Tag Archives: evil influence

Amy Beckett Says… [1993]

M&J, , , ,
  • Amy Beckett Says… –  M&J:  #104 (8 May 1993) – #112 (10 July 1993)
  • Artist: Guy Peeters

Plot

After a bulldozer accidentally knocks against the the old entrance archway of the school, friends Fay Davis and Karen Green, notice some strange things happening. Fay feels an eerie chill when passing the entrance way and then some younger school kids start singing a skipping rhyme “Amy Beckett, now she’s free says come on girls and dance with me!”. A prefect, Jane, clears the young girls for making too much noise, later that day their skipping song changes to “Amy Beckett sees it all. Watch out when the oak leaves fall!”.  Fay and Karen don’t think the words make much sense as all the Autumn leaves have already fallen. Then Jane has a lucky escape when Fay saves her from a falling stone. Jane is clearly shaken, but the girls reason that it most have come loose when the bulldozer knocked against it. Fay notices a pattern of oak leaves on the stone, they put it down to a strange coincidence, though they don’t hear the girls now singing “Amy Beckett see it all and she KNEW the leaves would fall!”

The next day after a workman tells the skipping girls to move out of the way, the rhyme changes again, referencing the classic ‘ring-a-ring o’ roses’ nursery song. Fay, who still thinks something strange is going on, is worried when the workmen are planting a rose garden, that the rhyme is referencing it but is temporarily placated when nothing bad happens. She later realises when a builder sneezes and causes some bricks from a pulley to fall down injuring a workman, that she was right something bad would happen just not right in what the song referenced. Karen has also come around to the idea that the girls singing is a threat. Fay and Karen decide to talk to one the young girls they know, Annie, but she claims she doesn’t know any skipping rhymes. Karen theorises the girls are in some kind of trance while singing and don’t remember anything. But their questions have made them targets, the skipping girls surround them singing them to sleep and  in their dreams the ghost of Amy Beckett appears warning them not to interfere.

The girls are not deterred and decide to find out who Amy Beckett was, but when they try to look things up in the library, the reference cards start flying everywhere. They do manage to get a lead on some local history books that may be of use and the librarian tells them they are out on loan to an ex-teacher of their school. The skipping girls are keeping a watch on Fay and Karen, and when they try to go to Mrs Wilkins the next day, they are surrounded by fog, eventually they get to her house. Mrs Wilkins says she is writing a book about the school and shows them her notes, but the notes just repeat the same rhyme “Amy Beckett, now she’s free says come on girls and dance with me!”.  Then her granddaughter arrives it is one of the skipping girls, they find themselves surrounded as they sing “Amy says What is the fuss? Mrs Wilkins is with us!”. As the girls get away from the house, they have some luck when they find the history books in the rubbish bin outside.

At a cafe, when reading though the books Fay comes across a story about a tragedy at the school, but then it appears the book goes on fire. She douses it in water, but Karen didn’t see any flames. The cafe owner accuses them of vandalism and says she will return the books to library herself. We start to get hints of what could of happened to Amy, through the illusions and new rhymes. The girls sing “Everybody in this town says Amy Beckett burns things down!” then at the school the girls see flames they can’t be sure if its another illusion and sound the fire alarm. Annie has set them up to be caught by a teacher as there isn’t a fire. They are given detention to write ten thousand lines saying “Amy Beckett never was bad. But no-one believes her isn’t that sad?”. The lines are magically done, and they are told to give the sheets around the town. Mrs Wilkins is upset by the sheets, claiming it is all lies.More illusions show a newspaper saying “Amy Beckett is innocent” and fire caused by other girl before changing back to normal headline. We are given more information when the skipping girls new rhyme is “Amy didn’t start the fire  – Enid Armstrong is the liar”

Determined to get to the truth, Karen asks her dad who works for local newspaper if they can look at their records. While driving to office, Amy Beckett beckons Mrs Wilkins to step out in front of car, luckily  Mr Green stops just in time, he takes Mrs Wilkins home while Fay and Karen go on to the office. While they aren’t having luck finding information on fire, Karen finds an interesting wedding notice for local teacher Enid Armstrong marrying Ken Willkins. The girls figure out through what they heard in the rhymes and what they  saw on the fake newspaper that Mrs Wilkins was responsible for the fire and now Amy is out for revenge. The girls track down Mrs Wilkins but Amy has got to her first, hypnotising her and leading her to top of the school roof. Amy is about to get Mrs Wilkins to walk off the roof, but at last second has a change of mind and stops her and lets her go free. Mrs Wilkins confesses to starting the fire and blaming Amy who had died saving her. With the truth out the new school extension is named after Amy, to honour her and her ghost can now be at peace.

