Horror/Occult

//Horror/Occult
­
  • Book I of The Vampire Chronicles. In a  darkened room a young man tells the macabre  story of his life. It is Louis' story, told in his own words, of his journey through mortal and immortal life. Louis recounts how he became a vampire at the hands of the radiant and sinister Lestat and how he became indoctrinated, unwillingly, into the way of the vampire,  gifted with eternal life and cursed with the craving for human blood. DVD: Region 4; preloved.
  • Robert Neville is the last living man on Earth...but he is not alone. Every other man, woman, and child on Earth has become a vampire, and they are all hungry for Neville's blood. By day, he is the hunter, stalking the sleeping undead through the abandoned ruins of civilization, hoping to find other survivors. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for dawn. How long can one man survive in a world of vampires? Cover art by Jim Thiesen (variant) DVD: Will Smith; Alice Braga: preloved; very good condition region 4
  • Rachael's violent ex-husband's body, hideously mangled in a freak accident and pronounced dead, has disappeared from the city morgue. Now something - or someone - is watching her. Calling her. Stalking her. And no-one will believe her when she says she knows who it is.  His walking corpse, a grotesque mockery of life. His brilliant, warped mind, once again alive and seething with jealous rage, seeking an unspeakable revenge beyond her worst nightmare. There is nowhere left to run.  He has his own key....
  • Frank Pollard awakens in an alley knowing nothing but his name - and that he is in great danger.  Over the next few days he develops a fear of going to sleep because he awakens with blood on his hands and bizarre and terrifying objects in his pockets.  Distraught and despairing, he begs husband and wife detective team, Bobby and Julie Dakota, to get to the bottom of the amnesiac fugues but they are drawn into ever-darkening realms where they encounter the nightmare, hate-filled figure that's stalking Frank. Their lives are threatened, as is that of Julie's gentle, Down's Syndrome brother Thomas. To Thomas, death is the bad place from which there is no return, but as each of them ultimately learns there are equally bad places in the world of the living, places so steeped in evil that death seems almost to be a relief...Cover art by Graham Potts.

  • One dark and rainy night, Sir James Monmouth returns to London after years spent travelling alone. Intent on uncovering the secrets of his childhood hero, the mysterious Conrad Vane, he begins to investigate Vane’s life, but he finds himself warned off at every turn. Before long he realises he is being followed. A pale, thin boy is haunting his every step but every time he tries to confront the boy he disappears. And what of the chilling scream and desperate sobbing only he can hear? His quest leads him eventually to the old lady of Kittiscar Hall, where he discovers something far more terrible at work than he could ever have imagined. From the author of  The Woman in Black and Mrs. De Winter (sequel to Rebecca)
  • Book IV in The Vampire Chronicles. Vampire hero, rock star and seducer of millions, Lestat is an immortal extraordinaire.  But he yearns to be reborn as a mortal.  Tormented, he wanders aimlessly across the world until he meets the one being who can grant him his wish - the Body Thief, more sinister and evil than any demon.  But when Lestat surrenders his vampire body he discovers he forgot so long ago - the awkwardness and anguish of being human.
  • Derry, Maine is an ordinary town; familiar, well-ordered for the most part, a good place to live.  But seven children - who call themselves the Losers - can see and feel what makes Derry so horribly different. In the storm drains, in the sewers, IT lurks...the IT that takes the shape of every nightmare, each one's deepest dread. Sometimes IT appears as an evil clown, Pennywise, and sometimes IT reaches up, seizing, tearing, killing...Time passes, the Losers grow up, move away and forget...Until they are called back, to confront IT once more, as IT stirs and coils in the sullen depths of their memories, emerging to make their past nightmares a horrible, present reality...DVD (1990):Tim Curry;Richard Thomas; Annette O'Toole: preloved; very good condition; region 4
  • Chyna Shepherd, twenty-six,  had a dark childhood which taught her to fear strange houses, and she cannot sleep on this first night in the home of her college friend Laura. A muffled scream from another room alarms her. A homicidal sociopath, Edgler Vess, is intent on killing everyone in the house. Life has taught Chyna to be a survivor but this will be her greatest test. A series of strange developments find her in Vess's motorhome - a dungeon and morgue on wheels - without him being aware of her presence. Vess lives only to satisfy his every appetite, to seek ever more outrageous experience, to immerse himself in sensation - to live with intensity. At first Chyna's only goal is to get out alive. But when she learns the identity of Vess's next victim and realises that only she can save that precious life, she must face the fact that a moral life requires acceptance of unwanted responsibilities. She must find courage and take risks beyond any she imagined she could endure.
  • The Reverend David James discovers that a coven of witches have been using his church for worshipping Satan and calling up the dead.  Meanwhile, alone in his mansion, Harry Royce is employing electronic devices to reach the outer limits of the universe.  But when the invasion began it was not known whether the invaders were aliens from a contaminated star, or lost souls erupting out of Limbo.  Two things are clear:  It cannot be stopped and once it ends, there will be no one sane left on earth. Cover art by Jack Faragasso.
  • From the dank crypt of his foreboding castle in the Transylvanian forests to the bustling foggy streets of London, Count Dracula comes to claim his victims to feed the lustful hunger that has damned him  to a life of lonely immortality and to bind him to an innocent young woman - the miraculous double image of the love that he lost four centuries earlier. Contains colour photos from the film starring Gary Oldman, Winona Ryder, Anthony Hopkins and Keanu Reeves.

