HALLOWEEN MONTH BEGINS FOR 2025

October 1st kicks off Balladeer’s Blog’s usual mixing of horror items in with my usual topics. I review horror films from the silent movie era onward as well as obscure stories from the 1800s and earlier, like they’re Halloween counterparts to my Ancient Science Fiction reviews.

To get in the mood, here’s a sampling of very old horror stories that have been all but forgotten. I’ll rotate new ones in throughout the month.

THE MONSTER-MAKER (1897) – Set in San Francisco, this W.C. Morrow tale was praised by the one and only Ambrose Bierce. A truly unique monster gets cobbled together by a mad scientist but instead of a castle in Europe the action takes place in Frisco. Experimenting on a suicidal young man, our insane Dr. X turns the lad’s body into a globe-headed, lobster-limbed abomination. The scientist’s courageous wife and a police detective work to bring down the madman.

For my full review click HERE.

MR. GRUBBE’S NIGHT WITH MEMNON (1843) – Albert Smith’s story about a skeptical man who spends the night in the Egyptian wing of the British Museum only for the mummies, scarabs and other relics to come to life for a macabre carnival of sorts led by the mummified Memnon. THE FULL REVIEW IS HERE.

WEREWOLVES OF DETROIT – Two legends about werewolves plaguing the Detroit area during the early 1700s. One involves a family besieged by a lycanthrope and the other details the saga of a noted slayer of werewolves who uses axes with silver blades. FULL REVIEW HERE.

GEORGE DOBSON’S EXPEDITION TO HELL (1828) – Written by James Hogg. A horse-drawn cab turns out to be bound for Hell and there’s nothing any passenger can do about it. Increasing hopelessness as the cab descends into an ever-bleaker landscape inhabited by ghastly figures like a Toll Booth Operator who reminded me of Pinhead from the Hellraiser films. FULL REVIEW HERE.

CITY OF VAMPIRES (1867) – Written by Paul Feval. This criminally neglected story depicts a fictionalized young version of the Gothic horror writer Ann Radcliffe when she was still Ann Ward. To try to save some friends she trails them to the Belgrade city of vampires called Selene as well as the Sepulchre. In that perpetually gloomy and overcast village Ann and company must deal with vampires of varied abilities from back in the era before vampire lore was as set in stone as it later became. CLICK HERE. 

LE DIABLE AMOUREUX (THE DEVIL IN LOVE) – Written in 1772 by Jacques Cazotte. Don Alvaro, a Spanish military officer, loves to explore the dark and the forbidden. In the ruins of a castle outside Naples he inadvertently conjures up a she-devil from Hell. She calls herself Biondetta and can sprout wings from her back and fly plus magically control events so that Don Alvaro becomes a very successful gambler. She wants to lure the young man into bed with her and thereby steal his soul. CLICK HERE.

KEN’S MYSTERY (1888) – An overlooked vampire story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s son Julian. Ethelind Fionguala was abducted and turned into a vampire in 1500s Ireland. Three centuries later, she still sought out victims, often near her original grave outside Cork.

Ethelind could use glamour to convince her male victims that they were courting her at posh parties instead of a cemetery and that the rundown, dilapidated houses she nested in were luxurious mansions. After sleeping with her and having much of their blood drained, those victims lucky enough to still be alive would awaken to discover they had really been making love amid ruins filled with rats, spiders and the like.  FOR MY FULL-LENGTH REVIEW CLICK HERE.

THE GHOST PIRATES (1909) – If you enjoyed John Carpenter’s movie The Fog then this far deeper dive into undead buccaneers is for you. A slow-burn horror novel from William Hope Hodgson about the voyage of the ship Mortzestus. Unusual occurrences plague the passengers and crew, getting worse each night until the victims realize they are being followed and toyed with by a ghost ship filled with dead and damned pirates. FULL REVIEW HERE. 

THE HORNED SHEPHERD (1904) – By Edgar Jepson. Weird and macabre tale of a pagan sect which still worships the horned god Pan. Once every hundred years a human incarnation of Pan is born into the community. This time around it is a shepherd whose head has sprouted horns amid his hair.

The Horned Shepherd also plays music on a pan-flute which transfixes listeners and has other supernatural effects. When the time comes for this century’s incarnation of Pan to be sacrificed like his predecessors he does not stay dead in the tension-filled and sacrilegious finale.

LIVING ALONE (1919) – Written by Stella Benson. I always call this novel a World War One forerunner of Bedknobs and Broomsticks. In 1918 London a young woman named Sarah Brown helps with the war effort and meets Angela, a witch who leads others of her kind in supernatural dogfights with witches from the Central Powers nations. Sarah encounters imps and faeries acquainted with the British witch and witnesses the dead rising from their graves plus other macabre sights. CLICK HERE.   

MR LOBEL’S APOPLEXY (1922) – Written by Irvin S. Cobb. A greedy, mean-spirited silent film director named Lobel trashes a dead woman’s reputation simply because it’s to his financial benefit. The late actress’ ghost manifests on the big screen in the director’s latest movie to take her revenge. I give this tale extra points for the fairly unique way of haunting one’s victim. CLICK HERE.

FOR ALL MY HALLOWEEN SEASON BLOG POSTS OF THE PAST CLICK HERE.