Oooo, veddy scary, kids!

The Halloween scanning blitz continues with a sequel to this post, where, admittedly, I probably used up most of my best stuff. Life only gives you so many skeletons with banjos, y'know. But, there's a few gems of ill-advised dreck here that will hopefully cause you to make the wee-wee of amusement, even though some of these are so lame I can't even figure out a way to make fun of 'em.

This first book I don't actually have, but a friend tipped me off to its existence. When I told him I'd done a blog post on stupid horror book covers, he said "Did you get Keeper of the Children in there?" It was the first thing that came to his mind, and when I looked it up I could see why...



A headless teddy bear (with the head making a mean face, hanging its tongue out, and missing an eye) is chopping a rat in half with a hatchet. Exactly the kind of thing that makes me hate "theme night" at the local country buffet.

Looking at this makes me have to re-think the whole concept of marketing. Usually when you're inspired to buy a book by a picture on its cover, you're thinking, "I hope this scene appears in the book!" But in this case, I just don't know... do you really want to read a novel in which a headless teddy bear takes a hatchet to a rat? Wouldn't that make the novel, I dunno, really really really goddamn fucking stupid? Kinda? I can picture someone avidly turning pages, going "Any page now, Teddy Axpin's gonna snuff Mr. Squeakums! That's gone be some scary shit, boyyyyy!" I just don't know what audience they're chasing with that one. Do people read horror novels while they're on shrooms?

And believe it or not, we'll see Mr. Bear's cousin in a while...

But now... bukkake gets out of hand!



I don't know exactly what's going on there, but it looks kinda like someone drowning in an ocean of semen. Kingdom Cum! I thought maybe it was just snow, but look at it - it looks slimy. And it's kind splashing back in jizzy droplets off that one hand there. Actually, this may be an effective book cover after all, because being drowned in spunk would be a pretty horrifying fate.

Or a Thursday for Jenna Jameson.

(I was gonna double-down on the hatefulness and use Kim Kardashian for that terrible joke, but I changed my mind... but, I do have to wonder how Kim feels about her Wikipedia page's claim that "Kim has launched multiple fragrances." Yeah, well, so have I, and you don't see me botherin' people with appearances on Dancing With The Stars!)

God, this post is going downhill fast... I haven't even gotten to the third book and I'm already making celebrity enemies and resorting to fart jokes. This will not end well.

Anyway, how 'bout this one for sheer unmitigated terror?



A girl is holding some rocks.

Aaaaaaaaaaaand... that's all that's happening.



Here we have a little girl, holding some balloons, and on one of the balloons is a SKULL! Like you have in your head but can't see 'til you're dead, or at least really determined! So it's scary, oh yes, scary indeed. She also may be floating off the ground. You can't really tell because they have her in a negative space there, but I guess it'd be creepier if she was floating around, like Mary Poppins, although poppin' better not happen in this case, or wheeeeeeeee down she goes, and kersplat, and then there'll be two skulls.

Anyway, she has balloons, and she's coming to get you. Booooooooga booga. Run. Run as fast as you care to.

Now, let's get topical:



I believe this book is about a cult of ill-informed goons who want to replace the government with theocratic dullards so they'll be helpless against the rich who want to enslave them. I think I caught part of a book review on FOX News.

Y'know, scary faces of crumpled linen can be scary as hell, but you can't really tell it by this cover. And are those crumpets? Crumpets just are not scary! Scones, okay, I'll grant you that scones come with a wee bit of frisson. And I have an absolute horror of teabisquits.

I haven't read it yet, but I'm doubting this book will deliver, because it's written by Charles L. Grant, the most over-rated horror writer in the biz. He likes "quiet horror." Sometimes the volume's so low you never hear it at all. But, I suppose if people are supposed to be scared by a girl holding rocks, or a skull balloon, then there's a place for Charles L. Grant at the table.

Let's get a little louder...



This is why you should let your cheese toast cool down before you eat it!

