Spooky season is upon us and it’s almost time kids… The pumpkin flesh is tender and ready to carve. A scary horrorthon is queued up on the telly. This year’s costume is even more fabulous than last year’s, and the candy pail is already overflowing with treats! How else can we add to the frightful fun before the clock strikes twelve on the creepiest night of the year? In my haunted house, after the dead man’s fingers and gooey eyeballs have been devoured, we always play a spooky game together. So gather around my table of terror brave ones, and feast your eyes on the…
This game will bring out the spooky strategist in you as you pit your wits against the other players in order to grave-rob them of all their cards. If you’ve ever wondered what might happen if The Invisible Man (no)faced off against Frankenstein’s Monster, then Horror Top Trumps is the game for you. As an added bonus the cards glow in the dark, casting their eerie glow across anyone willing to risk their arm! And if you don’t own a deck, why not craft your own and create scary stats for your favourite movie and book-based monsters? (Hmm… I’d really love to see a Horror Top Trump card for my monster The Skin Mechanic from my Bram Stoker Award nominated debut novel The Lamplighters…)
“We’re only here for the fear…” After all the Halloween fun and folics, we all need to get our heads down for a while, presuming they haven’t been severed of course. And where better to relax than the Scream Inn? Check in if you’re brave enough and you’ll discover this vintage classic features a rotten rotating board, so you never know if you’re in for a cosy night’s sleep or a fatal death-trap! There’s an old saying that you might ‘wake up in the morning with a crowd ’round your bed’ and this game can definitely result in a case of ‘dead and breakfast’. Long out of print, you can sometimes snap a copy up in online auctions and hey, we’ve all wanted to bid on a genuine haunted house, right?
Riding the ghost train at the funfair is one of my favourite activities when the carnies come to town and this game recreates the ride on your table at home. Kids love the swinging spider, which can plummet pendulum-like and knock you off the board. The rotating ‘tracks’ add tension to the game by redirecting you away from the exit and deeper into the shadows! Sadly, Ghost Train is out of print, and someone should really bring it back from the dead. (If you don’t own a copy, a good alternative is Labyrinth, which also features some spooky elements and a devilish moving board, muah ha ha.)
One of the oldest and also the most oft-reissued spooky board game, Ghost Castle started out with a simple cardboard board and pieces, before evolving into a cool castle diorama complete with moving coffin lid and glow in the dark skull that bounces down the staircase bringing the icy touch of death upon all in its path! This game can also be the quickest game to play in my experience, which is useful when you have a lot of activities to cram in on Halloween night! The moving floor and ghostly mirror are exciting features, bringing all the benefits of a haunting into your house… without the need for an exorcist.
Okay, I’m biased (because I have just written the official novelisation of this game, see an exclusive extract below) but what honestly places Damnation: The Gothic Game at the top of my list is its unique goal – to kill all the other players on the board! The 1992 classic became a Halloween tradition of mine, perfect for parties, with unwitting players expiring from the dreaded ‘suffocating prunes’, drowning in the moat, or being taken out by a poisoned blow-dart from the lavatory tower! Blackletter Games’ amazing update Damnation: The Gothic Game adds a ton of frightful and fun features such as the ability to haunt other players from beyond the grave, and there is even a Night of the Vampire expansion. Who could possibly resist a deadly game of battle royale in Castle Dracula? Try it and see if you can survive Halloween night…
I hope you have found some eerie inspiration for your own table top terrors (post your favourite ghoulish games in the comments). Here’s wishing you a Happy Halloween!
Check out the video below to see Frazer Lee reading an exclusive extract from the Damnation: The Gothic Game novel, coming soon this spooky season. Follow Frazer Lee’s website for updates!
The Carpathian Mountains, 1897. An impassable storm forces a group of travellers to disembark from their steam train and take shelter in a remote castle for the night. Their enigmatic host invites them to take part in some after-dinner entertainment. But as they each explore the castle’s rooms and passageways they discover they have become part of a deadly game. Only one guest may leave in the morning and it is up to each of them to use their wits, and weapons, to survive the night. For the others, Damnation awaits.
