Month: April 2021

FANGS AND FOREPLAY: THE EROTIC ADVENTURES OF DRACULA- THE TRANSYLVANIA YEARS. BOOK 6-PART 17. BY SANDRA HARRIS. A WEE TEASER…!

BOOK 6: CHAPTER 17.

It was a dull, damp and foggy Monday morning in London. Sherlock Holmes, the great detective, lay stretched out full-length in his favourite armchair, too overcome by the familiar ennui to even smoke his pipe.

Dr. John H. Watson, M.D., standing at the window of his friend’s consulting rooms at 221B Baker Street looking down on the swell of humanity as it ebbed and flowed like the mighty Thames on the streets below him, very much feared that Holmes was on the verge of having recourse to the dreaded cocaine bottle and syringe once more.

Were it not for the fact that both bottle and syringe currently resided on the high mantelpiece above the fireplace and Holmes in his ennui could not be bothered to get up from his comfortable seat and fetch them, he might be in thrall to them even now. In this instance, Dr. Watson sent up a prayer of thanks to whomever might be listening that Holmes was such an indolent bastard at times.

He was deeply worried for his friend’s mental health. For days now, the dearth of clients and puzzles to keep his genius’s mind sharp and clear had caused him to sink deeper and deeper into a brown study.

He didn’t even want to play some of their favourite games any more, like ‘Doctor and Patient’ and ‘Docky-Wocky Sucky-Wucky Ickle-Wickle Cocky-Wocky.’ When Sherlock Holmes declined to play ‘Docky-Wocky Sucky-Wucky Ickle-Wickle Cocky-Wocky’ with his closest friend, Dr. John H. Watson M.D., then you knew you had a potential catastrophe on your hands. If some business didn’t present itself at their rooms very, very soon, God alone knew on what self-destructive course the bored and depressed famous detective might embark.

‘I say, Holmes, it looks like a case might be presenting itself at last, if I’m not mistaken!’ uttered Watson excitedly now from his vantage point at the window. ‘Yes, indeed, they’re standing now on the path opposite, waiting for a break in the traffic, now they’re looking up at our windows, no doubt wondering if the great detective is in situ. Oh yes, they’re crossing swiftly now that the traffic has eased somewhat, crossing, crossing, and yes! There is the ring at the bell that signifies that we shall soon have a visitor.’

‘Excellent, Watson, excellent! Now hush, not a word, while I endeavour to reconstruct a thumbnail sketch of our visitor from the facts at our disposal.’ Still stretched out in his armchair, he closed his eyes and dramatically placed the two forefingers of each hand over both of his closed eyelids.

‘Now, let me see. Elderly man, rigid military bearing, leathery tanned skin as testament to his long years in India. Not a subaltern, but a high-up officer, a general, or an old major, maybe. Walks with a pronounced limp in the left leg, caught some sniper shrapnel in India, perhaps. Uses a stick made of briar. Addicted to snuff, and the rather dubious confection known as pear drops. Keeps bull mastiffs. Bitten once, on the left ankle, left a scar. Keeps bees, too, like I intend to do when I retire to Sussex. Kept fish as a boy. Sang in a choir in his youth, till nodules on the vocal cords put paid to all that. There. What do you think, Watson? Have I hit the mark again?’

Dr. Watson stared at his friend in astonishment. ‘Why, Holmes, what a marvel you are! But unfortunately, in this instance, I rather fear that…’

What Dr. Watson rather feared, Sherlock Holmes was destined never to know, for at that moment came an urgent rapping at the door and the housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson, a stout, matronly woman of a certain age with a permanent expression of harassment and exasperation, bustled into the room followed by a handsomely dressed middle-aged woman of obvious means.

‘Mr. Holmes,’ gasped Mrs. Hudson, out of breath again after the stairs, ‘this is Lady Chastity Wilberforce-Belvedere, or is it Lady Chastity Belvedere-Wilberforce? I declare, those stairs have fair turned my brain!’

She huffed and puffed her way out of the room, leaving the handsome woman standing in the middle of the room.

