Ancient Images [Reprint]

by Ramsey Campbell

reprint published by Flame Tree Press

reprint publication date: February, 2023

304 pages

Originally published in the 1980s, this early novel by Ramsey Campbell revisits one of the author’s interests as a film critic for the BBC. In Ancient Images, Graham, a film historian, finds a copy of “Tower of Fear”, which was thought lost, but which causes his death. He describes the film thus:

“The Victorian ghost story it was based on seems to have disappeared, and the film was being condemned even before it was released. […] I’ve got a feeling this one particularly upset some people in high places.”

This film, starring the legendary Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, apparently reveals a secret that some people want to keep hidden. The friend of the recently deceased Graham, Sandy Allan, decides to search for answers to her friend’s apparent suicide and the tape that was stolen from his flat. At first, Sandy believes that the “cursed” tape somehow caused her friend’s death, but she gradually becomes convinced that he was murdered. Her research about the film takes her to Redfield, a town almost cut off from modernity and which was the location where the story was filmed. Sandy contacts some people involved in the filming, but they all want nothing to do with it and have no intention of remembering ever having worked on it. Soon, the reader realizes that the film is not the killer per se as in The Ring saga, but that it is the film that reveals events that happened in Redfield and that there are people who want this to never come out.

Surely, at the time this novel was published — during a time when the British government censored or outright banned violent films called “video nasties” — having a horror film as the object of interest was more appealing then than it is now, considering modern films can be even bloodier than a Lugosi or Karloff soft film. While Ramsay manages to keep us curious about the plot of this imaginary film and the secrets it reveals, Sandy’s journey feels tedious and the chapters where nothing happens become tiresome after several pages. We read Sandy going from place to place, chatting with her new boyfriend, having doubts about whether someone is following her, chatting with her co-workers, etc. It isn’t until the last third of the story that we start to see some movement, but even the dénouement feels tamed. It is certainly not a gore novel, nor is it a horror novel in the strictest sense, as there is no suspense despite the fact that something or someone caused the death of the protagonist’s friend. There are hints of something dangerous but nothing happens until the final moments, and when it does, it is not at all surprising. While not a poorly written novel, its plot is wasted in unnecessary dialogue and chapters, as well as in its anticlimactic resolution. A slow-burn mystery, for sure, but maybe one too slow. ~