A bit excessive, ain't it? Looks like somebody tried to use a woodchipper as a pillow. You don't usually see that much gore on these book covers, especially when the victim of the torn-off-face is a little kid. That's harsh. I kinda like it, though. At least it fits the "I hope there's a scene like this in the book" test. I mean, at least it knows it's a horror novel. And it's not nearly as silly as...



THIS! That's the head of a kid (who looks a lot like Ricky Schroeder, star of Silver Spoons) stuck onto the stunted body of a dwarf scarecrow. Must be a shrunken head, too, unless those are some big-ass candles and pins.

Sometimes I like to picture the boardrooms of these book companies, approving these covers. I'd pay money to get a look at the stuff they rejected, because those must really be some seriously hilarious stuff.

"Okay, guys, I think our artists came up with a real winner this time. It's a baby wielding a porkchop! And he's wearing a golf cap! Look at his eyes... that infant means business! That will surely scare the ass off the public! And, look here, we've got a cover with a chicken in pants, waving a flag! And on the flag is a picture of a skull with a candy cane in its mouth! Dare we unleash this nightmare on an unsuspecting public? If we get away with those, we'll move on to our ultimate weapon... DEVIL-FACE BEACH BALL!"

Sometimes they would used actual models instead of paintings, and I would've liked to see this photo shoot...



They're a bit cheesy, but I don't particularly have a problem with the witch and the warlock... but, ummmm, we gotta talk about this "werewolf" thing, or Dee Snider, or whatever it is.

I only know that's supposed to be a werewolf because it's in the title there. But it honestly looks like the book should be titled Rod Serling's Triple W: Witches, Warlocks, and WickedChickenmen. 'Cuz that's much more like were-poultry. Definitely gonna cluck you up. It's like they draped a bathroom rug over him, had a blind man slap some makeup on him in the back of a truck being driven by a drunk on an icy road, and said "Good enough!"

That's a real guy, y'know. Somewhere out there there is a guy who, buried deeeeeeep on his resume, has a claim-to-fame of being the werewolf-whatsis on the cover of this book. It's a story I don't believe he tells his grandchildren. I bet the "Did I ever tell you kids about the time I sucked my cousin's dick?" story comes up more often than the posing-for-the-werewolf-cover one.

I actually like the next cover, but it is silly...



What's great about this picture is... it actually is the creature in the book! Yep, it's a book about a skeleton that goes around killing people. Its goofy but there is a certain spookiness to it. You have to admire the audacity of putting such a thing on a book cover.

This, though...



Now, the book itself is a masterpiece. It's freakin' Lovecraft, son! You can't go wrong with HPL, and "At The Mountains of Madness" is some of his highlight-reel material. But this cover... a guy with a big ol' fakey googly eye and an eyepatch over the other. I have no idea what the thought behind this was, but I have a feeling it might have been the result of brain-damage from a tricycle accident.

Now, dare you confront the horror of... Mommy Rubberface?



Ha ha, mommy funny!

I really don't know what to say about this, but the author apparently had some kind of John Saul thing going with the baby-horror, since he had a previous book called Crib. Cheap horror always seemed to be preoccupied with kids and toys for some reason. Here's a couple more examples of that:



This looks like our old friend from Wait and See, but without the eyeballs and holding a couple of twins who have Village of the Damned eyes. I'm certain this will cause at least as much terror as, say, a boy with a purple skull-cat.



Y'know, like that one. I think this painting touches mankind's primal fears of purple stuffed cats with extremely long tails, and half-skull faces. The kid sure looks spooked enough by it, even as he hugs the horror-cat, Mr. Spookums.

Then there's Toy Cemetery by the World's Worst Writer® William W. Johnstone.



Only in the case of a Johnstone book could this cover be better than the book itself. There's a stuffed-animal clown guy with spinach coming out of the cracks in his face, a lap full of dead roses which are held by a skeleton's hand, and there, on his chest, I believe that's a Cheeto, which is the most eldritch of snack foods. In your colon they dwell... forever!

