Spectres from the past
My thanks to Nick Setchfield for nostalgic Total Recall article on the back page of SFX 252.
As an eight- year- old member of my junior school’s Puffin Club, I was sent my 45p copy of Monsters Of The Movies, alongside Milliganimals and You’re A Good Sport Charlie Brown, and was terrified by the dot- eyed leering zombie at the end of the book. So much so that I used that self- same grisly black- and- white shot as the opening image of the Zombies In Games seminar I chaired at Loncon3 in August. It still gives me shivers all these years on.
Much as I enjoyed reading about Dr Moreau, Barnabas Collins and The Manster, I eventually threw the book out because I was scared of it falling open on the zombie page. And then spent years telling everyone about this terrifying long- lost tome.
Pity I didn’t hang onto it – there’s a copy on Amazon going for £ 3,878.06. Thanks again for exorcising my childhood trauma!
Helena Nash, email Will today’s youngsters, none of whom will have to endure grainy halfprinted monster literature or recurring nightmares from second- generation VHS dubs of Videodrome, ever be haunted by the same lasting memories? Perhaps not to the tune of nearly four grand.