  • Book III of The Omen. His coming was foretold in a prophecy of ultimate evil from beyond the dawn of time. A prophecy which spelled destruction for those who ignored the warning until it was too late, and which is about to be fulfilled...From a crumbling monastery in the depths of Northern Italy, Father DeCarlo has watched the relentless progress of the Anti-Christ. Now he knows the world is on the edge of a nightmare that it will not survive. Around the globe, drought, famine and flood strike down helpless millions. There is trouble everywhere. Damien Thorn, the handsome, thirty-two year old head of one of the world's most powerful corporations... and certain to be president of the United States by the time he is forty. Damien, believed to be the son of Satan, reaching out to claim the Earth for the forces of darkness... Now is the time of prophecy, and Mankind's only hope lies with twelve men and one woman who must fight a desperate battle that will carry them across the very frontiers of darkness in the final showdown between good and evil. From the screenplay by Andrew Birkin and based on characters created by David Seltzer.
  • Cold Hill House has been demolished to make way for a new housing estate. Luxury-living at its best with high specification gadgets all thrown in. The violent memories of Cold Hill House have gone up in flames, and a new era has begun. Although much of Cold Hill is still a construction site, the first two families move in. For Jason and Emily. this is their forever home, and for Claudette and Maurice, it's the perfect place to live out their retirement. It looks to be the ideal place, despite the current rumble of cement mixers and diggers. But looks are deceptive, and before long both couples feel that they are not alone in their new homes...because no-one ever really left Cold Hill House...
  • A huge helping of chillers including 1408 - a motel room where people have the unaccountable urge to commit suicide and where a young sceptical reporter finds out that all he's heard - and more - is true; The Road Virus Heads North - A painting done by a disturbed and lately deceased man comes alive in a very horrendous fashion; Lunch at the Gotham Cafe - a recently separated couple meet with a lawyer to end their marriage, but do not bargain on the head waiter's behaviour.  These and eleven other stories that no other writer would ever dream of.  DVD: preloved; region 4
  • Who is Joanna Rand? Alex Hunter hasn't come to Japan to fall in love. But Joanna Reed is the most beautiful, exciting woman he's ever met. Yet, Joanna is not who she thinks she is. Ten years earlier and halfway across the world, a brutally bizarre experiment recreated her mind; a violation so hideous that her dreams are filled with terror and her memories are a lie. If they are ever to be free, Alex and Joanna have to re-open the door into the nightmare past - they have to find the key to midnight. This is the fist British Commonwealth publication of this book under the author's real name. It was originally published under the pseudonym Leigh Nichols. Cover art  by Graham Potts.
  • The shadow of the past was always with him, but he never knew what it was, or when it would strike next. Sent to a small coastal town to investigate drug smuggling, Kelso stumbles on a dangerous organization, and suddenly more than just his life is at stake—it's his past, his future, and his sanity. Through torture and drugs he discovers the terrifying secret of the Jonah...and learns, in the most horrifying way, that it can destroy him as well as others.
  • The creator of Lincoln Rhyme offers a selection of  sixteen very twisted tales: Without Jonathon; The Weekender; For Services Rendered;  Beautiful; The Fall Guy; Eye To Eye; Triangle; All The World's A Stage; Gone Fishing; Nocturne; Lesser-Included Offence; The Blank Card; The Christmas Present; Together; The Widow of Pine Creek; The Kneeling Soldier. A great sampler of Deaver's writing.
  • A small boy stands by a grave, his eyes wide, his face ashen...A man looks lovingly at a body, the eyes twitching, barely alive...a senior investigator stalks his prey:  a genius, a monster, a bloodsucker... The dying don't live to tell the tale... John Becker left the FBI because he was too good at his job. He could think like a killer. And he enjoyed the thrill of the hunt...too much. Roger Dyce was the serial killer whose twisted crimes would lure Becker back to his old profession. But this time, Becker is closer to his prey than ever before...Close enough to kill.
  • Something is happening to the children of Eastbury. Something that causes healthy babies to turn cold in their cribs - and strikes at the heart of every parent's darkest fears. Something is taking the children one by one. An entire town waits on the edge of panic.  There must be a reason for the terror...They all know it... But no-one ever suspected...
  • It was every mother's worst nightmare.  Her husband had abandoned her for a sinister, sensuous younger woman and the weird nomadic group she led - and had taken their two children with him. But now Patsy Havelin had snatched Peter and Judith back again and was bringing them home to safety. Or so she thought. As she left the old dark house with the with-woman's snarled curses following her, the real nightmare was just beginning. She drove into the night and the road sifted...changed...It was the road to Hell.  Terrorised by doom-visions, hounded by the witch and the monsters she controlled, Patsy drove deeper into the circles of Hell on the road that seemed to have no end.  The only signs of life were wild, savage life, ready to feed on anything that came by.  She was alone, frantic and lost, then she saw the stranger by his fire at the roadside...Cover art by Nicholas Forder.
  • Good Evening... The Master of Spine-Chills presents another selection:  The Mugging,  Edward L. Perry; Finger! Finger! Margaret Ronan; A Cry From the Penthouse, Henry Slesar; The People Next Door, Pauline C. Smith; D-Day, Robert Trout; The Man Who Liked Dickens, Evelyn Waugh; and a full length novel...The Iron Gates, Margaret Millar.
  • Griffin, a brilliant chemistry student, discovers how to make himself invisible.  The consequences are terrifying and his desperate attempts to make contact with his fellow human beings lead to mounting scenes of violence and horror as his insanity grows.  In the end he can only survive by terrorising everyone who he does manage to come into contact with.  Wells, known more for his futuristic visions, took an outing into horror with this book. Cover art by Tim Jacobus.