‘Pray be seated, my Lady,’ said Dr. Watson, a great admirer of the fair sex when his time wasn’t being completely taken up by Holmes, who was needy and a psychic-vampire, someone who drew his own energy from draining the life-force out of the people around him. He pulled out a chair for her, directly across from Holmes’s armchair, because he knew his friend liked to get a good look at his clients during interviews.

‘Is the Major following behind you?’ said Holmes smugly, steepling his long thin fingers and casting anticipatory glances towards the door under languid, partially closed lids.

‘The Major?’ exclaimed the visitor in obvious surprise. ‘What Major? There is no Major, Mr. Holmes! There is only myself.’

Holmes’s long face turned a dull red with embarrassment at being not only wrong, but quite badly wrong, while Watson did his utmost to suppress a snigger. He was only successful inasmuch as he managed to turn the snigger into a cough, but, judging by the way Holmes was glowering at him, he’d still have to spend the entire evening playing ‘Docky-Wocky Sucky-Wucky Ickle-Wickle Cocky-Wocky’ in order to placate his mortified friend.

‘Pray, Lady Charity…’ began Holmes.

‘Chastity, Mr. Holmes, Chastity,’ said the woman sternly.

‘Pray, Lady Chastity,’ tried Holmes again, ‘be so kind as to state the precise nature of your business. Please to leave out all but the most salient facts.’

‘I am here to bring a ‘Missing Persons’ case to your attention, Mr. Holmes.’

‘The person’s name?’ inquired Holmes in his most bored voice. Christ, the man was such a rude prick at times, best friend or no, thought Dr. Watson crossly.

‘Jeremy Wintergreen,’ said the woman. ‘He’s been missing now in Transylvania for some time…’

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Vampirology. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

The sequel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS LATER,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

Some Basics of Magic and Witchcraft #research #magic #FuryFallsInn #amwriting #amreading #American #histfic #historical #fantasy #fiction #books — Betty Bolte’s Musings

I was talking with a friend and fellow author the other day about the process of writing a series. Obviously the biggest difference between writing a single book and a series of connected stories is that there needs to be an overarching story for the entire series. In the case of the Fury Falls Inn […]

Some Basics of Magic and Witchcraft #research #magic #FuryFallsInn #amwriting #amreading #American #histfic #historical #fantasy #fiction #books — Betty Bolte’s Musings

LITTLE BOOK OF HORROR: DRACULA. (2005) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

LITTLE BOOK OF HORROR: DRACULA. (0CTOBER 2005) PUBLISHED BY IDW PUBLISHING.

WRITTEN BY STEVE NILES. PAINTED ART BY RICHARD SALA.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

I recently discovered this little illustrated gem of a book on my son’s bookshelf, and remembered then having bought it for him when he was younger in an attempt to encourage him to read independently.

Now I’ve had a proper read of it, I’m making an executive decision and totally commandeering it for myself. It’s far too good to waste on the young, lol, and can only properly be appreciated by persons of mature(ish!) age such as myself.

It tells what I call the real Dracula story, as in the one Bram Stoker wrote, with little or no variations, which I like. I like the pure unadulterated story myself, and I tend to get heart attacks when people mess with it, such as in the 2020 New Year BBC television Dracula. Although I could forgive a hunky Dracula such as Claes Bang anything, especially if he’s going to do those delicious nudie scenes…

Anyway, the book starts, as it should, with real estate clerk John Harker making what is possibly the longest fictional journey ever to set the seal on a property deal. He travels to darkest Transylvania in Romania to meet with the mysterious and rich Count Dracula, who wishes to purchase a house near to where John lives in jolly old England.

I think it’s safe to say that the artist who did the fabulous illustrations in the book was a fan of the 1931 UNIVERSAL film version of Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi. He’s created a village very similar to the UNIVERSAL one, which I love because I adore those old movies.

It’s got winding streets, worried villagers clad in sort of Tyrolean dress like they are in the old fillums, and there’s even a barefoot busty blonde maiden crossing the street with her basket of produce who wouldn’t be out of place in a Hammer film.

