By way of an apology for taking advantage of Donald’s kind nature Eramus introduces him to the shadowy denizens that frequent The Monster Club – many of whom seem only too happy to relate stories of how hard done by their kind have been by the “humes”.
It is only after Donald brings the half-starved Eramus back to his lodgings that it is clear that the only thing that can satiate the poor man’s hunger flows through Donald’s veins. The book opens with Good Samaritan, Donald McCloud (reworked as Chetwynd-Hayes himself in the film) helping an unfortunate stranger, called Eramus, on a London street. Both he and John Dark, associate producer on that film, are name checked in anagram form as Limton Busotsky and Dark John. Chetwynd-Hayes had previously been brought to the screen by The Monster Club’s producer Milton Subotsky with From Beyond the Grave. Only two of the stories are retained and of those only one, The Humgoo, resembles Chetwynd-Hayes’ original and all lack the author’s sly humour, replacing it with something broader along with an array of tacky monster masks that appear to have been picked straight off the shelf of the local branch of Woolworths. In this slim volume alone we meet Fly-by-Nights, Shaddies, Maddies, Humgoos, Mocks and Shadmocks – all possessing their own special talents and peculiarities.Īside from the connecting story the book shares little with the 1981 film adaptation.
As The Monster Club best exemplifies, Chetwynd-Hayes populated his books with a whole new genealogy of monsterdom alongside such standards as vampires, werewolves and ghouls. Quite why he is overlooked today may well stem from this less than serious approach to the subject, but he is a writer ripe for rediscovery. Today you’d be hard pushed to find anything of his currently in print – which is a great shame indeed because, as he shows in the five stories here, he possessed a mordant wit missing from much of the genre.
In fact Jones does such a thorough job it leaves this reviewer with nothing new to say about the man or his work other than to waffle on for several hundred words then end with a recommendation to buy the book. Ronald Chetwynd-Hayes was regularly one of the top ten authors whose work was borrowed from British libraries throughout the seventies – so says Stephen Jones in his excellent introduction.
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