| Title | : | Ancient Images |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0812502639 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780812502633 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Mass Market Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 320 |
| Publication | : | First published June 13, 1989 |
Ancient Images Reviews
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The search for the last copy of a missing film starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, two horror film greats, is the basic plot of ANCIENT IMAGES. But when Ramsey Campbell is the author, there's nothing basic in sight!
Sandy Allan is a young film editor and researcher who is invited to come and watch the film, but it disappears and the friend she was going to watch it with is now dead. Tenacious Sandy travels far and wide in her search for the film, but what she discovers takes her miles away from her family and job, possibly forever. Will Sandy retrieve the film and find out what all the fuss is about? What happens when she finally watches it? You'll have to read this to find out.
I am a fan of Ramsey Campbell and this book has been sitting on my to be read list for years. With this new release from Flame Tree Press I finally decided to read it and I'm so glad I did! The pacing here is kind of odd....Sandy is rushing here and there in her search, while the mystery is slowly unraveling. It was a nice dichotomy. Sandy was so brave and spunky, even though she didn't think she was, I couldn't help but root for her.
I'm not sure what I was expecting from this book, but slow building folk horror was not it. Fortunately, this is Ramsey Campbell and he can pull of anything! What horror lover doesn't want to read about ancient evil in a small town? Or generations of family secrets? This horror lover adores that stuff and this book delivers it!
Highly recommended!
*Due out February, 2023 from Flame Tree Press. Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and the author for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest feedback. This is it!* -
I wanted a change of pace from blood guts and gore of last week's Deathbringer, so I picked up Ancient Images, which has sat on my TBR list for a long long time. This is only my second book by Campbell, first one was Overnight, which has left me interested in the writer, but not overall impressed by the book. Ancient Images "wowed" me. I could barely put it down, the San Francisco Chronicle claims on the book cover that it's to be read in one sitting, took me 4 days on and off(life kept getting in the way), but what a great book. There is just something so right with the way this guy writes, the way he brings on the dread, the suspense, the unease without having to resort to gore and guts on every other page, not that I don't appreciate a gorefest now and then. The story is ingenious, a movie buff's dream, a film editor's in pursuit of a missing pre-war (WW2) horror film starring Lugosi and Karloff. The film's existence has been in question for 50 years and seems like someone or something will stop at nothing to keep it hidden...or maybe it's all a bunch of spooky coincidences and overactive imaginations. Campbell's done great things with this plot.
It is set in the late 80s, so no cell phones or internet, which actually adds to the suspense and occasional isolation the main character deals with as she struggles to find the film. It's also occasionally extremely British, where politeness and propriety can be a tad maddening at times. Keeping that in mind, this is a great book, intelligent, well written and really scary. The cover, however cheesy, is actually plot relevant. I can't wait to read more of Ramsey Campbell's work and I highly recommend this book.
This and more at
https://advancetheplot.weebly.com/ -
The Oxford Companion to English literature calls Ramsey Campbell Britain's "most respected living horror writer", and Ancient Images, a Samhain Publishing re-print of one of Campbell's earlier novels, bears excellent testimony to this assertion. As with all of Campbell's works, the prose is smooth, his attention to detail immaculate, and the tension winds tighter and tighter as the story progresses.
Campbell's pacing is also excellent, as he slowly builds a solid foundation upon which to sprint toward the novel's end. An enthralling read, one that evokes very primal emotions - fear of the dark, of isolation, and of the things we can't see moving in the shadows, hiding just beyond the light's reach.
After her friend and co-worker dies under mysterious circumstances, film editor Sandy Allen embarks upon a quest to unearth a mythic film, a lost horror-movie starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. It was this film she was to screen with her friend the night of his death, and, much as she can't prove it, Sandy can't shake the feeling that her friend died BECAUSE of this film... and not just because someone killed her friend to steal the lost film.
But because the film itself brought death to him.