I'm not sure what they mean by a "toy cemetery." Is it like a doll house, a little cemetery you play with? Or is it a cemetery where they bury dead toys? Were they just so desperate to make readers think of Pet Sematary that they trusted Johnstone's notoriously-laughable "judgement" to come up with a concept? That's probably what happened, and lo, half a bottle of Seagram's later, Johnstone was busy at work hammering out this messterpiece.

(In my defense, notice the clipped corner: that means I only paid a quarter for this thing. I'll buy just about anything for a quarter, even stuff I know will suck.)

And I saved the best for last. This first one I actually just bought specifically for this post, guys and gals. When I saw it in the bookstore I knew you just had to see it. Yes, I love ya'll that much!

Up the irons!



That's gotta be the first draft of those old Metallica "Metal Up Your Ass" tee-shirts, don'tcha think? It's yet another mean Teddy bear, this time with a butcher knife.

"Teddy is tired of sleeping with you, Jimmy. He's sick of your hugs and your neediness. You get on Teddy's nerves, Jimmy, and tonight, he's going to do something about it!"

I actually do hope there's a scene like this in the book. If not, I'm going to complain... probably to random strangers on the street who have no idea what I'm going on and on about, until they lock me away and give me the thorazine that makes the ghosts go away for a time.

Okay, got one more... and it's not quite as great as the skeleton with a banjo, but it's purty goddamn close there, buddy, so you better grab aholt of your urethra just in case before you look at...



...A MAN IN A NURSE'S OUTFIT AND RUBBER GLOVES HOLDING A BABYDOLL!

This is even scarier to me because this guy looks almost exactly like the guy who lives next door to me. 'Cept without the nurse gear and all, I mean. Or at least I've never seen him in such gear, but what he does on his own time, that's his business.

And yes, this does figure in the book. From the back cover:

Mr. Macready was such a nice old man. He liked to watch the children walking home from school, especially the little girls. In fact, Mr. Macready knew all about the children of Granite Heights -- their names, their houses, even the nights their parents were away.
And when he put on his white nurse's uniform and smeared his lips with blood-red lipstick, any child would be happy to let him through the door. Oh, they always stared a bit at his clear plastic gloves. But that was nothing compared to how they stared when he got his hands around their fragile little necks and crooned... ROCKABYE BABY.

So, maybe that's actually a scary cover after all...

So Unscary It's Scary

Among my many other obsessions is a mania for horror paperbacks. I've been snagging and hoarding 'em for years, and haunting used book stores and library sales for stuff I missed (or figured wasn't worth the full cover price). Back in the 80's there was a big "horror boom" and the market got flooded with paperback originals. People say the market has an "invisible hand," but I think it has an "invisible colon," too -- whenever any particular genre gets popular and starts selling, the market starts filling its belly with everything it can find in that area just to have a "product" to sell, resulting in a whole lot of shit getting dumped on the public. Then the genre dies from oversaturation. You can see this with music (thrash metal, death metal, grunge, rap), movies, wrestling, etc. The need to feed the public's hunger for a genre leads to standards getting lax, a lessening in quality product getting released, and then the audience soon gets sick of the crap, and the once-great genre soon becomes associated with mediocrity, and it dies out (or at least goes into a slump).

Now in the days of the internet there's no filter at all and anybody can "publish" a book and bands don't need to get signed and "filmmakers" can put anything they want on YouTube. About 90% of the self-published stuff out there doesn't deserve an audience, and the signal-to-noise ratio's getting so wide that it's too much of an effort to sort it all out, and now the public is getting pretty sick of everything. It's hardly worth filtering the din of garbage on our own to find the good stuff now, when publishers used to do that for us, so much of the public's given up and the quality of everything is lax. The entertainment industry isn't turning a profit anymore because you can download things for free, so why pay for anything? Especially since it's all shoddy anyway?