Thoughts

This was an effective creepy ghost story, the young girls skipping chant makes for an unsettling atmosphere, that sticks in your mind. While the story starts off, with Amy Beckett seeming to have no purpose but to cause trouble, later we find out more about her tragedy. As a ghost she seems quite conflicted, she wants revenge on Mrs Wilkins and wants to stop the girls investigating, but she also wants the truth to be known. At first she is an angry spirit, causing potentially deadly accidents to the prefect and workman for trying to stop the skipping girls, but she just warns off Fay and Karen and later only tries to cause the true fire culprit, Mrs Wilkins, harm. She tries to stop Fay and Karen in their research but then also starts to show them what happened by the false newspaper headline and tries to spread the truth by getting them to pass out papers saying she wasn’t bad. She comes close to taking full revenge on Mrs Wilkins, but as we know in life  Amy was a heroic person, it seems as a ghost she still has some of those qualities in her and can’t bring herself to go through with it. Which is good as she finds the truth is what sets her free not revenge.

While the girls own investigations are often disrupted like in the library and cafe, their biggest clues come from the rhymes and illusions that Amy shows them. It’s interesting that the biggest revelation they find themselves is not about a fire but a wedding notice. I thought that was a nice twist, rather than finding an article detailing a fire that we could figure out from what had happened from what been shown in the story but instead tying the importance of Mrs Wilkins to Amy’s revenge plot. Up to this point Mrs Wilkins could have just been targeted just because she was writing a book about the school, but we learn it is much worse. She started the fire, although we are not given a reason or whether it was on purpose or an accident, Mrs Wilkins was worried about getting in trouble and then blamed the girl who had died saving her. We don’t know what the consequences for her will be, but if she felt guilt over the years maybe now her conscience can be put to rest as well.

The other thing I noticed on this read is perhaps a sneaky reference to another ghost story The Shining where  in the film Jack’s draft of his book repeats the old proverb “All Work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” in this Mrs Wilkins notes repeat the Amy Beckett rhyme. While there have been other evil influence ghost stories, I do find the repeating rhymes, the mystery and that Amy Beckett wasn’t all evil makes it stand out from some others. It is a good read for Halloween and the resolution of the story, with the truth finally coming to light and Amy finding peace, was satisfying.

 

Ted Loves Tina

Judy,

Plot

Tina Marshall’s parents were angry with her, when se spent her birthday money on a battered old teddy bear – one of a pair which she saw at a market stall. Tina had felt a sudden impulse to buy the teddy, it seemed to have a voice box that said “Ted Loves Tina”. Strange things continue to happen after this.

Notes

Appeared

  • Ted Loves Tina – Judy: #1607 (27 October 1990) – #1622 (9 February 1991)

Jinty: A Spell of Trouble

Treasury of British Comics, , ,

Instead of a Misty Halloween offering this year, the Treasury of British Comics have dived into Jinty’s archive, to reprint 2 stories – A Spell of Trouble and Creepy Crawley, the latter getting the cover name. This also gives the opportunity to highlight the wonderful work of Trini Tinturé, with a special hardback cover with original art by Tinturé also offered on the Treasury of British Comics shop website.

Although both stories are about even in length, each taking up half the book, it is strangely only A Spell of Trouble that is highlighted both on the cover and the description on the back, whereas Creepy Crawley gets just a one sentence mention at the bottom of the description. Both stories start with a popular and accomplished girl at school, but after that they diverge completely. In the comedic A Spell of Trouble, Carrie Black has used her witchy powers to stay top of the class, then a distant cousin, Angela White, comes to live with the Blacks and Carrie’s easy life turns into a mess! Angela is full of good intentions but is also clumsy and has no interest in becoming a witch. This becomes a bigger problem when their Witch’s Coven say if she doesn’t become a witch then they will take the Blacks’ powers away. While Carrie and her family have never had to work hard to earn anything, and they do some questionable things to try and get rid of Angela, they are not evil witches, and we can sympathise with their frustrations when Angela keeps messing things up. It’s a very fun story, a highlight for me is the hijinks caused by  a bodyswitching plan, throughout the story there’s lots of laughs to be have, and Tinturé does great job displaying the witciness and comedic elements, so it’s easy to see why this is the  highlighted story for the collection.

In Creepy Crawley, Jean Crawley becomes jealous of new girl Mandy who outdoes her at everything. When she gets an old scarab brooch from a shop closing down, she finds she can use to get rid of her rival. The brooch has a particular power over insects, but when Carrie wants to stop her vendetta, the brooch can’t be gotten rid of and its influence turns her more cruel. Only a timid girl Sheila begins to suspect the truth in time and tries to stop her.  A step further than other evil influence stories, the scarab has a bigger agenda in hand – a complete insect takeover of the world. Again the art and some of the more complex story beats puts this story above other similar stories.

The book itself is only 80 pages, there is no additional features just the two stories back to back. It would have been a nice opportunity to talk more about  Trini Tinturé (like some of the artists in the Misty collection have got), but she gets a short paragraph in the back. While Rebellion do always try to deliver high quality books, it is clear sometimes they are hampered by not always having the original artwork. This means some pages aren’t as clean and crisp as they should be. For the most part this doesn’t take from the story, but there is particular page from Creepy Crawley, that it is more noticeable than others. These are minor complaints though as the book is still of good quality and the stories and art are of a high standard, an excellent read.

