 1972 | 1 hour, 14 minutes

A luminous Barbara Eden, with the support of a handful of glamorous outfits, shines in this otherwise tepid made-for-television thriller.

Recovering in Mexico from the trauma of an auto accident, Dina Hunter (Barbara Eden) feels herself slowly becoming estranged from her cold, business-oriented husband, Paul (Robert Vaughn). Overcoming her early resistance, she falls for the masculine charms of her neighbor on the beach, Paul Carter (Stuart Whitman). Seemingly tracking Dina from afar, Carter could actually be an international jewel thief and murderer intent on stealing her valuable necklace.

Lumpy and hairy in a middle-aged, seventies leading man sort of way, Stuart Whitman provides easily the most terrifying moment in the film—the prospect of emerging from the surf without his swimming trunks.

Barbara Eden carries the low-grade, woman-in-peril story with her screen presence alone—including an unintentionally funny, weirdly jerky dance number that predates Elaine’s awkward dance on Seinfeld by about twenty years.

Unfolding without much suspense over most of its running time, The Woman Hunter crawls along at a slow pace until delivering a predictable, yet unlikely, twist ending. However, the modest locations and era fashions make for a pleasantly inessential, wallpaper viewing.

Devil in the Darkness

Devil in the Darkness
Archie Roy | Long (London) | 1978 | 184 pages

Lost on the remote back roads of rural Scotland during a ferocious snowstorm, newlyweds Paul and Carol Wilson take refuge in a neglected, decaying old mansion. Inside Ardvreck House, an infamous estate with a dark and disturbing history, they encounter a strange team of soldiers, film technicians, and paranormal investigators who have temporarily taken up residence to document any potential incidents of supernatural activity before the upcoming scheduled destruction of the mansion.

The storm destroys the only bridge out from Ardvreck House, effectively stranding the couple and motley group of investigators in the isolated estate. Startled awake during the night, Paul hears scraping and pacing sounds coming from the abandoned attic floor above him. Summoning the courage to investigate while his wife sleeps, Paul finds only the empty, undisturbed tower room. However, the inexplicable noises are only the beginning, as the house psychically “recharges” from the presence of its new occupants.

A regression therapy session with Ann Parish, a member of the research team with a successful history of recalling events before her birth, triggers a spiritual communication with a former servant of the estate. Mary Elizabeth Rolfe, a maid to the murdered mistress of the house, was herself the victim of a drowning under mysterious circumstances. Ann’s past-life recollection under hypnosis as Mary triggers an academic disagreement between Meredith and Bourne, the two psychic researchers on the team. Is Ann communicating directly with Mary’s spirit, or is she actually Mary’s reincarnated self, reliving memories of her previous life? Or, is she just adeptly improvising suppressed details of Mary’s life that she has previously learned? This debate arguably holds more potential interest than any incidents of moving furniture or spectral appearances at the windows.

A slim haunted house story recalling earlier classics such as Shirley Jackson’s Haunting of Hill House and Richard Matheson’s Hell House, Devil in the Darkness takes some time before the supernatural encounters seem threatening enough to place it characters in mortal danger. It channels the established notion of a physical place storing a psychic charge that can potentially influence generations to follow, with a paranormally receptive party triggering its release. The single most terrifying encounter—when Carol seems to feel Paul in bed behind her, only to discover him instead at the bedroom door—also harkens back to a similarly ghostly reveal in Hill House.

Devil in the Darkness also retreads a bit of Stephen King’s The Shining. Meredith and Bourne debate the advisability of simply leaving the estate, hunkering down against the inclement weather inside the collected cars of the assembled party. Their discussion on the potential harm posed by the apparitions evokes the “pictures in a book” conversation between Dick Hallorann and Danny Torrance at the Overlook Hotel.