And this is my crackpot theory of why the economy is in such a slump... and an illustration of my own theory: blogs are providing non-experts like me a place to spout our crazystuff. Bad internet! You could have been spared this!

Anyway, back during the horror boom, there naturally arose a need for cover art, and there are only so many truly "scary" ideas for pictures to be had. Eventually, the industry ran out, got lazy, and wanted to put out so many books that they commissioned absolutely anything just to get product on the shelves. And that's where the fun starts.

Now, the actual art on these things isn't necessarily bad, as far as quality of technique goes, so I'm not making fun of the artists. Many of those "skeleton children" pictures that showed up on almost every Zebra book cover during those years are actually high quality paintings. But they're of incredibly silly subjects, and the covers are much more likely to induce laughter than chills.

This also isn't a critique of the book inside the cover. I liked several of these books, and haven't read some of the others yet. You really can't judge a book by its cover. Never forget, when it first came out, Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door -- high on the list of the most harrowing novels ever written -- had a skull-headed cheerleader on the cover. Ketchum hated that, and rightfully so.

Anyway, onward toward the hideous horizon we go...

=============

First up, The Feeding, by Leigh Clark. I haven't read it yet, but reviews on Amazon say it's pretty scary. The cover, however...



"AUUUGGGHHH!!! I am the displeased mountainside! See the displeased face I make, accordingly! Enter, hapless children, into my scowling mouth of DOOM and live inside my belly of TERROR! I awaken from my ancient sleep cranky and hungry for the tender flesh of the unwary! AUUUGGGHHH!!! And, furthermore, GARRRGGHHHH!!!! as well! Surely now you are frightened, no? If not, I shall clutch you! Don't make me clutch you!"

This seems a monster that could be dispatched with an antacid. And the children certainly seem terrified, don't they? That little girl is looking back at the claws coming out of the earth with the expression one usually has while watching a chipmunk, or perhaps a dog-surprise she's avoided stepping in.

And now, what's surely one of the most brilliant ideas in all of horror-book-cover-dom... a frightening bunny!



Yes, high on the list of the fearsome you will always find the bunny. Remember Night of the Lepus, and how scary that was? The promise given by this cover -- that within the pages you will find a mean blue-eyed rabbit -- guaranteed that only those with nerves of steel would dare tackle this book.

You have to admit, though, it does kind of intrigue you. You want to know what kind of story could incorporate a goblin-bunny-thing, don't you? Well, the back cover copy isn't going to help you much, as it's some of the most noncommittal, uninformative, and awkward marketing prose I've ever seen:



Reads like a third-grader's book report, doesn't it? In some unnamed "vicinity" of a "territory," gruesome incidents seemed to be accelerating (even the book itself isn't assertive enough to declare that they, indeed, are). And how much adversity is a ton? Adversity is some hard shit to weigh. It's like, "I'd like a pound of jealousy, please." A "wake" had left a "trail." That's quite a trick, since a wake is a trail. And it's all left to the irrational to explain it to us. Then weird mentions of witches and a mule who eats human hands (AAAAIIIEEEEE!).

You won't sleep much until you discover the answer. And thus we are all condemned to a lifetime of insomnia.

Okay, now, from bunnies to... lollipops!



Holy shit, I wish they wouldn't do that to me! It's irresponsible to put such terrifying images out there on the bookshelves! It's scary on so many levels, such as:

1. It's not just a lollipop, but the messiest of all lollipops -- the all-day sucker! She could, I dunno, put it in your hair or something. It'll rot your teeth out... NOW!

2. The lollipop has a SKULL FACE on it! A scary skull! Right on the lollipop there! You can see it! Surely this is the most fearsome of lollipops. What child would hold such a lollipop? A scary child, it is certain!

3. There's a bite taken out of the lollipop. Now, I dunno if you've ever had an all-day sucker, but them sonsabitches are like ping-pong paddles. You can crack somebody's skull with one, like a Viking axe (which is why you don't get one if you're a bad kid - they can't trust you with such a weapon). They're strictly for licking. You're not takin' a bite out of one of those bad boys unless you're a real beast! So, the implications are there. Implications, of course, of horror.