Every step Sandy takes closer to the film's secrets - interviewing retired actors, camera men, descendents of those involved in the film's production - Sandy senses something drawing closer to her. Shadows become figures dogging her steps at night. Windblown branches claw at her windows like talons. And when Sandy is finally drawn to the small community whose history provided the basis for the film, Redfield - a harvest community whose past is drenched in bloodshed - Sandy realizes she may have stumbled upon an ages-old power that will not only do anything to cover its tracks....
But will also kill to continue its legacy.
For Redfield's rich soil is thirsty, once again. It demands to be sated. And just about anyone's blood will do.
Horror comes in many shapes and sizes, and the genre's big enough for all kinds of tastes, but it's always refreshing to know there still exists writers like Campbell, who can invoke fear simply through the power of excellent story-telling, through emotional cues, creating psychological disquiet subtly, with great care and restraint. And this is also a nice homage to movies and the enduring power of their stories and images, how they preserve things...as well as a haunting concept.
That maybe some things shouldn't be preserved at all. -
With Ancient Images, Ramsey Campbell shows why he is the master of slowly-building, atmospheric horror. The premise is one that should appeal to many horror fans… there are rumors of a lost film starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, and a mystery surrounding its whereabouts. Things take a dark turn in the inciting incident, when a man searching for the film is killed in the process of doing so. His friend, a film editor named Sandy Allan, makes it her mission to honor his legacy by solving the mystery of The Tower of Fear. The suspense grows as she tries to figure out why everyone involved with the movie either doesn’t want to talk about it or denies its existence altogether.
Around the halfway mark, the novel takes a turn into folk horror territory, as the protagonist begins to link The Tower of Fear with a small, rural village. As I am currently enamored with the folk horror subgenre, this was my favorite section of the book. One of the most terrifying scenes involves three village women who confront Sandy while she is investigating a local cemetery. And while these women barely do anything at all, in Campbell’s skilled hands it turns into a stress-inducing moment of psychological horror.
In true Campbell fashion, there are subtle, unsettling elements sprinkled throughout the tale, which make the reader (and the characters) question whether there is something ominous and supernatural going on in the background, or if it’s a figment of the imagination. For example, there is one scene in which Sandy is walking along a road and spots a scarecrow; but then when she turns around after moving along a bit more, the scarecrow is no longer there.
The ending, while intense and generally satisfying, felt just a bit too rushed after all the buildup that came before it. I would have preferred if there were another chapter or two to give the resolution its due, but overall I thought this was a wonderful book, perhaps my favorite so far by this author.
In the 2011 afterword (from the Samhain Publishing ebook), the author describes this as almost being his take on the traditional vampire novel. The way he describes it is fascinating, and very much makes sense in the context. But to avoid the confusion, there are no actual vampires in this story; after you’ve read it, you’ll understand where he’s coming from with those comments. He also mentions his 2007 novel
The Grin of the Dark was in some ways an effort to improve on certain elements he wasn't quite as happy with in Ancient Images (first published in 1989).
As with any Ramsey Campbell book, this just makes me want to read even more of his work! -
A tense slice of old school horror.
This was my first time reading Ramsey Campbell work and overall it was a mixed bag in my opinion.
Although I would say that from reading this that Ramsey Campbell is a master of creating suspense general atmosphere, this book was just paced way too slowly for my personal preferences. Part of this is no doubt down to the fact that Ancient Images was originally published in 1989 (when I was only ten years old) and is written In a style which I'm not so well acquainted with.
I found the story itself to be more of a tense thriller for a large portion of the book but then it slowly winds up to becomes the horror it is billed as. It was well written novel, with well formed characters and plot lines throughout.
Regardless of these negative points, I did enjoy reading and will most definitely be reading more of Ramsey Campbell's work in the near future. -
This was an ok read. Reminded me so much of Night of the Claw with the "creature" following said character, however, Night of the Claw was so much more enjoyable, so I'm writing this one off as one of his lesser books. The ending made no sense to me and I felt like a lot more should have been explained. But, maybe that was his intention. 3 stars for me.