Ardvreck House, like Hell House before it, was stained by the shocking and amoral behavior of its privileged residents. The vile act at the core of its haunting is ultimately revealed through a discovered letter. The reading of the brittle pages functions as a sort of epilogue, providing a firsthand account of the historical horrors. However short, this new narrative–with its previously unknown characters–stalls out whatever momentum the fiery climax had delivered, even while providing an explanation to all the ghostly bump-and-grind shenanigans.

Author Archie Roy, simultaneously an academic professor of astronomy and amateur investigator of the paranormal, seems to have been more engaged with the nature of the debate over mediums, psychic phenomenon, and the implications of the purported evidence of the supernatural-–expressed here through the opposing viewpoints of Merideth and Bourne—than delivering a new take on the haunted house. Still, genre fans who have exhausted the classics will find enough here to keep them interested.

The Rats

The Rats
James Herbert| New English Library | 1974 | 181 pages

Mr. Harris, an East End schoolteacher who witnesses an early attack by flesh-eating rats, is drawn into an alliance with beleaguered health officials against a large-scale infestation of mutated rodents.

Surfacing from the canals in East London, a new strain of deadly black rats emerges with a taste for human flesh. Mobilized by the Health Department for his early insights and his knowledge of the local area, Harris chases his rodent prey through the city streets, searching for the source of the outbreak and the solution to stopping the deadly attacks.

Structured as a series of ever-escalating violent set pieces, the story progresses through attacks on individuals, homeless encampments, train stations, and an extended siege and assault of a primary school. Showing little fear of their human targets, the swarming black rats inflict much squirm-inducing brutality to the flesh of their victims. No one is safe from the ruthless carnage, from pets (a given) to small children and babies.

Short background stories, ranging from a few paragraphs to a few pages, sketch out the victims, before they ultimately are shredded and eaten by the hordes of hungry rats. Although this attention to detail humanizes characters that could have simply been cookie-cutter fodder, their ultimate fate is predetermined.

The blighted neighborhood most impacted by the infestation is reflected in many of the character sketches. Suffering from abuse, abandonment, or economic inequality, the soon-to-be victims are all case studies in the castoff social strata of society. However, any potential emotional investment in their survival is scuttled by their typically quick demises—by tiny claws and curving yellow teeth.

A quick and gruesome Man-versus-Nature tale, The Rats lacks the atomic radiation boogeyman employed by so many monster-run-amok tales that came before it, but the climax does lead Harris to a twitchy, repulsive discovery at its core.

Charnel House

Charnel House
Graham Masterton | TOR Books | 1978 | 241 pages

John Hyatt, an inspector for the San Francisco Department of Sanitation, investigates a strange breathing noise in the walls of an old Mission district house, but instead of routine blocked pipes discovers the imminent return to this world of a Native American demon.

Hyatt’s investigation quickly escalates into horror beyond the scope of his department. A researcher from the sanitation lab is stricken by a similar breathing phenomenon experienced in the house, and soon lapses into an asthmatic coma. Responding to a new sonic manifestation in the house, that of a slowly beating heart, another colleague suffers a bizarre and violent attack. Craning his head up a chimney to check the flue, the flesh of his head is completely stripped away, but leaving him (and his slowly beating heart) still alive.

These early episodes are the strongest, creating an eerie atmosphere surrounding the biomorphic house attacks. The terror spills over to the local hospital, when the survivors rise from their beds and attempt to physically merge their stricken bodies. As the investigation takes Hyatt to George Thousand Names, a medicine man who reveals the folklore surrounding the legendary Navajo trickster, Coyote, the proceedings take a more action-oriented tone, with Hyatt engaging in monster battles against the nascent demon in the streets of San Francisco. However, any sense of mystery in Coyote’s return to earth is sapped from the start by the author’s prologue, which essentially introduces the demon before the story even begins.

Perhaps only a stickler to those readers versed in San Francisco geography, occasional gaffes are noticeable: the misspelling of landmarks (“Delores” Park), the existence of a topography-be-damned line of sight from the Mission district house to the Golden Gate Bridge, and repeated references to the “hot” and “humid” nights (unsolicited travel tip for visitors: always bring a jacket, even in the summer).