Hammer Films, of course, had their Dracula-slash-vampire canon which we horror fans will know intimately by now. Christopher Lee was their Count in seven movies made between 1958 and 1972, but they made several other excellent vampire films as well, such as BRIDES OF DRACULA, KISS OF THE VAMPIRE and VAMPIRE CIRCUS.

Anyway, above the village on its very own mountain towers Castle Dracula, and when the villagers in the local inn find out that John actually intends travelling up there to meet the Count, they all have collective heart attacks. The portly, pint-pulling innkeeper and the two busty Hammer-esque barmaids are particularly well drawn in the pub scene.

John, as we know, has come all this way to do a job, so he supposes he’d better do it, and he makes his way up to the infamous Borgo Pass- try getting a taxi up there at night and you’ll see what I mean!- where a mysterious coachman with four super-spooky skeletal horses picks him up and takes him to where he needs to go… Castle Dracula…

The Count is waiting. His ramshackle castle looks just like Bela Lugosi’s in the 1931 film and is beyond cool. A crumbling staircase, bats, ancient candelabra, high windows; it’s everything you could wish for in a Dracula’s Castle-type situation. Except maybe for an armadillo or two…!

John has his meal and pricks his finger, making it bleed. Dracula’s strange reaction, and the presence in the castle of the three busty, sexy, negligee-clad corpse brides of Dracula complete with fangs and a raging blood-lust combine to convince poor John that maybe the villagers were right all along. Maybe Dracula is an evil, blood-sucking vampire and he should never have come up here…

By the time John realises this, of course, it’s too late. He’s a prisoner in Castle Dracula and the Count himself is hastening to England, and John’s hot fiancée, Mina. John has only the sex-crazed wives to keep him company, although, as this is a child’s book, the sex is only implied, lol.

Do you know the rest of the story? Dracula, installed in Carfax Abbey; Mina losing more and more of her strength- and blood- every night thanks to his nocturnal visits; the doctors baffled, unable to help her; then the calling in of the eccentric Doctor Van Helsing to accurately diagnose the situation and suggest a solution.

The drawings of the Count’s Carfax Abbey cellar, complete with coffins and his deranged (only deranged BECAUSE of Dracula), bug-eating assistant, Renfield, are so bloody good that they make you feel you’re really there.

Will John be in time to save Mina, and also for the inevitable showdown between Van Helsing and the evil, power-crazed Count Dracula, who wants to suck the blood of everyone in England?

How would that work, anyway? Would it be like waiting for a vaccine, with portals and cohorts and online registration and all that? For something bad, they’d probably (ironically) get it organised super-quick, lol.

None of this old I’ve been waiting six whole weeks to get my blood-sucking and four of my neighbours, who are all younger than me with no underlying health conditions, have gotten theirs first and I’m spitting with rage bullshit. Can’t you just see it?

Wouldn’t that be funny, though? A frazzled Dracula would be on the news and all the talk shows, saying: I am doing my best to get around to everybody as quickly as I can, but I am only one man, for the love of God…! Until the government allocate sufficient numbers of flies and bugs for me to entice my helpers with, a good many more people will continue to walk around well and healthy and there will be nothing I can do about it…! Lol, lol, lollity lol.

Anyway, this is the best children’s book on the subject of Dracula I’ve ever come across. The story is simply and accurately told, with none of that nonsense of changing up the details and putting Dracula into the future and seeing how he copes with washing-machines and fridges and stuff.

The illustrations are superb, and evoke both the UNIVERSAL and Hammer-era films, which is amazing for fans of the old films like myself. Pick it up and have a read if you ever come across it; it captures the spirit and essence of the Bram Stoker book perfectly.

    AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Vampirology. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

The sequel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS LATER,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

PEEPING TOM. (1960) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

PEEPING TOM. (1960) DIRECTED AND PRODUCED BY MICHAEL POWELL. WRITTEN BY LEO MARKS.