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Dentro del terror o del thriller hay una especie de subgénero (totalmente inventado por mí) al que llamaría ficciones cinéfilas que podría tener como tema central el mundo de la obsesión por el cine; he leído ya varias de estas novelas (
Flicker,
Experimental Film,
Última sesión...), algunas mejores que otras, pero he tenido la suerte de que de los pocos titulos que me he leido hasta ahora (o de los pocos que me he encontrado), todos me han gustado. Se podría decir que colecciono de alguna forma novelas de este subgénero por las que siento una especial debilidad.
"Imágenes Malditas" (Ancient Images) también rezuma obsesión por el cine por los cuatro costados, Ramsey Campbell crea una protagonista, Sandy, que es montadora de cine, con lo que esto conlleva, por lo que es una forma por parte de su autor de sentar las bases del argumento de lo que va a ser la novela. Cuando empieza, Sandy se dirige a casa de su mejor amigo, Graham, que ha encontrado después de muchos años de búsqueda, una película de terror perdida de los 30 protagonizada por dos iconos del cine de terror: Bela Lugosi y Boris Karloff. Una pelicula que hasta ahora se había creido que era una leyenda urbana y lo primero que hace Graham cuando la encuentra es montar una sesión de cine en su casa para que Sandy y él la visionen. Pero antes de que que Sandy llegue a su casa, la película es robada y comienza a partir de ahí una cruzada por parte de ella para encontrarla mientras bucea en sus orígenes.
Empiezo diciendo que la estructura de la novela me ha encantado, se sale un poco de los tópicos en este género del terror. Los dos primeros tercios de la novela son lentos, atmosféricos, con mucha carga psicológica y también con mucha carga a la hora de preparar al lector en lo que significa "sugestionarle" para que pueda sumergirse en la atmósfera oscura, desconocida, mientras investiga Sandy. Casi sin darte cuenta, te has leido los dos primeros tercios de un zarpazo, pero realmente no ha pasado nada: Sandy se recorre media Inglaterra en su coche entrevistando, encontrándose con miembros que participaron décadas antes en la película. Y durante estos viajes ella siente una amenaza que la acecha, algo que la sigue...y es de las pocas veces que realmente he sentido este terror mientras leo una novela. Hay varias escenas que son la prueba de la maestria de Ramsey Campbell a la hora de crear estos momentos turbadores y oscuros y en todas estas escenas, Sandy se ha visto sola frente a esta amenaza ¿es real o es solo una invención de su estado mental??
"Incluso aunque la hubiera inquietado mientras la veía, ahora estaba encerrada. No eran más que dos rollos de celuloide dentro de unas latas, nada más que una sucesión de imágenes muertas en la oscuridad. Sin luz ni maquinaria que les dieran vida, no significabann ninguna amenaza".
Y son estas escenas las que a mi me merecen la pena totalmente. La escena del cementerio, la de Sandy atrapada en la torre oscura y sobre todo la escena del cine, casi al final... Esa amenaza invisible mientras ella permanece sentada totalmente a oscuras, sola, en un cine desvencijado y casi en ruinas, me han fascinado.
"Las manchas parduzcas de la pantalla parecieron hincharse emborronando la imagen, y empezó la proyección de la segunda bobina. ¿Por qué le producía una sensación de alivio que ya hubiera pasado la mitad de la película? No había visto nada que diera a entender que había alguien detrás de ella, pero había alguien...(...) Sandy miró atrás, pero Barclay no estaba en la cabina de proyección. Estaba sola con la película -con la imagen que apenas nadie más que ella había visto".