4. There, on the girl's chin... blood! Eek! And, while she's not really looking malevolent or anything, she's doesn't look particularly friendly, either. And not-particularly-friendly is scary! She looks a little bored, actually. And what does boredom often lead to? That's right - acts of horror. How many serial killers would have gotten started if they'd been distracted with a thrilling game of Jenga or Gnip Gnop? I'm not sure of the statistics, but I'm betting not many.

5. Her hand? It's a skeleton's hand! That does it, Zebra Books has sealed the deal, I'm shitting my pants.

Speaking of lollipops, what happens if you eat too many of them?



BELLYACHE!

"Behold my fillings! And who knows when I've combed my hair? Now you are frightened, I betcha!"

Either this guy's a homicidal maniac who's just seconds away from killing you and doing a maypole dance with your entrails... or he's "the Biffster" at a Kappa Alpha kegger screaming "WHOOOOO-HOO!" because "Brown Eyed Girl" came up on the stereo and that's his jam, man! If the book cover was bigger, I just feel certain we'd see a bottle of Jager in this fudpuck's hand, and that tee-shirt'll have Seven Mary Three on it. I ain't scared, other than by the thought that this guy'll probably have children and vote.

Now here's a book cover that snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.



Kinda creepy, ain't it? Wedding dresses, like clowns, are pretty spooky in a dim environment, and veils could hide anything. When I thought this was the front of the girl, this actually struck me as a damn eerie cover. But it's her back... and, alas, it's just the front part of a two-part cover, because, past a little trimmed edge there, there's a second page. You open that, and you see this:



I know, who farted, right? This little latex sculpt is almost insulting and destroys your confidence in the book. It's like, "Okay, if the people at Pinnacle Books think I'm supposed to be scared by a booga-booga picture of an Ann Coulter Halloween mask, how am I supposed to trust them that the novel within is scary, either?" This is just silly-lookin', and when I think of the hours some poor shlub spent crafting that gremlin-bride out of polymers while thinking "This'll be really scary!" I get a Holden-Caulfield-like level of annoyance. I see girls who look like that shopping in the country music section every time I go to Wal-Mart. Toby Keith, there's your audience, dude. Sorry 'bout that.

Okay, this one's not really horrible, but it's still a bit giggly...



I think if it didn't have the normal-person hands grabbing the monster thing, it would work a lot better. But it makes the bug-eyed grey-skinned claw-handed thing look like it's being victimized. It's not coming to get you... it's in trouble itself, at the hands of an apparently average fella. How scary can it be? It's been compromised. Still, I should probably have given this one a pass, 'cuz I've certainly seen worse.

Now, gird thy loins, because here comes.... A MONSTER JELLYFISH!!!!



O' course, if you've spent any time at the beach at all, you know that jellyfish don't have faces, but still, if you have a book dealing with a plague of walking jellyfish, I think you're to be allowed a certain amount of license. I like John Halkin's books. The first I got was Squelch, about killer caterpillars (which later turn into deadly moths), and it was one of the goriest things ever, wallowing in disgusting bloodshed so hard that you just didn't give a damn that it was stupid-ass city.



I remember when I bought that one, even though it's silly as a fish with titties, the lady at the book store got really grossed out by it and said, "UGH! Why would you want to read that?" and I told her something like "Because I'm a sick bastard!" Anyway, I remember reading it during dead spots between my classes in my Freshman year of college, and was impressed enough to seek out Halkin's other books, which include Slither (about ravenous legless lizards) and Bloodworm (which I think was about intestinal parasites). All British "nasties" in the mode of our next guy, Guy N. Smith. Smith is most famous for his "Crabs" series, about giant killer crabs. The best title is Crabs on the Rampage, but the best cover for our purposes is this one:



SHRRRRIIIIIEEEEEKKKKK! It's a giant crab... and IT'S GOT A KNIFE!!! Held there in its giant claw which could easily snap a human being in half like scissors through a paperdoll! A shiny dagger! And he's gonna hurt that girl with it! I'm gonna swoon!