  • The truly gruesome tales included in this volume: Manuscript Found in a Bottle; Ligeia; The Man That Was Used Up; The Fall of the House of Usher; William Wilson; The Man of the Crowd; The Murders in the Rue Morgue; A Descent into the Maelstrom; Eleanora; The Oval Portrait;The Masque of the Red Death; The Pit and Pendulum; The Tell-Tale Heart; The Gold-bug; The Black Cat; The Purloined Letter; The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar; The Cask of Amontillado; Hop-Frog. Also included are poems and essays not often included in other Poe anthologies. Cover art: detail from Oiseau by Odilon Redon.
  • Yesterday, Snowfield - California - was a charming little town basking in the golden afternoon sun. Today, it is a place of nightmare. An ancient, awesome force has spirited away almost all the town's population and left the bodies of those remaining bizarrely disfigured. At first they thought it was the work of a maniac. Or terrorists. Or toxic contamination. Or a bizarre new disease. Is there hope for the few still left alive? For the truth is worse than anything that could be imagined...  Cover art by Graham Potts.
  • Professor Mark Lansen witnesses the plunge of a vagrant from a twelve storey building.  He is assured that the man died instantly yet his dying words were: "Root it out, Dr. Lansen". Father Briggs is haunted nightly: Bernie and Fran Pellagrini have been dead for months but still they come to the man who heard their confessions.  He kills himself, making sure his remains are so completely destroyed there will be nothing left to work with.  Father Briggs is safe - for now.  Tressa Downey liked Father Briggs - he helped her to piece her life back together after the loss of her child, her marriage, her career and subsequent drug addiction.  Since his death she's lived in a fog and after reading his journal, she feels she will never sleep again.  Change has come to the town of Oldenburg.  Everyone believes it's only just begun.  But in reality, it started long ago...Cover art by  Julian Lee.
  • What was the secret her little girl dared not even whisper? Six years before, Laura McCaffrey's three year old daughter had been kidnapped by Laura's estranged husband and had seemingly vanished from the face of the earth. Now Melanie had been found, wandering the Los Angeles streets with blank eyes and a secret in her soul she could not or would not reveal.  Dylan had been found too - or at least, his mangled remains had been found.  Melanie was home again, safe in her mother's arms.  But would Melanie ever be safe again - as the floodgates of horror opened and the bloody torrent came pouring through?

  • Every small town has a place like the mound. Lovers go there to woo, families picnic on it summer, children sled in winter. For the community of Oscala, New York, the mound has never been dangerous - until now. Something beyond cunning or imagining, something undeniably evil is hiding beneath the mound. The terror comes from out of time, space and the depths of the human  mind with its alien needs and desires. It spreads its roots secretively, changing and reshaping reality. It intends to sweep aside all that the good townsfolk love and cherish: their past, their hopes, the promise of their souls. How can ordinary people protect themselves from this evil? Brian Kelly, a physicist still grieving for the hideous death of his first wife and child, suspects that the shell of reality has been torn to allow this monstrosity in. His pregnant second wife, Loi, is ready to dare anything to protect her unborn son. The tough yet vulnerable Ellen Maas, a reporter, must commit to destroying the beast - or die. Bob West, a cop, will turn to the law of the jungle if it will save his family. They must band together to defeat the evil beneath the mound. Cover art by  Melvyn Grant.
  • When the storm rages and the avalanche cuts off power and phone lines, no one in the chalet is particularly bothered. There are kerosene lamps, a well-stocked bar and food supplies more than adequate to last them till the road to Nidenhaut can be opened up. They’re on holiday after all, and once the weather clears they can carry on skiing. They do not know, then, that deep within the Swiss Alps, something alien has stirred: an invasion so sly it can only be detected by principled reasoning...The Possessors had a long memory… For aeons, which were now uncountable, their life had been bound up with the evanescent lives of the Possessed. Without them, they could not act or think, but through them they were the masters of this cold world...