Es cierto que aunque no hay duda del talento narrativo de Ramsey Campbell y de que en la construcción de atmósferas es un maestro, hay algunas concesiones que me sobraron y que no voy a citar por aquí para no dar pistas pero las he tomado como concesiones casi obligadas en este género, porque sin ellas, el "viaje a la oscuridad" de Sandy hubiera sido demasiado arriesgado imagino que por parte de la editorial: una chica sola durante dos tercios de la novela, conduciendo por media Inglaterra imaginándose que algo la acecha y la vigile, sin que poco más pase, hubiera sido un suicidio de ventas. Es una novela también que rinde homenaje al cine, sobre todo al cine de terror concreto de los 30 y 40, y se me hizo muy evidente que para escribir sobre estos detalles, Ramsey Campbell no solo tiene una gran cultura cinéfila, sino que además ama el cine.
La lectura es un tema muy subjetivo, lo que a ti te llega o a lo que le das valor, no tiene porqué ser igual para otro lector pero lo dicho, leyéndolo he sentido el terror de volver la vista y mirar por encima del hombro, el miedo a la oscuridad, a lo desconocido, el terror a lo que se esconde tras una sombra y tener que cerrar la ventana por la noche 😉
"La idea de que en realidad todavía no había salido de bosque le produjo un nudo en el estómago. El bosque se hundió en la lejanía como si volviera a la tierra y de pronto se vió rodeada de tierras de labranza; frente a ella y a sus espaldas ya sólo había carretera. Intentó convencerse de que en un momento el paisaje la tranquilizaría y por fin dejaría de sentirse vigilada y perseguida". -
After reading a lot of James Herbert I kept seeing the name Ramsey Campbell mentioned in several British horror write-ups so I set out to have a look at his work. The title that I was most attracted to was "Ancient Images" due to the plot description. I actually emailed the author before I read it and he was very polite and helpful, which made me want to like it even more.
Basically the plot revolves around a supposedly cursed roll of film and the efforts of a young film editor as she goes to find it. What I liked most about this is the lengths that Campbell goes through to build up the suspense, until 3/4 of away through the book you don't actually know what the horror is that's in store for our heroine.
This is a very old fashioned tale and I won't pretend that it is a thrill-a-minute piece, instead it builds upon its dark theme with a series of visions of fleeting shadows and strange animals that may or may not be real. Sandy, the protagonist, heads on a cross-country trip to interview the remaining cast and crew members who were involved in the cursed production - one that actually had Lugosi and Karloff in it (fictional obviously). I enjoyed the geography of the whole piece as well - I lived in Lincoln for a while and live fairly near Cromer (two of the principal locations) so I was able to visualise them pretty well which added an extra dimension to the story for me.
You won't see the ending coming until the book slowly trundles towards it and if you haven't enjoyed the well crafted, well described story by that point they should probably stick to your Twilights. -
This U.K. hardcover book is published by Legend in 1989 and is signed by Ramsey Campbell on title page. The book was reprinted in 1990 with new cover art.
There's some ingenious plotting to go along with some crude moral posturing: Sandy's best pal, Graham, has finally dug up a print of a legendary, never released 1930's Karloff/Lugosi British film, "Tower of Fear" before he can screen it for Sandy, he inexplicably leaps off the roof of his tenth floor apartment building and the print is mysteriously stolen.
Determined to rescue Graham's good name from a columnist, who claims the print never existed, Sandy, after starting up a romance sets out to find the film. -
My first novel by Ramsey Campbell will be far, far, FAR from my last. A tight, suspenseful tale, Ancient Images features one of my biggest passions as an integral plot point: early-era Hollywood. The main character, Sandy Allan, goes on quite a terrifying journey in search of a long-lost (and recently found, then stolen from a dead friend of hers) Bela Lugosi/Boris Karloff film. Her portrayal is very nicely realized, with her coming across as a real woman, free of exploitation and full of believable emotions. That alone deserves five stars; throw in an absolutely captivating mystery, full of half-glimpsed figures and a growing sense of unease, and you get a nearly perfect book.
Aside from a playful groan at the fact that the film in the book is totally fictional (too bad!), there were a couple of faults to the book which did manage to take away one star for me.