Boo-graphy: Frazer Lee is the Bram Stoker Award® nominated author of seven novels including Damnation: The Gothic Game. Winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Gothic Filmmaker Award, Frazer’s screenwriting and directing credits include the acclaimed horror films Panic Button and The Stay. Frazer is Reader in Creative Writing at Brunel University London, and resides with his family in Buckinghamshire, just across the cemetery from the real-life Hammer House of Horror. Crisps are his downfall… talk him down from the ledge at his website.
Tom’s breath fogged up his window then disappeared like a ghost. He tried again, but no luck – the frost clinging to the outside of the windowpane refused to melt. He wished his parents would just go to bed. He’d been kneeling here on his bed, leaning on the windowsill for what seemed like an eternity. Then – footsteps on the stairs. Action stations.
It was Mum, here to tuck Tom into bed. He lay rigidly still, breathing heavily with his arms by his side. He felt his mother’s shadow falling over him as she leaned in to kiss him softly on the head. Then she grabbed him and tickled him. He let out a loud giggle. How on earth did she do that every time? Anyone else would’ve fallen for it and believed he was asleep, but not Mum with her amazing radar skills.
They shared a laugh about it and she kissed him again and turned off the light. He listened intently as Mum closed the door and went back downstairs to the living room. ‘Must be wrapping my presents right now,’ he thought, his ears conjuring sounds of foil paper and sticky tape.
This was the most crucial part of Christmas Eve for Tom – waiting for Mum, Dad and Big Sis to come to bed. Then he had to leave it for just long enough to make sure they were asleep, without nodding off himself and missing his chance. Still listening intently, he remembered how he’d bungled the job two years ago, when he was just eight. He was older now, and wiser – an expert in nocturnal maneuvers. One day he’d be a secret agent…
Tom awoke with a jolt and shivered. His bedclothes had made a bid for freedom, leaving just his pajamas to protect him. He grabbed his alarm clock, the luminous face teasing him with the time. Four o’clock am. Oh, flipping brilliant, he’d nodded off and been asleep for hours. But there was still time. He’d better move fast and silent, like that amazing ninja he’d seen on the telly.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, and ever so carefully stood up. Without a sound, he crept over to the door and removed his dressing gown from the door handle. Tom loved his dressing gown – it was fleecy and so cosy, especially good for a nippy night like this. Careful now, this was where it could all go horribly wrong. One false move and he’d wake the whole household. He reached out for the door handle, his arm rehearsing the exact distance he could open the door before it creaked. Slowly, slowly, he pulled the door open, slipped sideways through the gap, grabbed the outside handle and closed the door behind him with the tiniest click.
Heart beating, Tom stood on the dark landing for a few seconds, catching his breath. That was intense, his best ninja move ever. Satisfied he hadn’t woken his folks, he padded gently across the landing towards the stairs. The soft, soundless carpet beneath his feet, he allowed his mind to wander a little. He began thinking of the prize that awaited him at the end of his mission, remembering how wonderful his presents had looked under the tree last year. They’d gleamed in their shiny wrapping paper like treasure, begging him to squeeze them. He’d picked up the biggest first, giving it a gentle rock to hear and feel what was inside. It didn’t take a genius to realize it was the games console he’d wanted. The box had matched the dimensions of the one in the shop exactly – he should know, he’d examined the display case at the supermarket enough times while Mum spent an age at the deli counter. Tom felt a rush of panic. Had he dropped enough hints about the music player? Maybe she hadn’t noticed during her massive quest for breaded products and two-for-one deals on the way to the checkout. Maybe he hadn’t been clear enough about the colour of the headphones – oh no, what a disaster. His pace quickened as he reached the foot of the stairs.
An animal hiss erupted in his ears as he stepped into the hallway. Tom searched the gloom for the source of the din, dropping to his knees to peer under the sideboard. Wild eyes suddenly glared at him from the shadows there, along with more violent hissing. It was Fudge, the family cat. Whispering as loud as he dared, Tom told Fudge to be quiet. The animal shrank back beneath the sideboard with a final exasperated meow. The cat had almost been his undoing, but failure was not an option. He had to go and squeeze and prod at all the parcels bearing his name.