STARRING CARL BOEHM, ANNA MASSEY, MOIRA SHEARER, MAXINE AUDLEY, MICHAEL POWELL, COLUMBA POWELL AND MILES MALLESON.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

(Severe Warning: Written early on in my reviewing days and chock-a-block with spoilers!!! It’s virtually all spoilers, so read on at your peril and don’t come complaining to me, lol.)

Mark Lewis is a very, very naughty boy. Do you know what he does? Can you guess? You’ll never guess, so I suppose I’ll have to tell you, just this once. He murders women, but that’s not all.

He also likes to film their final moments, and the terror on their faces as he stabs them in the throat with a nasty spike that sticks out of his camera… That’s a new one, isn’t it? I bet you haven’t heard that one before.

He’s not just committing these atrocious deeds willy-nilly, however. Certainly not. He had an exceptionally messed-up childhood. Yes, yes, I know we all did, but Mark’s was more messed-up than most.

His father, a writer of dreary scientific tomes, filmed Mark constantly throughout his formative years. What’s wrong with that, you say? Nothing wrong with keeping a record of your son’s childhood. Is there…?

No, no. You don’t understand. Scientist Professor Lewis filmed his son’s reactions to the most sinister and inappropriate situations, like his mother’s death and subsequent burial, and having his father deposit a lizard in his bed without warning. Now do you see…?

Professor Lewis was one sick dude- you can take that to the bank- and he’s pretty much wholly responsible for his son Mark’s turning out the same way.

Mark has become a ‘scoptophiliac,’ a voyeur, a Peeping Tom, someone who gets pleasure out of watching someone else who is unaware that they are being watched.

The technical, textbook definition of a Peeping Tom is ‘a person who derives sexual pleasure from secretly watching people undressing or engaging in sexual activity.’

However, Mark Lewis in this film just seems to like filming people in general, and their reactions to things in particular, just like his own father did. Although Mark still suffers from a paraphilia, or sexual disorder, ie, voyeurism, we are not aware that he is thinking about sex the whole time he’s filming people. He is getting excited, however, so maybe that’s the same thing.

Anyway, he’s never seen without his camera. He’s made a career out of his passion. He works as a focus-puller for a film studio, and on the side he shoots so-called ‘glamour’ pics for a seedy Soho newsagent. Nudes, and so on.

The scene where a ‘respectable’ middle-aged, obviously married man (Hammer’s Miles Malleson) comes into the newsagent asking to see the shopkeeper’s ‘views’ and the shopkeeper produces a book of nudie photos from under the counter for the man to choose from is hilarious. Hilarious in the sense that that was how they did porn in the Fifties…! Nowadays porn is freely available at the touch of a button. Back then, you had to take what you could get.  

Mark murders a hooker, a two-bit stand-in actress/dancer from the studio where he works and a stunning blonde nude model he was meant to be photographing. He films all three of their agonised deaths and watches the films back afterwards in his flat.

I think it’s safe to say that he masturbates while watching them and they’re how he attains his climax. I’d even venture to say that, without the stimulus of the voyeurism which is his particular paraphilia or sexual disorder, he might find it difficult or even impossible to ejaculate. I’m guessing, therefore, that, in such a situation, he’d have to fantasise about the voyeurism or a voyeuristic situation in order to achieve a successful conclusion, as it were.  

He even attempts to murder the blind mother of his sort-of girlfriend, Helen, but he can’t quite go through with it. His sort-of girlfriend, Helen, played by the fantastically watchable Anna Massey (Alfred Hitchcock’s FRENZY, 1972, the story of another paraphiliac serial murderer!) lives in the flat underneath Mark’s one with her mother, in the house bequeathed to Mark by his father.

Helen, a writer of children’s stories, seems to have fallen pretty heavily for Mark’s extreme shyness and his blonde good looks. Mark’s quite taken with her too, to the point where he chooses to kill himself rather than Helen when she works out that he’s a psycho-killer extraordinaire and the local constabulary are banging his door down over the death of the actress, whose body he stuffed in a trunk in the studio where he works.