For one thing, the opening scene, as well as another scene that came a little later on, are ultimately identifiable as (respectively) a scene from the film and the fate of the film's director, but both were dropped in with no clear sign as to what they were or how they fit into the overall narrative that, although creepy, left me somewhat confused.
And downright frustrating was the fact that Sandy's 20th century American level-headedness made one aspect of her journey fairly unbelievable, after a time: namely, her seemingly unshakeable ignorance of the fact that she was being pursued. It's one thing for a person to see something strange and dismiss it, and another for her or him to question what they've seen, but return to their train of so-called rational thought. But in this case, it grew kind of ludicrous, after a time, how many times Sandy saw or even encountered a strange figure lurking in the shadows around her, and to dismiss them every time. But, eventually she catches onto the reader's growing sense of terror, and the payoff is quite appropriately nerve-wrackling.
All in all, faults aside, this is a tight, perfectly-paced and eerie read. Highly recommended for anyone who loves their horror quiet, creepy, and powerful - and for fans of the silver era of Hollywood. -
Propelled by a hunt for a crackerjack Macguffin—the print of an apocryphal horror film starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff that suffered from a bedeviled production and was suppressed before its release by pre-WW2 censors concerned with its "unpatriotic" content—Ancient Images is a sedate horror mystery that strives for social commentary wherever the search takes our dogged protagonist, an independent female (circa the late 1980s) television editor. Scenes of urban decay and pastoral hypocrisy serve well-meaning Ramsey Campbell as chances to decry homophobia, finger wag at the splatterpunk genre and its celebrants, and take potshots at English classicism, until, finally, he pits his heroine against a reclusive, but prosperous village, whose bread-making inhabitants practice a bloody propitiation to fertility elementals. While Campbell's confidence and skill at writing slow-paced horror is admirable, the climax of Ancient Images is not sensational enough to make a reader feel truly awarded for their patience. Also Campbell relies far too many times on building unease by having a character spot, but then quickly dismiss, strange and spindly figures scampering out of sight. While many incidentals do delight—a climb up an ominous tower, the unveiling of a creepy family crest, an encounter with a trio of menacing matrons, a description of a vine flowering out of an eye socket—they don't leaven this novel into a superior horror experience. Read the artful
Midnight Sun first. -
There is so much wrong with this novel. Sorry, Ramsey. This is a heavy handed work. Mr. Campbell beats the reader over the head with obvious and predictable foreshadowing. He also does little to develop character and the presence of a group of religious stalwarts provides little thematic support other than to provide fodder for the monsters.
I was reminded of The King In Yellow with the idea that the film at the center of the story is a one which has led to disaster for everyone who has had contact with it. However, that idea never received the proper treatment, and instead the story grinds into a boring mess. -
Somehow, Campbell managed to combine frenetic pacing with a slow burn plot with Ancient Images and while a fun read, I was hoping for a little more by the end. The ostensible plot revolves around a movie starting Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi called The Tower of Fear shot in England in 1938. Our main protagonist Sandy Allan works as a film editor for London's Metropolitan Television and the guy who got her the job, Graham, tracks down and rescues old films. For two years Graham has been looking for Tower of Fear, a film that was never screened and actively suppressed. At the very start of the book, he tells Sandy that he finally found a copy and asks her to come over with a few people for a private screening in his flat. Sandy arrives only to find the flat vacant, with a faint stale odor permeating the place. Looking for Graham, she finally finds him on the roof of the next apartment block where he jumps off to his death.
When the cops arrive, and Graham's partner (who only went out for some food) comes back, the film is gone and Graham is very dead. Sandy takes some time off work to go looking for another copy of the film; in part for the memory of Graham and in part because she is very curious. Someone, or something, however, does not want the film found, and things start to happen to Sandy. She keeps seeing out of the corner of her eye strange thin people, sometimes moving on all fours like dogs. Her cats are spooked and one day flee the flat and are run over and killed. Sandy, with the help of a Yank (another of Graham's pals) discover Graham's notebook chronicling his two year quest for the flick and Sandy dives into the quest...
