112 pages, Black Hill Books
Review
by Pat Black
“Don’t waste the
girl. Screw her.”
I
envy Guy N Smith’s career. Writing nasty little NEL novels in the 1970s and
80s; a feast of blood, monsters, terror and tupping. About 120 pages and he’s
done; he might have drafted one of these in the space of two or three days, and
you suspect that on occasion he did.
His
books are distinctly British. Whereas Night
of the Werewolf saw us hunting lycanthropes in the Scottish Borders, The Slime Beast takes us to The Wash, a
square bay gouged out of the east coast of England, separating East Anglia from
Lincolnshire. There are plenty of wetlands - a haven for waterfowl, as well as
flesh-eating reptilian monsters from beyond.
It’s
also a haven for ignorant, lust-crazed hunters and superstitious yokels. I
don’t think this book would be mentioned in any tourist guides for East Anglia,
but we must give credit to Smith for his sense of location.
We
have three main protagonists. First, Professor Lowson, an archaeologist on the
hunt for the lost treasure of King John amid the oozing swamp of The Wash. One
for ye metal detector enthusiasts: apparently the crown jewels of the king were
lost amid the mud in 1216, and lie there still. Anyway, Professor Lowson has
brought with him his fit niece, Liz, as well as his protégé, Gavin Royle. Gavin
and Liz get it on; if Professor Lowson knows about this, and is annoyed or in
any way protective, he doesn’t let on. He’s one of these arsey professors, arch
and contemptuous of just about everyone and everything. When one of the
mouth-breathing yokels shows up at the bunkhouse to give the treasure hunters
stick, the professor simply smacks him one. You never get a laid back professor
in these books, do you?
While
looking for King John’s jewels, they find something amid the muck they didn’t
bargain for; the slime beast. It’s a
huge, bipedal reptilian creature which secretes some form of stinking ooze
which causes retching, disgust and desperate scrambles for wet wipes. And it’s
alive, too, apparently asleep in its icky bed, breathing with lungs despite being
swaddled in suffocating mud for god knows how long.
This
trio do what anyone else would do, if they found a nasty-looking reptilian
beast entirely unknown to science, alive and well in the earth…
They
bugger off back to their bunkhouse and leave it where it lies.
I’d
read this section after a pint or two at the pub, and the next day I had to
flick back to see if I’d missed something. I couldn’t remember how we got to
the next scene. But, yep… They do nothing. Sensible Gavin wants to report it to
the cops, but the professor nixes this idea, citing “a lack of evidence”.
Secretly, he entertains grand dreams of taking command of the beast for himself,
coveting the glory of discovery. I’m not sure how an archaeology professorship
lets you muscle into the zoology faculty’s action, but I guess finding a slime
beast is a game-changer.
“He’d shot onto
her. It brought back memories.”
Mayhem,
naturally, ensues, as the slime beast wakes up peckish goes on the rampage. Its
origins are never properly explained. The treasure hunters do find some
“strange, burned metal” just before they uncover the monster, and the yokels in
the nearby town of Sutton speak of a strange meteor seen in the sky just
recently. Then, after one of the local boys turns up in several different
locations, a myth about a sea monster that guards King John’s treasure is aired.
Blaming the interfering outsiders for waking the monster (not without
justification), they then do what small town shite the world over does – they
get their pitchforks out.
This
one was a lot smuttier than the previous Smith book I’d read. Gavin and Liz
don’t waste much time in getting together. Gentlemanly Gavin handles the
virginal Liz with care - and by that I mean, he pulls out just in time to
splooge on her thighs. Now that’s the type of man you’d like your daughter to
bring home. I was reminded of Walter Raleigh laying down his coat, sorta.
Liz
attracts the attentions of Mallard Glover, a huntsman prowling the wetlands with
his shotgun. In one moment of madness, a badly frightened Glover, having just
escaped the monster, is left alone with Liz in the bunkhouse while Gavin and
the professor go out to investigate. Liz falls asleep, and… oh my, as George
Takei would say.
“You knew where
you stood with the mud monster.”
It
plays out like a sleazy creature feature, even down to the gratuitous T and A. At
one point, Liz has to run for her life through the swamp, but happens to lose
her blouse in the process. I can see how that one would work on-screen, but it
seems curious given that, well, you can’t see the poor lass’s breasts on a page,
and they aren’t lovingly described for us, either. I could understand if Smith
had a painterly eye, and wanted to detail a woman’s body - even for shamelessly
erotic purposes - in the same way as Botticelli or Leonardo or Toulouse
Lautrec. But he doesn’t. Whoops, she lost her top. Peek-a-boo! It’s
anti-erotic.
In
mitigation, this is apace with British culture in the 1970s, when Robin
Asquith’s cheeky face could be seen on movie screens, gurning his way through
any number of misunderstandings, double entendres and gaps in the curtains. At
least Liz enjoys sex with Gavin and their feelings for each other grow; the
narrative doesn’t punish her for love.
“Take me, Gavin!
Take me like every woman wants her man!”
That
said, Smith has a much keener eye for the fine grain of violence, and his monster
makes an absolute mess of whoever crosses its path. It has a taste for guts,
brains and bone marrow, and Smith accounts for just about every drop of blood
spilled. When the slime beast invades the nearby village, the military get
involved, too – tanks and everything! – setting up the perfect B-movie finale.
Like
Night of the Werewolf, I can’t recommend
this book unless, like me, you have a weakness for nasty, cheesy stuff that you
probably shouldn’t admit to. As one of the monster’s victims might consider in
their last moments before dismemberment, at least it’s over quickly.
I had a tough time getting past ... 'he pulls out just in time to splooge on her thighs.'
ReplyDeleteStill laughing, in fact, now my face hurts.
Great review. I won't read it but at least I have several good reasons not to.