The film was savaged by British critics when it first came out for its shocking content (very different from what they’d come to expect from Michael Powell of A MATTER OR LIFE AND DEATH fame), but today it’s seen as something of a classic. Rightfully so, in my humble opinion.

It’s grim and it’s grisly and it won’t exactly cheer you up when you’re feeling down- well, not unless you’re seriously warped in the mind, lol- but if you’re looking to watch a film that’s intelligent, frightening and almost poetic in its execution, then watch this one. More Hitchcock than Hitchcock himself, it’s a goodie and a stand-out in its genre. Enjoy…

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Vampirology. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

The sequel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS LATER,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

WHEN A STRANGER CALLS. (1979) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

WHEN A STRANGER CALLS. (1979) DIRECTED BY FRED WALTON. STARRING CHARLES DURNING, CAROL KANE, COLLEEN DEWHURST, RUTANYA ALDA, CARMEN ARGENZIANO AND TONY BECKLEY.

REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©

‘The calls are coming from inside the house…’

The first twenty minutes or so of this film make for pure, perfect cinematic horror. Pretty American babysitter Jill Johnson has no more on her mind when she goes to babysit for a doctor and his wife than whether or not her crush, some guy named Bobby, will give her a tinkle on the old dog and bone. That’s cockney rhyming slang for phone, me old china plate. That’s slang for mate, by the way. Oh, never mind. Let’s get to the film.

Jill does get a call while she’s babysitting, as it happens. In fact, she gets several, but none of them are from Bobby. They’re from a sick and twisted psychopathic killer who phones every few minutes to ask Jill:

‘Have you checked the children…?’

Jill is such a bad babysitter, however, that not once in the whole time she’s there has she so much as peeped in on the two little cherubs. They could’ve gone off clubbing for all she knows. I wouldn’t hire her to watch my precious rugrats, that’s for sure.

Any-hoo, while Jill has been creeping nervously around the darkened house- the best darned darkened house I’ve ever seen on film, by the way- the killer has been doing away with the doctor’s two little sproglets in a particularly gruesome way which we don’t need to go into here.

Jill is saved by a cop named John Clifford and the killer, Curt Duncan, who’s a dead ringer for Hugh Cornwell from The Stranglers, is incarcerated in a mental asylum. I wonder if Hugh Cornwell has seen this film and, if so, what he thinks about being a doppelganger for a murderer in a ‘Seventies horror film…! Anyway, that’s the end of that chapter. Or is it…?

Well, no, it’s not, because we’re only twenty minutes into the film at that point. It’s these opening twenty minutes that have garnered this superb film its cult following, by the way. Also, these same twenty minutes are considered by many horror fans to contain some of the scariest, most nerve-wracking scenes ever to be committed to celluloid. I absolutely agree. There’s no ghost, but then there doesn’t need to be.

What could be more frightening than the thought that there’s someone in your house, an alien being, someone who’s not supposed to be there? Even if you’re only the babysitter and it’s not your own house, that doesn’t make the idea any less chilling. If anything, maybe it’s even more scary to have this happen to you in a strange gaff.

Some years later, the evil Duncan escapes from the mental asylum in which he’d been incarcerated after his grisly deeds. The lovely cuddly John Clifford, now retired from the police force and working as a private detective, is hired to recapture him by the doctor whose kids were killed by Duncan.

John Clifford, by the way, is played by Charles Durning who a few short years later fell heavily for Dustin Hoffman dressed as a middle-aged feminist in the comedy movie TOOTSIE. Boy, was he red-faced when he found out what that feisty little ‘popsy’ was packing in her pantyhose…!

We get to follow Duncan around for a bit then as he kips in hostels for homeless men and tries to pick up embittered, lonely, middle-aged women in bars. Well, one middle-aged woman in particular, anyway.

I love the scenes in which he’s following the afore-mentioned lonely single woman home through deserted streets and tunnels and into her crappy apartment in the dead of night. They’re just so seedy. This part of the film is really quite sleazy and even sad. There are a lot of lonely, dysfunctional people out there, and that’s one of the saddest facts of life there are.