Yes, a crab with a knife.

Somebody (most likely a whole committee of somebodies) greenlit this idea. Somebody ponied up the money to commission a crab-with-a-knife painting. And someone painted it. And somebody published it in mass quantities, and some people with trucks drove it all over the country and people were paid to put it out on shelves.

And then I bought it, so who's the real asshole here, right? Yeah. I got it used, though, so I'm only about a buck-seventy-five worth of an asshole.

Anyway, I'm waiting for Sasquatch with a gun.

Now, on to the omnipresent children-with-skeletons wave of book covers. There are so many of these I didn't bother to scan more than one, but I could do a post on the kids/toys/skulls covers all by itself.



That little girl certainly doesn't look too horrified, does she? And the skeleton is wearing overalls.

I dunno, I just don't feel any nightmares on their way from this. Mein spine is not ashiver, and alas, my pants, they remain unpeed. And I remember the book itself actually being pretty freakin' scary. Andrew Neiderman, by the way, wrote most of the books ascribed to "V.C. Andrews." She wrote Flowers in the Attic and a few others, then died. Only about 8 of the books under her name are actually by her. As an in-joke, a few of the books under Neiderman's name (including this one) have cover blurbs from "V.C. Andrews." I love that.

And, I think I saved the best for last. Are you ready for this, motherfuckers? Don't say yes to that too quickly, because this is some heavyweight-stupid, rat'cheer.... I don't think you're ready. But I might as well post it, because I don't think you'll EVER be ready for...



A SKELETON WITH A BANJO!

A skeleton, with eyeballs, and a sideways baseball cap, and a bloodstained banjo! Do scary things get more-scarier than that-there-thing?!? The answer would have to be NO, there is none more scarier, it is just not possible for a thing scarier than that to exist! Your feeble mind would shatter like a frozen pee-diaper if confronted with an image more fearsome!

"Yes, I have risen from beyond the grave and shall be haunting you and turning your life into a hellish nightmare of terror from which there shall be no escape right directly, but first, how 'bout a little 'Foggy Mountain Breakdown'?"

Seriously, what the fuck? I've been into horror practically since birth, I got in trouble in first grade for reading the novelization of Amicus's Tales From The Crypt movie in first grade, and my grandmother caught me reading my cousin's copy of The Exorcist about the same time. I've researched the origins of this stuff back to cave paintings, I've watched Edison's silent version of Frankenstein and just about everything since, I've studied back to Castle of Otranto and beyond... and in all my delving into the darkest depths the human mind can conjure, "fucking skeleton with a fucking banjo" has just never shown up.

If this is scary, then a werewolf holding a bunch of carrots is also scary, as is a ghost with a badminton racquet, a ghoul with an AbFlex, a vampire with a road atlas, a mad scientist with a bouquet of daylillies sprouting from his buttcrack, and Godzilla wearing a bib and propellor beanie, tooting a kazoo.

The sideways cap doesn't do a damn thing for it, either. "Hey, guys, it's the ghost of little Skippy from down the street!" dadalangdangdangjangjang!

Then the name of the book is Dew Claws. On a poetic scale, that evokes kind of an image: wet early morning grass and claws, we could maybe work with that. But when you look into it, all a "dew claw" is that little claw where a dog's thumb would be. Dogs didn't evolve as far as we did, so they still have a rudimentary nail where a thumb would be, had they gone further up the scale. (By the way, this is thing #67,854 that disproves "intelligent design"). In any case, it's not a scary thing. "Dog thumbs are coming to get you!"

Anyway, I don't think I can top skeleton-with-a-banjo, so I shall now leave you... to your nightmares! BWA-HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

...yeah...