Downstairs was even chillier than his bedroom, cold seeping into the hallway through hidden nooks and crannies. Tom pulled his dressing gown tighter and snuck into the living room. It was pitch black inside, owing to Mum’s annoying habit of switching everything off and unplugging it every night, “to be on the safe side.” This often drove Dad to distraction; especially if he’d set the tellybox to record late night sports shows. An acrid metallic smell filled the room. What had they been wrapping in here? ‘Only one way to find out,’ thought Tom as he edged his way around the perimeter of the room, feeling along the cabinet, then the wall. Finally, he felt the Christmas tree as he brushed against it. Baubles clinked icily as he located the power cord and followed it, crawling across the floor to the power socket in the corner. He felt the cold metal pins in his hand and turning the plug right side up, inserted it into the wall. Something wet dripped on his hand just as he pressed the switch. Something heavy and slick slid across his head.
Tom scrabbled backwards in shock. Looking up, he saw the fairy lights twinkling. But they were red, not clear, as they had been earlier today and all last week since they’d decorated the tree. He stared, mouth agape, as he realized the lights weren’t red after all. Rather, it was what hung around them that gave them their crimson glow.
The Christmas tree was slicked with blood and covered in strands of flesh and hair. Mum’s hair, and his sister’s. He could pick out his Dad’s tattoo on a piece of bloodied skin that dangled above a bauble like a handkerchief. Drooping branches struggled beneath the weight of the innards scattered across them like red tinsel. Ruined organs steamed like butcher’s offal at the hot kiss of the lights. Eyeballs hung there like baubles. He could recognize some of the pieces – he’d seen them in the big pop-up anatomy book at school – a section of intestine here, a tangle of veins there.
Tom scrambled to his feet. Nausea hit him and he vomited stomach bile onto the living room rug. Turning fearfully around, he saw his family lying lifeless on the sofa like grotesque dolls. Their bodies had been torn apart. Flesh ravaged and ribcages exposed like the hulls of broken ships.
The room swam, and Tom sank to his knees, a dry scream dying in his throat.
Then, he saw them.
Cold eyes, watching him from the dark black of the fireplace.
One of Frazer’s early short stories received a Geoffrey Ashe Prize from the Library of Avalon, Glastonbury. His short fiction has since appeared in numerous anthologies including the acclaimed Read By Dawn series.
Also a screenwriter and filmmaker, Frazer’s movie credits include the award-winning short horror films On Edge, Red Lines, Simone, The Stay, and the critically acclaimed horror/thriller feature (and Amazon #1 movie novelization) Panic Button.
Frazer lectures in Creative Writing and Screenwriting at Brunel University London and Birkbeck, University of London. He resides with his family in leafy Buckinghamshire, England just across the cemetery from the actual Hammer House of Horror.
Meghan: Hi, Frazer. It is an HONOR having you here today. Tell us a little bit about yourself.
Frazer Lee: Hello! Thanks for hosting me, and I must say that I love Meghan’s House of Books ☺ Forgive me while I switch to third person for the ‘official author bio’…
Frazer Lee is a novelist, screenwriter, and filmmaker. His debut novel The Lamplighters was a Bram Stoker Award® Finalist for Best First Novel. Winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Gothic Filmmaker of the Year Award for The Stay, his film credits also include the acclaimed feature film Panic Button. Frazer resides with his family in Buckinghamshire, just across the cemetery from the real-life Hammer House of Horror.
Meghan: What are five things most people don’t know about you?
Frazer Lee:
I have a mysterious scar on my right hand.
An obsessive fan of The Cure, I have seen the band play like 38 times so far. (I know that isn’t very many, so I’m working on it.)
I was vegetarian for twenty-five years, but recently became pescatarian after recurring fever dreams involving flapping fish in an ocean storm.
My middle name is Alaric.
I am unable to converse until I am on my 2nd coffee. (I’m drinking my 2nd right now, luckily.)
Meghan: What is the first book you remember reading?
Frazer Lee: The Gauntlet by Ronald Welch, which transported me to a medieval world. Oh my goodness, what a book. I cried when I finished it because I didn’t want it to be over and I felt so bereft.
Meghan: What are you reading now?
Frazer Lee: I am studying for my PhD so I am neck deep in Ernst Cassirer’s Language and Myth. If you don’t hear from me in a day or two, send help.
Meghan: What’s a book you really enjoyed that others wouldn’t expect you to have liked?
Frazer Lee: Perhaps Miracles of Life by J.G. Ballard because it is rather on the sentimental side and my reputation as a hardened cynic goes before me?
Meghan: What made you decide you want to write? When did you begin writing?
Frazer Lee: I started writing stories in junior school because I lived in Staffordshire and needed to escape somewhere. (As Lou Reed and John Cale once sang, when you’re growing up in a small town, and you’re having a nervous breakdown, you just have to get out of there.) Reading, and writing, did exactly that. (Some of) my teachers encouraged me, and for that I am eternally grateful. I remember smiling when my school report said, “I look forward to Frazer’s first novel.” Took a while, but I got there in the end.
Meghan: Do you have a special place you like to write?
Frazer Lee: I like to write surrounded by trees, with my cat by my side, but I also like to write on the move, on trains, planes, in cafes, but never in automobiles – that’s too dangerous.
Meghan: Do you have any quirks or processes that you go through when you write?
Frazer Lee: I like to write to music without lyrics, and I enjoy playing physical CDs and vinyl, so I often go through a kind of stop-start-stop again dance when I’m finding the right groove in which to begin a book. I talk to myself A LOT. And that 2nd coffee thing I mentioned earlier also applies to the writing, more often than not.
Meghan: Is there anything about writing you find most challenging?
Frazer Lee: Nagging self-doubt can be a problem. That feeling that it’s not coming out quite how you’d hoped or imagined and what’s the point anyway? Like most things in life, it’s nothing that a stroll in the woods can’t sort out. Grit your teeth, roll the dice, come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough.
Meghan: What’s the most satisfying thing you’ve written so far?
Frazer Lee: I wrote a scenario about a grown man trapped in the skin of a young boy and he does this insanely disgusting thing with a big syringe and someone’s buttock fat… I don’t know if it was satisfying but it sure did make me cackle a lot writing it!
Meghan: What books have most inspired you? Who are some authors that have inspired your writing style?
Frazer Lee: My favourite novel of all time is still Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Bloody hell though, it has everything. Familial drama and tragedy, impossible highs and unfathomable lows, beautiful imagery that ties the whole experience together so memorably. And through it all, the terror of loving – and of losing. I think that mash-up of the Gothic and cutting edge science has had a long lasting effect on me. Perhaps it’s not surprising that I love J.G. Ballard’s writing so much as he continues that blend of new ideas/technology with the structure of a classic murder mystery or police procedural, but adds such a uniquely perverse dimension to proceedings that sometimes makes you feel grubby for just reading the book.
Meghan: What do you think makes a good story?
Frazer Lee: An idea. A character, her vividly rendered world, and a seemingly insurmountable problem.
Meghan: What does it take for you to love a character? How do you utilize that when creating your characters?
Frazer Lee: Cheesy as it may sound, there’s that sweet spot when they’re speaking to you as you write them. If I can feel how they feel, hopefully readers can feel that too. I’m attracted to deeply flawed characters. The deeper those flaws, the more interesting I find them. There are no sexual athletes and crack-shots in my stories, more likely a bunch of barely functioning failures. That’s not for everyone, I know. If you want shiny, try your luck at a casino. I’ll wait for you in the basement bar.
Meghan: Which, of all your characters, do you think is the most like you?
Frazer Lee: I doubt that I’m the best person to judge that, but maybe the Skin Mechanic? (I’m a dab hand with a flesh-comb too.)
Meghan: Are you turned off by a bad cover? To what degree were you involved in creating your book covers?
Frazer Lee: I’ve been lucky that I’ve rather enjoyed my book covers so far. My editors and publishers always involve me in the process with a questionnaire, where I get to drop heavy hints about things I’d like to see or un-see. They are never quite as you imagined them, though, and that’s all part of the fun I think.
Meghan: What have you learned creating your books?
Frazer Lee: I’ve learned that it’s good to have a level of attack, but that’s it’s also good to let the thing breathe a bit and to never kid yourself that you have all the answers.
Meghan: What has been the hardest scene for you to write so far?
Frazer Lee: That was a scene in The Jack in the Green because it’s based on something horrible that happened in my early childhood. I won’t go into the details because I’m having a pretty good day so far and I don’t really want to go there again… into the dark… not now anyhow, maybe later.
Meghan: What makes your books different from others out there in this genre?
Frazer Lee: I think that would be for the readers to decide. Maybe each and every book is unique in its combination of character and plot. You could give the same outline and character bios to two different writers and they would create completely different books. I’ve learned that one reader’s “different good” may be another reader’s “different bad” so there’s nothing to be gained from trying to guess which way it’s going to play. I think just be true to yourself, the character, the story and it’ll come out how it has to.
Meghan: How important is the book title, how hard is it to choose the best one, and how did you choose yours (of course, with no spoilers)?
Frazer Lee: The title is usually one of the easiest parts of the creative process for me. Occasionally, you might need a second opinion. I had a few different titles for Hearthstone Cottage and sent them over to my amazing editor Don D’Auria, and he resoundingly preferred the one that’s now on the book spine. And he was right, of course. He so often is (but don’t tell him that, whatever you do!)
Meghan: What makes you feel more fulfilled: Writing a novel or writing a short story?
Frazer Lee: A story well told is a story well told. How well, that’s always up for debate of course. It’s just a sense that the story is the best it can be at that given time, subject to deadlines, and any other constraints, before the story wriggles free of your grasp and you have to hand it over to readers. There is a sense of fulfillment to having gone through that process, and there’s no difference really in how that feels whether it’s a short story, or a novel, or a short film or a feature length movie screenplay, in my experience.
Meghan: Tell us a little bit about your books, your target audience, and what you would like readers to take away from your stories.
Frazer Lee: Each of my books does something a little different with the horror ingredients of isolation, confrontation, and transformation. My target audience is, honestly, anyone who will make the time to pick it up and give it a whirl. I’d like readers to take what they will from my tales, but as I write primarily in the horror genre, I do hope they take away some nightmares with them. You’re welcome.
Meghan: Can you tell us about some of the deleted scenes/stuff that got left out of your work?
Frazer Lee: I write to pretty detailed outlines, so there aren’t really deleted scenes as such. But anything tangential has to go, unless it works. The deleted bits are often the most uninteresting and expository asides about the minutiae of a character’s life, or their belief system (or lack of one). Hopefully what remains serves the character and their story and keeps the forward momentum going. Sometimes moments that are too gratuitously visceral or violent get edited out in favour of what you don’t get to see, because that’s often far more disturbing and scary.
Meghan: What can we expect from you in the future?
Frazer Lee: I am working on a new horror novel for Flame Tree Press called Greyfriars Reformatory. It’s a haunted institution story with a post-modern twist. I have a script doctor commission on a movie screenplay that I’m contractually not allowed to talk about. And I’m developing another film project or two for my sins, which are legion.
Meghan: Do you have any closing words for your fans or anything you’d like to say that we didn’t get to cover in this interview?
Frazer Lee: Hee, I find the concept that I would have ‘fans’ ludicrous…
I would just like to thank you again for hosting me on the blog today, and to say to anyone who has ever read my stories or watched my films, thank you for taking the time and I hope to see you again soon in your nightmares!
One of Frazer’s early short stories received a Geoffrey Ashe Prize from the Library of Avalon, Glastonbury. His short fiction has since appeared in numerous anthologies including the acclaimed Read By Dawn series.
Also a screenwriter and filmmaker, Frazer’s movie credits include the award-winning short horror films On Edge, Red Lines, Simone, The Stay, and the critically acclaimed horror/thriller feature (and Amazon #1 movie novelization) Panic Button.
Frazer lectures in Creative Writing and Screenwriting at Brunel University London and Birkbeck, University of London. He resides with his family in leafy Buckinghamshire, England just across the cemetery from the actual Hammer House of Horror.
Mike Carter and his girlfriend Helen, along with their friends Alex and Kay, travel to a remote loch side cottage for a post-graduation holiday. But their celebrations are short-lived when they hit and kill a stag on the road. Alex’s sister Meggie awaits them in the cottage, adding to the tension when her dog, Oscar, goes missing. Mike becomes haunted by a disturbing presence in the cottage, and is hunted by threatening figures in the highland fog. Reeling from a shock revelation, Mike begins to lose his grip on his sanity. As the dark secrets of the past conspire to destroy the bonds of friendship, Mike must uncover the terrifying truth dwelling within the walls of Hearthstone Cottage.
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