Sandy starts interviewing people associated with making the film and finds them loath to discuss the film; more than loath, scared. They all mention the tension and fear on the set of the film and many of them died in strange ways. What is it about the film?
Campbell also introduces some other plot arcs that soon become primary, but I am not going to go into those due to spoilers. Ancient Images has a really good creep factor that builds and builds, but Sandy increasingly felt like a character out of a Laymon novel-- making dubious decisions right and left. Further, Campbell never really resolved the story, leaving more questions than answers. It felt like he started with a neat idea about a lost film and tossed a host of other things into the mix to see what stuck. I will give Campbell another go, but so far, his novels have failed to impress. 3 stars. -
3 stars--I liked the book. Warning for animal violence (a really sad scene, imo).
I love this book's subject matter--namely a plot that revolves around a lost movie and a fertility cult. Those are my two favorite subjects in horror novels! And though I loved both of those things, the book overall didn't grab me--I found my mind wandering a few times, and occasionally I had to puzzle out some of Campbell's sentences.
Still, the occasional glimpses of horror overlaying the mundane world were spooky--and it's what Campbell does best, I think. I'm going to give his other movie-related horror book,
The Grin of the Dark, a shot. Maybe it will grab me a bit more. -
very suspenseful, you glide into a story of a long lost film found again, a lot of people getting in contact with research on the film getting killed, interesting legend behind the ongoing action, well paced, sometimes a bit slow, but very intense, a classic...
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I meant to read more Ramsey Campbell this summer, but "Ancient Imgages" is the only one I got read. Still, having never read it before, it was a wonderfully concise and suspenseful.
The search for a lost film of Karloff and Lugosi drives the action, and most of the first half of the book is centered on just this. When the second half of the story takes us to the secluded village where our heroine (a film editor with a mission) becomes the object of inquiry from the spooky villagers, the story becomes a sort of updated "Shadow over Innsmouth" or "Wicker Man."
But when the lost film emerges and the ties in to the spooky goings-on, the reader leaves the book with a genuinely satisfying mystification. It's a truly original take on old formulas. -
I love the concept behind Ancient Images by Ramsey Campbell. I love watching classic horror so a book about a lost Karloff and Lugosi film sounded like it would be right up my alley. The beginning and end were both excellent but it fell short for me and slowed way down it the middle. It's a solid read for sure just night quite as engrossing as I was hoping.
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Okay
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This was my first encounter with Ramsey Campbell, a writer whose work I’ve been drawn to following a number of citations of him from other writers I admire. And I really, really enjoyed reading this, and am now quite eager to read his other stuff. I’ve noted before on here how much I enjoy what might be considered fairly trashy horror fiction, but if this novel is anything to go by, Campbell ought to occupy a much more prominent status in modern literature (not just genre fiction) than he currently does.
The plot revolves around a lost film starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff; made in Britain in the 1930’s, it was never released and virtually disappeared after the death of its director in mysterious circumstances. In the book, a print of the film emerges, but quickly vanishes again after the grisly suicide of the man who discovers it, and the novel follows the efforts of film editor Sandy Allen to track down the origins of the movie, and to discover what really happened to the man who made it.
The book is written (and set) in the late 1980’s, with the whole ‘video nasties’ horror movie scare very much lurking in the background. But there are also frequent references to an earlier moral panic of the 1930’s, when the first horror films first scandalised the establishment and effectively forced the creation of a government-subsidised film industry for films made in (and about) Britain.
