tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89840758940861805282012-03-06T07:31:25.315-05:00Celebrating the Gothic in fiction, film, and art.Barrymore Tebbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881955849732740126noreply@blogger.comBlogger221100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984075894086180528.post-24108931726250691892012-03-03T18:48:00.000-05:002012-03-03T18:48:44.884-05:00

Recently I ran across a message board post requesting recommendations for historic horror novels. The first thing that crossed my mind was Les Daniels’ Chronicles of Don Sebastian, a series of five novels published by Ace and Tor in the late 70s and early 80s. I have an old paperback book rack where I keep and display vintage paperback novels and after pulling out my copies realized I only had

Barrymore Tebbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881955849732740126noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984075894086180528.post-39168417207532721952012-02-26T08:48:00.002-05:002012-02-26T08:56:53.275-05:00

I met Lisa Greer in the early fall of 2010 when I was surfing the internet and landed on her Gothicked blogspot. One of the first things I liked about Lisa’s reviews was that, while she clearly had a love for the vintage Gothic Romance novels that were all the rage in the 1960s and 70s, she didn’t take them or her reviews too seriously. I’ve read numerous blogs and message board posts where

Barrymore Tebbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881955849732740126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984075894086180528.post-749620875775064912012-02-24T06:44:00.002-05:002012-02-24T06:44:39.862-05:00

My full length novel, Night of the Pentagram, is now on sale for only .99 cents at Amazon. No sex, mild profanity, plenty of violence! Just like the good old days.

Barrymore Tebbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881955849732740126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984075894086180528.post-38761775121783017572012-02-19T13:23:00.000-05:002012-02-19T13:23:33.659-05:00

”Well, Babs,” Barbara Michaels’ agent said one stormy afternoon in New York City, “Quentin Collins is the hottest thing on television; how about writing something with werewolves, only make it more Gothic this time. Throw in a good thunderstorm and a big old house.” Barbara went away, and after a shot of vodka or two, sat down and wrote The Dark on the Other Side, her third and final foray into

Barrymore Tebbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881955849732740126noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984075894086180528.post-49482714527550636842012-02-18T19:44:00.001-05:002012-02-18T19:47:01.473-05:00

Will Errikson at Too Much Horror Fiction has been reviewing one of my favorite Southern Gothic novels, the six volume Blackwater Saga. Highly recommend both the series by Michael McDowell and several hours worth of perusing Will's awesome blog! Review reposted: Too Much Horror Fiction: Blackwater III: The House by Michael McDowell (198...: The story of the Caskeys, a grand and wealthy yet

Barrymore Tebbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881955849732740126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984075894086180528.post-56925778655526964572012-02-14T07:23:00.000-05:002012-02-14T07:23:30.931-05:00

“Do you believe that someone out of the past, someone dead, can enter and take possession of a living being?” Gavin Elster asks retired detective Scottie Ferguson at the beginning of the 1958 masterpiece, Vertigo, Hitchcock’s strange tale of obsessive love. But is it Gothic? Of course it is, as much as that other classic of obsessive love, Wuthering Heights. Gothic doesn’t always require the

Barrymore Tebbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881955849732740126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984075894086180528.post-67697972415316506332012-02-04T17:00:00.000-05:002012-02-04T17:00:04.532-05:00

Having just read Susan Hill's outstanding ghost story a few months ago, I may be unnaturally biased in favor of the novel. While the screenplay adaptation of The Woman In Black fleshes out the story with more detail and a "bit" of action, this is still a classic example of "the book was better." Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe in his much publicized first film role since completing the Harry

Barrymore Tebbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881955849732740126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984075894086180528.post-45413516888611758482012-01-22T09:50:00.001-05:002012-01-22T09:52:58.410-05:00

Any fan of Howard Philips Lovecraft knows how difficult it is to translate his novels and short stories of unspeakable cosmic horror into film. The experience of reading Lovecraft is about the writing itself, and while it invokes highly visual imagery, it is not the sort of thing which lends itself well to cinematic adaptation. 1967’s The Shuttered Room comes from a Lovecraft idea completed as a

Barrymore Tebbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881955849732740126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984075894086180528.post-51008979475493498352012-01-14T10:45:00.002-05:002012-01-16T07:56:41.263-05:00

A significant contribution to the runaway success of the paperback Gothic Romance boom of the late 60s and early 70s was the seductively sinister cover illustrations. Unlike the majority of today’s romance novel cover art, paranormal and otherwise, which tends to focus on a peacock alpha male with his shaved chest pumped and oiled to entice the reader to pick him up from the bookstore shelf or

Barrymore Tebbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881955849732740126noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984075894086180528.post-86551550025048860072012-01-08T15:53:00.001-05:002012-01-08T15:55:26.282-05:00

Why should Roger Corman get all the credit? A great deal of the success and continued popularity of Corman’s Poe adaptations are the art direction and stunning sets that Daniel Haller created on a shoestring budget. After studying at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, Haller cut his teeth on low-budget American International exploitation pictures, most notably a slew of films featuring

Barrymore Tebbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881955849732740126noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984075894086180528.post-48772904420181804172012-01-01T11:51:00.000-05:002012-01-01T11:51:57.369-05:00

And it’s long overdue. There has been a renaissance among traditional horror creatures the past few years. Vampires, even the sparkly ones, are all over cinemas with that wretched teen romance series that shall not be named (call it Gothic Ultra Lite) and television with HBO’s deliriously hyper sexual True Blood; the zombie invasion continues unabated with the wildly popular AMC series The

Barrymore Tebbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881955849732740126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984075894086180528.post-64535788795403808022011-12-26T13:50:00.001-05:002011-12-31T20:44:05.163-05:00

One of the key elements of Gothic fiction is the Old Dark House. From Shirley Jackson’s Hill House to Stephen King’s Overlook Hotel, these places have fascinated and frightened us for years. Such places always seem to possess a life of their own, the Genius Loci – or protective spirit of a place - of the classic Romans, but in the hands of Gothic writers this spirit always takes on the guise of

Barrymore Tebbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881955849732740126noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984075894086180528.post-71001896103657704212011-12-20T19:35:00.005-05:002011-12-31T20:38:50.475-05:00

“Black Masses, pacts with the devil,” proclaims the hero in Prince of Darkness, Barbara Michaels’ second foray into the occult, “that’s the thing nowadays.” And how right he was. First published in 1969, Prince of Darkness came out as America’s love affair with the Occult reached its zenith, fueled in part by the runaway success of Ira Levin’s novel and Roman Polanski’s brilliant film adaptation

Barrymore Tebbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881955849732740126noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984075894086180528.post-11080308684937652112011-12-11T18:39:00.000-05:002011-12-11T18:39:01.579-05:00

Every now and then you see a movie or read a book that so disturbs you that its ideas and images are burned into your brain for hours, if not days, afterwards. For me, this is often accompanied by a feeling of helplessness, not certain what to do next to exorcise the disturbance from my psyche. The film version of Daphne Du Maurier’s Don’t Look Now comes to mind. Susan Hill’s 1983 novel The Woman

Barrymore Tebbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881955849732740126noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984075894086180528.post-90676740616331077882011-12-05T18:42:00.000-05:002011-12-05T18:42:10.362-05:00

During the recession of 2008, I found myself unemployed for seven months, and after I ran out of books to read I figured it was a good time to try, yet again, to write a novel. I stumbled on a few library books of the “outline your novel in 30 days” variety. Outlining? Wouldn’t that take all the fun out of the creative process? As it turns out it was just the kick in the head I needed to finally

Barrymore Tebbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881955849732740126noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984075894086180528.post-52153562783564144672011-11-29T20:18:00.000-05:002011-11-29T20:18:53.116-05:00

Part of my collection of vintage Gothic Romance paperbacks displayed in a vintage paperback book rack.

Barrymore Tebbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881955849732740126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984075894086180528.post-60297572099692671642011-11-23T07:38:00.000-05:002011-11-23T07:38:14.526-05:00

After finishing my first novel (a lurid, over-the-top occult potboiler) I decided I wanted to try my hand at a more traditional Gothic romance, so I spent a few months rereading a number of old paperbacks from my collection. Of course, I had to start with Barbara Michaels. I had reread her first two books, Master of Black Tower and Sons of the Wolf, about a year before, so I picked up Ammie, Come

Barrymore Tebbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881955849732740126noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984075894086180528.post-68775385199064115832011-11-17T18:03:00.002-05:002011-11-17T18:12:58.329-05:00

A crescent moon ascends a benighted sky. A woman’s hair becomes a tangle of leafless, lifeless tree limbs. A Victorian woman navigates the forest of souls, pestered by a flock of ravens with human faces. A wide-eyed beauty strikes a formal pose, the severed head of Edgar Allan Poe in her lap. Enter, if you will, the World of Dzaet, the Art of Pamela Hill. One of the joys of internet social

Barrymore Tebbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881955849732740126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984075894086180528.post-85214164267796790752011-11-11T06:41:00.004-05:002012-01-16T07:57:16.592-05:00

  Charles Geer (1922 – 2008) was an American illustrator and author. Best known for his illustrations in numerous children's books, including The Mad Scientists' Club published between 1960-1968, Geer was also a prolific hard cover jacket illustrator for Dodd Mead, William Morrow, and other publishers of Mysteries and Gothics throughout the 1960s. I have always been fond of Geer's use of

Barrymore Tebbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881955849732740126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984075894086180528.post-54171940167767026732011-11-05T18:09:00.001-04:002011-11-05T21:38:39.177-04:00

Little Red Riding Hood leaves her college dorm room dressed in pink running shoes and a tight red sweater, iPod cranked up to “Sweet Dreams” by the Eurythmics, and sets out for an early morning jog through the forest primeval. Minutes later, amid snarls and thrashing underbrush, Little Red is torn limb from limb. Goldilocks and her boyfriend break into a secluded house, looking like something

Barrymore Tebbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881955849732740126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984075894086180528.post-42966644774553262792011-11-01T16:22:00.001-04:002011-11-01T16:32:51.121-04:00

For kids growing up in the US in the 1960s, Saturday night television was a thing of wonder when we were allowed to stay up late with a bowl of popcorn and a bottle of root beer, shivering with anticipation as the minutes kicked down to the start of our local fright show. In my city it was called Scream In and was hosted by a groovy hippie vampire named The Cool Ghoul. Week after week he brought

Barrymore Tebbshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08881955849732740126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8984075894086180528.post-10529498545677492922011-10-31T06:05:00.001-04:002011-11-01T06:16:33.753-04:00

Zombies are taking over the world. AMC’s The Walking Dead is one of the highest rated series on cable television. In major cities around the globe, Zombie Walks and Pub Crawls are held annually in late October to the delight of participants and onlookers alike. Resident Evil, the video games, movies, novels, and comics franchise unleashed in 1996 shows no sign of being stopped. George Romero’s

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