Charnel House also suffers from some dated cultural and social perspectives. George Thousand Names, and some of the myth surrounding Coyote, are indiscriminately referred to as “Red Indian.” Even though most likely intended as joking dialogue, references to “paleface” and “firewater” are groan-inducing rather than self-referential nods to stereotypes. Also, Hyatt seems to require noting the tightness or form-fitting nature of the clothing of all the women he meets, even in situations that would call for a more somber attitude. Author Graham Masterton wrote some sex-instruction titles in the seventies, so perhaps some unrealized crossover potential exists here — How to Drive Your Nurse Wild in Bed While the World is Ending.

Iron Man

Iron Man
Black Sabbath | Paranoid | Warner Brothers | 1970

I am iron man

Has he lost his mind?
Can he see or is he blind?
Can he walk at all
Or if he moves will he fall?

Is he alive or dead?
Has he thoughts within his head?
We’ll just pass him there
Why should we even care?

He was turned to steel
In the great magnetic field
Where he traveled time
For the future of mankind

Nobody wants him
He just stares at the world
Planning his vengeance
That he will soon unfold

Now the time is here
For iron man to spread fear
Vengeance from the grave
Kills the people he once saved

Nobody wants him
They just turn their heads
Nobody helps him
Now he has his revenge

Heavy boots of lead
Fills his victims full of dread
Running as fast as they can
Iron man lives again

Curse of the Black Widow

Curse of the Black Widow
Starring Anthony Franciosa | Donna Mills | Patty Duke
Directed by Dan Curtis
ABC | September 16, 1977 | 1 hour, 40 minutes

Anthony Franciosa plays a private detective on the trail of a supernatural killer in a television movie that feels like a lost episode of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, with its outsider hero pursuing the clues and ultimately revealing the monster-of-the-week.

Following a murder outside a bar, Mark Higbie (Anthony Franciosa) glimpses an inexplicable dark shape fleeing up a cliff side. Although the victim was last seen accompanying a strange woman, the body exhibits an almost animal-like pair of puncture wounds in the chest cavity. The dead man’s fiancé, Leigh Lockwood (Donna Mills), whose first husband died in a mysterious boating accident, fears the scrutiny of the police, and employs Higbie to investigate.

Higbie uncovers a series of other murders, with victims exhibiting similar puncture wounds and complete loss of blood, along with a common link to Leigh and her twin sister Laura (Patty Duke). After the discovery of spider venom at the scene of a new killing, Higbie begins to accept a previously unthinkable theory based on native folklore—the killer is a woman who transforms by light of the full moon into a giant spider.

With compound-eye point-of-view shots depicting pincer attacks and squirting spider silk, little doubt exists from the opening scenes regarding the supernatural origins of the murders. A backstory involving a childhood plane crash in the wilderness, with one twin suffering a traumatic series of spider bites, serves to scatter suspicion of the mystery woman’s identity between Leigh and Laura. Could either one be Valerie Steffan, the mysterious femme fatale picking up and killing men?

Franciosa and Vic Morrow (as the gruff detective Gully Conti) play straight through what could be arguably high-camp material in the wrong hands, with only a few instances of fending off fake spiders and pushing through Silly String webbing. The POV perspective on the murders also allows for withholding the big spider reveal until the conclusion, reducing the need for too many mood-breaking rubber creature shots along the way. Some attempts at light comedic banter between Higbie and his assistant, (somehow disturbingly) referred to only as “Flaps” (Roz Kelly), fall a little flat.