And yet despite the modern setting, it’s very much a careful, toned-down horror story in the vein of writers much older than Campbell. The novel actually goes to some lengths to distance itself from the contemporary tendency towards lashings of gore and increasingly spectacular effects. The author is a master at the art of undercutting an apparently normal scene with a subtly unsettling touch: a shadow where there was none before; the sound of footsteps in the hallway outside; a lingering glimpse of a dark figure at the side of the road. Campbell has described his own work as a ‘comedy of paranoia’, which perfectly describes what occurs here, though it certainly couldn’t be called a comedy in any conventional sense. The whole thing has a deeply dreary atmosphere of modernity, one that reminded me somewhat of the later novels of J.G. Ballard in its oppressive vision of Britain.
I don’t expect that everyone will like this book, and I suppose many will object to the fact that the central conceit of the novel is never properly explained. Even though the reader does get to ‘see’ the film in its entirety, the links between it and the unsettling events of the plot remain somewhat obscure. Yes, in some ways it rushes towards a conclusion which feels uncertain and altogether too abrupt, but I didn’t much care: for me, enjoying this book was about entering the uncanny ambience of the author’s world. I hope I get to go back there soon. -
Meh. Too many tropes crammed into a single story: sinister corporation, lost/suppressed/secret document (in this case a Karloff/Lugosi film), eerie scarecrows, ancient curse on family, the land that needs blood to flourish, the cursed object, and (possibly) werewolves. And in the end almost nothing actually happens other than lots of highway driving from one town to another. Would have worked a better as a short story, and with about 50% less stuff.
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DNF
I really struggled with this book it started off really well but then it just flat lined. It was so slow this was supposed to be horror but all i got was sightings of something and unexplained deaths. I read 50% of this book then gave up. It was a non starter for me so disappointed.
Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in return for giving an honest review. -
Just incredible, my new personal favorite Ramsey Campbell book! Don't be dissuaded by the horribly unfair / unjust 1 star ratings. I get it, everything is subjective but 1 star for this novel is just straight up trolling and screwing up the overall rating big time. This book was creepy as hell and unlike anything I've ever read. If you're on the fence, please give it a shot!
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Probably the sleekest, most thriller-like novel in the prolific Ramsey Campbell's catalogue, Ancient Images is a story of detection with occult elements that begin to dominate as the novel progresses.
It's 1988 in London, England. Metropolitan TV film editor Sandy Allan witnesses the baffling, apparent suicide of her friend and mentor, a film historian who had just announced that he'd secured a copy of a long-lost 1938 Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi British horror film. But the film isn't in Sandy's mentor's ransacked apartment.
In order to help deal with her trauma, Sandy uses the mentor's notebook to reconstruct a list of people to contact for information about the film. She takes holiday time and with the help of an American film writer sets out to see if she can track down another copy of the film.
Her quest takes her across much of England. Many of the actors and production staff remain alive 50 years later. Not so much the director, who died in a car crash mere days after the completion of filming.
Campbell does such a fine job of describing the fictional film that one starts to wish it were real -- if so, it would be one of Karloff and Lugosi's finest on-screen team-ups. Along the way, Campbell deals with anti-horror, censorship crazes in Great Britain in both the 1930's and 1980's. The English peer responsible for the initial quashing of the film invoked the good of the British people back in 1938 as to why this horror film -- and horror films in general -- shouldn't be allowed in Great Britain. In 1988, the 'Video Nasties' censorship hysteria is in full-blown inferno.
But Sandy won't be dissuaded, despite increasingly weird goings-on, the mysterious death of her cats Bogart and Bacall, and a growing sense of being followed. Campbell has noted that Sandy is perhaps his least tortured, most 'normal' protagonist. This aids in the generation of suspense -- she's not the sort of Campbell character who would believe in even the possibility of the supernatural. All those times she thinks she sees something at the edge of vision -- well, they can be explained away. Can't they?