We catch up with Jill the babysitter then who, in the seven years since the murder of the children in her care, has gotten married and acquired two sproglets of her own and also quite a decent life for herself. Nice posh house, charity work and prospects of advancement in her hubby’s job. Huh. Well, let’s just hope she takes better care of her own kids than she did of the doctor’s. Snigger.

Anyway, all-grown-up Jill and her husband Steven go out to dinner in a fancy restaurant to celebrate Steven’s getting a raise at work. I got the most terrible feeling of déja vu when they headed off in their fancy duds leaving the teenaged babysitter in charge of their napping nippers…

You guessed it. Duncan’s tracked Jill down through a newspaper cutting and so poor hysterical Jill gets a call at the posh restaurant from a male caller who says: ‘Have you checked the children…?‘ Well, as you can imagine, the s**t really hits the fan then.

I won’t tell you the ending so as not to spoil it for you, but I will say that there are plenty of shocks and tension along the way and lots of lovely shots of the interior of Jill’s darkened house.

This director does bloody brilliant shots of darkened houses at night. I honestly think that they’re among the best I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen… well, a few, anyway. However, I did keep wanting to scream at the screen: ‘Why don’t you turn on some feckin’ lights, you brainless bimbo…?’

I enjoyed every second of this horror film, especially the legendary first twenty minutes. It was a great ninety-minute romp through some of the best horror movie tropes ever. The babysitter being scared half to death by the anonymous caller. The calls are coming from inside the house.

The retired cop who could never quite get that one horrible murder- and murderer- out of his mind and who won’t retire easily until he’s settled old scores and avenged the innocent. You should watch it. Alone. In the dark. While babysitting. Oh, hang on, listen, is that the phone…? Can you get that? I’ve just done my nails…

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Vampirology. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

The sequel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS LATER,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

ROSEMARY’S BABY. (1968) REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS.


ROSEMARY’S BABY. (1968) BASED ON THE NOVEL BY IRA LEVIN.
DIRECTED BY ROMAN POLANSKI.
STARRING MIA FARROW, JOHN CASSEVETES, RUTH GORDON, SIDNEY BLACKMER, MAURICE EVANS, RALPH BELLAMY AND CHARLES GRODIN.
REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
 
This brilliant and iconic horror film reaches out and grabs you by the throat from the get-go. The first thing I noticed about it is the following. The music in THE SIMPSONS when Homer exercises poor judgement and takes the kids to a horror flick that’s totally unsuitable for young ‘uns is actually a clever homage to the ‘la-la-la-la’ music at the start of ROSEMARY’S BABY. I love finding out stuff like that!

When a terrified Bart and Lisa, traumatised beyond belief from being made to watch THE RE-DEADENING, hear the ‘la-la-la-la’ music at the dinner table and howl in fear, Homer casually remarks: ‘Oh yeah, I bought the soundtrack…!’ Good old Homer. Marge, on hearing where Homer’s taken the kids, actually remarks: ‘Homer, that’s a rare lapse in judgement for you!’ or words to that effect. Yes, rare indeed…

Anyway, ROSEMARY’S BABY tells the story of a young couple, Guy and Rosemary Woodhouse, who in 1965 move into one of those gorgeous, huge old New York apartment buildings that are always being featured in films.

SINGLE WHITE FEMALE has one of ’em. You know the kind I mean. They’ve got lifts and doormen and laundry rooms down in the big scary basement and tons and tons of storage space and I’ve always wanted to live in one except I think I’d be too scared.

The building’s not entirely dissimilar to the infamous Cecil Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, which recently featured in a Netflix series entitled: CRIME SCENE: THE VANISHING AT THE CECIL HOTEL. The specific ‘vanishing’ to which it refers is that of Canadian student Elisa Lam (1991-2013), who booked into the Cecil Hotel, only a stone’s throw from Skid Row, in January 2013.