Several familiar faces (June Allyson, June Lockhart) have small, slumming turns here, including Sid Caesar, who wanders onto the set as Laszlo Cozart, the investigative team’s heater-obsessed landlord. Popeye (H.B. Haggerty), a mustachioed Mr. Clean type questioned by Higbee as a potential witness, is somehow both a “wino” and a gymnastics coach. Finally, the unnamed morgue attendant (Robert Nadder) adds an unexpected undercurrent to his scene after emptying a vial of embalming fluid into a sink, and awkwardly declaring to Higbie, “Mark, you know how I feel about you.”

Ostensibly a monster movie, Curse of the Black Widow also throws in an undercooked schizophrenia plotline. A repressed female sexuality, all buttoned up and wearing glasses, triggers a secret murderous personality, decked out in a black wig and faltering German(ish?) accent, equal in murderous force to the spider’s supernatural curse.

It’s all hokum, of course, but unadulterated seventies TV-movie arachnid hokum – in heels.

Our Lady of Darkness

Our Lady of Darkness
Fritz Leiber | Berkley Books | 1977 | 183 pages

After a hike to the barren, hilly summit of Corona Heights, Franz Weston, writer of weird tales and a recovering alcoholic, turns his binoculars back towards his downtown San Francisco apartment building. Finding what he believes to be his own window through the glasses, Franz sees a strange figure lean out—and wave.

Referencing a copy of Megapolisomancy: A New Science of Cities, an antiquarian book purchased secondhand sometime earlier during an alcoholic bender, Franz becomes convinced that he has witnessed an occurrence of a paranormal being. The book’s author, Thibaut de Castries, an obscure turn-of-the-century practitioner of the occult, theorized that the massive concrete, steel, and electrical congregation of modern cities generates a network of supernatural energy. This energy manifestation, he posits in his pseudo-scientific tome, can be manipulated with careful deliberation in a methodology described as “Neo-Pythagorean Metageometry,” and may potentially result in the generation of paranormal entities.

Franz’s growing obsession with the work of de Castries, along with the investigation into his otherworldly vision, tantalizes the prospect of a great hidden world just beyond the reach of understanding. Even his apartment building at 811 Geary Street, with its blacked-out airshaft windows and broom closets without door handles, has a role in creating an atmosphere of an inexplicable truth on the cusp of being revealed.

Franz nodded impatiently, restraining his impulse to say, “Get on with it!”

However, the pacing suffers with a few instances of expository info-dump and from an off-putting writing style. Franz’s friend Byers, who reveals a deeper-than-expected knowledge of Megapolisomancy, recounts de Castries’ history over the course of several monotonous chapters. Along with the endless prattle about Metageometries, the desire to skim passages grows stronger than the drive to uncover the mysteries swirling around Corona Heights, the Geary Street apartment, and the newly constructed skyscrapers that serve as the modern equivalent of Neolithic standing stones.

Repeated references to other fantastic works and authors—H.P. Lovecraft, Dashiell Hammett, Ambrose Bierce, Jack London, Clark Ashton Smith, and even Fritz Leiber himself—are meant to suggest the depth of influence and universality lurking beneath the surface of Megapolisomancy theory, but simply serve as a constant distraction. Lieber’s use of parenthetical injections (like this one) in his text (every few paragraphs) perhaps evokes the three-dot styling (sometimes every few sentences) of Herb Caen’s San Francisco Chronicle columns (also referenced), but (really) disrupt the flow of his prose (something akin to constant footnotes).

“He had been listening with a mixture of fascination, irritation, and wry amusement, with at least half of his attention clearly elsewhere.”

Those familiar with San Francisco geography will probably be rewarded more than others, since painstakingly detailed accounts of places and character movements naturally accompany a meditation on the paranormal energies of place. From such well-known icons as the Transamerica Pyramid, Sutro Tower, and Lotta Crabtree’s fountain on Market Street, to more neighborhood-oriented landmarks like the Randall Museum, readers are well prepared to join Franz as he unfolds a city map and plots the cursed ley lines exploited by Thibaut de Castries.

The existence of a Neo-Pythagorean, paranormal curse line even explains the N-Judah not running.