Its likable, uncomplicated protagonist and its detective-thriller architecture make Ancient Images Campbell's most accessible book to non-horror readers, in my humble opinion. It's a terrific ride with a tense climax. Highly recommended. -
This book starts a Fritz Leiber-esque urban weird story and then goes all Harvest Home/Wicker Man rural community folk horror. Its technique is quite obvious in parts-- repetitive, even -- with attention constantly being brought through the same means to the protagonist being hunted by an M. R. James-ian something , and yet....and yet... when it gets going it is quite frankly almost unbearably saturated in dread and suspense. This is how you do trad British terror. No spoilers (and nothing really happens during them), but two sequences featuring a staircase and a trip to a graveyard had me lurching with wonderful panic.
If you're starting with Campbell then by my reckoning his Demons by Daylight short story collection is his finest book. When it comes to his novels I would rate this above the apparent favourite The Hungry Moon, which I have enjoyed least. While Campbell has issues as a novelist, he makes up for them with his mesmerising prose and ability to unnerve even seasoned horror mavens. A certain repetition of method and a less than brilliant resolution do little to hinder my admiration Ancient Images as a powerfully charged piece of suggestive atmospheric writing that made the world around me feel tantalisingly stranger. -
Small, spooky tale by horror legend Ramsey Campbell. A little too much time in the car for me; if you read it you will understand. And by all means, read it. That is my only complaint. Mr. Campbell has a way of effortlessly slipping scary things, images, thoughts into the story just at the right moments. He never never ever overdoes it, and he feels no need to explain away everything to the reader. This is a lean, intelligent horror novel with a great story and good believable characters. Really scary creatures too, that we don't see too early or too often.
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This is a good read, it kept me interested until the very end and I was downright excited to see what would happen next. This is my second Campbell novel, I read "The Hungry Moon" back in March and I don't know why I took so long to get to another one. According to S. T. Joshi who's opinion I respect a great deal, this isn't even one of Campbell's better novels, I don't have enough reference to say, but I personally enjoyed this one as much or perhaps more than "The Hungry Moon."
I will say, I think Campbell overplays his creepy touches at times. In some places it's like, "Uh-oh! There's the monster!" "Oh, is that it over there?" "Is something scratching at the door?" He maintains his subtlety, but at some places it becomes overkill. I'm almost saying to myself, "Yes, the monster is nearby, but can we get on with the story?" I guess this is why some complain that sometimes Campbell seems to care more about atmospherics than plot. On the other hand, this is really a minor qualm, because it does keep up the suspense and he will throw in an occasional detail that's truly effective.
The story follows Sandy, a TV film editor at the Metropolitian who's informed by her friend Graham that he's uncovered the uber-rare 1938 Lugosi/Karloff film "The Tower of Fear." She goes to his apartment for a private viewing that evening, finds the projection booth a shambles and watches in horror as Graham leaps from the opposite building to his death. She's not sure if he committed suicide or was being chased by something, but the film has gone missing. Graham's lover Toby gives her Graham's notebook full of names he was contacting to track down the rare film and Sandy teams up with American film critic Roger Stone to try and find the film as a tribute to Graham's memory. Everyone they contact is reluctant to discuss the whole project and a few have some very creepy stories about what happened during the filming. And the closer she gets to the truth, the more Sandy begins to feel she's being watched and stalked.
The plot has familiar feel to it, someone dies mysteriously, their friend tries to piece together the facts, encounters a lot of colorful characters who dread to speak of the terrible past events. We see this in horror, and film noir quite a lot too. This is a nice break from the classic novels I've been reading. -
This is a well written book that excels in setting a mood. But mood can only get you so far. The plot concerning the lost movie was fantastic, but it never tied into the story of the land owners trying to prevent the movie from being seen. The horror is all in the mood, but there is only so long you can be carried by a dark and moody setting that never resolves itself... or at least does not resolve itself very well.
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There is a genre that goes by the name of horror excellence, this book resides there.
I fall for the lead female character in his books every time, they are always close to my heart in their hearty resilience and courage in confronting the terrors that lurk in the dark. The subtle and original horror is mostly found in the small things which is always the best kind. I love nostalgic quality of his writing that takes me back to England late 80s/ early 90s. 5 stars.