Sadly, she went missing while staying there and her body was eventually found in a water tank on the roof of the building. Her death was found to be accidental. Huge Internet interest was aroused by the disappearance and, particularly, by some hotel footage of Elisa in a hotel elevator on the last day she was ever seen alive, in which she is seen to be behaving strangely.

Anyway, Guy and Rosemary’s building is called the Bramford and, according to their pal Hutch, its history is sinister and inextricably bound up with the occult. This doesn’t deter the young marrieds, though.

Rosemary in particular loves all the closet space and, let’s face it, as a dutiful little ‘Sixties housewife, she has plenty of time to line them all with nice stripy shelf paper while hubby Guy is out trying to earn a crust as an actor.

The most interesting thing about the Bramford is the Woodhouse’s new neighbours, a hugely eccentric old couple called the Castevets. Ruth Gordon won an Oscar for her portrayal of Minnie Castevet, the garishly-dressed, extremely nosy and pushy auld one who insinuates herself into Rosemary’s business right from the off. Rosemary, a total doormat, is much too weak and wimpy to tell the bossy old biddy to bog off.

After initial reluctance, Guy becomes chummy with the couple and presumably talks to them in private about how hard he’s finding it to make it as an actor. Then one day, he suddenly tells Rosemary he’s willing to try for the baby she’s always wanted.

Coincidence much? He’s even worked out on a chart when the optimum times for conception are, if you can believe that. Is any man alive that keen to knock up the missus…? Well, maybe some guys are, haha.

Dozey Rosie doesn’t suspect a thing. Not even when one night she gets ‘tipsy’ (with Guy’s encouragement) and has a horribly life-like ‘dream’ in which she is raped by a demonic figure in the presence of Guy and the Castevets and a load of their elderly pals from the Bramford. ‘Dream,’ my Aunt Fanny. As if the whole thing wasn’t arranged by Guy and the Castevets together. For shame…!

Rosemary wakes up the next day covered in claw marks and scrapes and scratches. Guy tries to make out like he had sex with her while she was out for the count so as not to miss out on conception time. He says it was nice, in a necrophiliac kind of way…! What a nice guy. We have a name for that kind of thing nowadays, boyo.

Anyway, as you’ve undoubtedly guessed, Rosemary ends up preggers by Satan after that one night, because apparently His Infernal Majesty always hits the mark on the first time. No faffing about for the Dark Lord. No bullshitting with Beelzebub. No half-assed endeavours for Lucifer. He uses his whole ass when he undertakes something. Oh, and Guy is suddenly on his way to becoming a famous actor. Coincidence, my butt. 

What happens to Rosemary after her unwitting conception of Old Nick’s kid has the quality of a nightmare for the boyishly-coiffed young mum-to-be. Does she get through it unscathed? Does Satan Junior? Does Guy get any kind of come-uppance?

Can the Devil be prevailed upon to pay child support and take his infant to MacDonald’s and a movie at the weekend like every other normal deadbeat dad? And above all, can anything be done about Rosemary’s hair? ‘Tis shocking bad. These and other questions can (mostly) be answered by watching the film.

The book by Ira Levin on which the film is based is one of the few books that I read right through without stopping. JAWS by Peter Benchley was another one, William Peter Blatty’s THE EXORCIST another. It’s in pretty good company, as you can see.

ROSEMARY’S BABY, incidentally, is one of the films that made it on to the American National Film Registry, which means that the Library Of Congress deemed it ‘culturally, historically or aesthetically significant,’ which is a pretty big honour for any film that makes the cut.

The acting is sublime, the scripting tight and the ending fantastic. The only thing that puzzles me is the bit about Satan’s apparently being such a rough and inconsiderate lover that he leaves his consort covered in savage claw marks.

That’s not the Satan I know. Why, the time he and I… Ooops. I’ve said too much. Never mind. Forget that I said that. We’ll end on a pun based on the movie. ‘Anyone for tannis…?’ Yes, I said tannis, haha. Watch the film. You’ll find out.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.

Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Vampirology. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:

http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO

Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:

The sequel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS LATER,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books: