The Folly by David Anne
Originally published in 1978 by WH Allen and then republished by Corgi in 1980.
Well, we have had human-eating Rats and Crabs, so why not Rabbits? Night of the Peter Rabbit or Watership Down- The Flesheaters.
To be honest, Watership Down is a pretty horrific book and the animation is even more terrifying. Why not throw in some science experiments gone wrong and what we have here is a very different version!
So, the tagline from the back:
“FOR CENTURIES MAN HAS MANIPULATED THE FORCES OF NATURE WITH LITTLE THOUGHT FOR THE ENVIRONMENT OR THE SUFFERING OF THE ANIMALS SO RUTHLESSLY EXPLOITED.. BUT SOMETIMES NATURE CAN TAKE HER REVENGE!
The peace of the quiet English country village of Frickley, situated a few miles from the Government Research Station of Porton Down is abruptly shattered by a series of inexplicable, violent deaths. The victims are so badly mutilated as to be unidentifiable.
Among the dead are the parents of Guy Corling. Propelled by both personal and professional feelings, Guy starts to uncover the grotesque story of one man’s folly — leading him on a trail of death and terror until the final, hair-raising denouement.”
This could have been a fairly typical “Nature Attacks” novel but it has a few twists and turns towards the finale that take it to another level. It’s also a spectacularly gory one. It goes into great detail when flesh hair and genitals are ripped and torn away.
Set in the parochial village of Frickley, reporter Guy Corling returns home after the death of his parents. They died in such a bad way, that the local police won’t let him see the bodies.
The Folly of the book title is a solid tower 100 feet high, built by Sir Norman ‘Norman the mad’ Hattrell, great-grandfather of Frickley Manor’s current landlord, Sir Mark. The legend of ‘Norman the Mad,’ a suspected black magician and wife-murderer who drank himself to death, still hangs over the village like a bad smell, and from the 1950s onward many swear to have seen a ‘yellow figure’ hovering over the long grass surrounding his tower.
As the bodies pile up, Guy delves into the strange deaths with the help of Vince, an old gamekeeper who has seen the mutant rabbits, meeting old friend Lord Mark Hatterell who may be tied in with the mystery. Guy hates his former friend Sir Mark because, off the back of a dirty trick, the aristocrat stole the love of his life and reduced her to a pathetic junkie dead long before her time. He then seduces Hattrell’s second wife, Lady Anne, only to realise that he does love her and the feeling is mutual. The pair have been lovers ever since though Anne still plays the part of devoted wife to prevent a scandal.
All clues lead back to the research facility near the village, so Guy begins investigating the suspicious Porton Down scientist, James Webber. He learns that Webber specializes in “animal virus work… notably the myxoma virus in rabbits.” From there, the story veers into classic mad-scientist territory, complete with a mutant monster, a damsel-in-distress, and a Mexican standoff — culminating in nature enacting its final revenge. The climactic monster is brilliantly crafted.
This is a clone of Herberts Rats, cashing in on the creature attack craze that followed the novel’s success. It’s a classic British exploitative horror that we have come to love and cherish. Yes, parts of it are a bit meandering and the characterizations are a bit thin on the ground, but as a wonderful slice of pulp trash horror, it hits all the right marks for me.
Well worth a read.
On a side note, my corgi version has the worst cover of a horror novel I have ever seen. I have no idea what they were thinking unless it was just a rush to publish. A photo of a sunset with the tagline “There is no horror in nature worse than man itself”. I almost passed it by on the shelves as a Romance novel until I read the tagline. The original cover with the freaky-looking rabbit is much better, but almost impossible to get hold of.