It is also reasonably priced, The Treasury of British Comics website offers a few different options for purchase, starting at only £9.99 for digital edition, the paperback is £14.99 and the special edition hard back is £24.99  https://shop.treasuryofbritishcomics.com/catalogue/RCA-G0016

There is also currently a sale on until December so a perfect opportunity to pick up some older releases if you haven’t already, you could pick up other Jinty books like Concrete Surfer for just £4.99 or Fran of the Floods for £7.79 or just look through their growing collection to see what catches your interest.

 

Terror of the Tennis Courts

Judy, ,

Plot

Young Tennis Star Leila Broome had been compared to her dead stepmother, Alma Drew who had been a tennis champion and called the smiling star because she was so pleasant. Then outbreaks of vandalism during tournaments that Leila took part start happening, that upset Leila off the court as well and her fathers apparent hatred for the game made matters worse. Leila’s best friend Lynne, suspected a silver charm once belonging to Alma that Leila had started wearing, was having a strange effect on her. Some further investigation finds that Alma was not as sweet as everyone thought.

Notes

Appeared

  • Terror of the Tennis Courts – Judy: #855 (29 May 1976) – #865 (7 August 1976)

Last of the Cheviots

Judy,

Plot

Cassy Lee a young gipsy was the double of Lisa Cheviot who had drowned in an accident. Lisa’s grandfather Lucas refused to accept she was dead and relatives of his, Liz and Bernie Fraser, persuaded Cassy to take Lisa place telling her and the servants that it was for Lucas’ peace of mind. But Cassy soon found out the Frasers were after his money and  she also discovered a portrait of Lady Mildred one of the Cheviots ancestors had an evil power over her and was using her to try and destroy the House of Cheviot.

Notes

Appeared

  • Last of the Cheviots – Judy: #855 (29 May 1976) – #864 (31 July 1976)

Dark Days at Torloch Towers [1977]

Spellbound, ,
  • Dark Days at Torloch Towers – Spellbound: #35 (21 May 1977) – #41 (02 July 1977)
  • Artist: Juan Sarompas (thanks to David Roach for confirming)

Plot

At the secluded boarding school, Torloch Tower, a new science teacher, Miss Ray is preparing  a special experiment with her class. They leave the solution for over night but friends Gail Thomson and Pat Moore return to the lab late to collect something Gail forgot. They can’t get in to the locked room but see in the window a strange black cloud forming from the solution and escaping through the key hole. Suddenly the girls start bickering, they return to dorm room still angry but the next morning they feel bad about the fight. They go back to the lab to investigate and find the room trashed. Their friend Faye is watching them, when a strange black bird appears in front of her, she becomes spiteful and tells the headmistress about the girls being outside when they shouldn’t be. Gail and Pat get called to the head’s office and already Faye is regretting her actions and is there too asking the headmistress to forget what she said, they all get punishment for their actions. Faye thinks the other girls won’t be friends with her anymore but because of their experience they believe her that something evil and strange came over her.

Gail and Pat are showing Faye the lab when Miss Ray appears. The normally understanding teacher,  accuses them of wrecking the lab, then girls notice the dark  shape nearby that then dives into lake. The evil influence doesn’t last too long at least and Miss Ray apologies to girls. The cloud now in the form of a fish causes two other students attack another swimmer. It leaves the water turning into a lizard. Gail, Pat and Faye wonder what they can do to stop the creature especially as it can change shapes, but they know they must try to stop its nasty influence. Later Gail and Pat see the cloud in its original form again, it is moving slower and they observe it feeding off ink and becoming stronger and faster again.

Revitalized the shape makes Joan the captain at the hockey match want to win game at all costs.  She gets sent off for foul play on other team. Then the cloud takes shape of a cat and causes the real school cat to attack Pat. Later, surprisingly the Cloud stops at prize day notice and looks like it is reading it. It then turns into a question mark, and the girls can’t make sense of what it is planning. The parents arrive for prize giving and the Headmistress is influenced to say insulting things at the ceremony, Pat pulls fire alarm to stop the speech. Gail and Pat discuss if the parents take action on what the Head said their could be real trouble and they need to destroy the thing before it destroys the school (incidentally the parents don’t complain it seems because it is never mentioned again). The girls consider talking to Miss Ray for help, but she has taken some leave to visit her mother. Pat gets idea to kill the “pest” with fly killer but it only makes it angrier. While cleaning up spilled ink they then think they should use ink remover on the thing, they lure it in with some ink to feed on and the pour the ink remover over it. The thing is completely destroyed, the nightmare is over and the girls are happy to forget about it and enjoy the rest of the school term.

Thoughts

This story has great art, from the impressive school and its location to the menacing cloud, also the layouts and composition are really good. This elevates the story a lot, the mysterious shape that can change into  animals (and a   question mark) makes for a very creepy opponent, and the art captures that and the girl’s terror perfectly. The three main characters all are given their own personalities, Pat being the most proactive, Faye being nervy and Gail being the more calm supportive one.  We don’t know what motivates the shape but it is interesting rather than many other evil influence stories, it doesn’t latch onto one person, and neither is its effects long lasting. This give the girls a better chance of defeating it. They are smart enough observe the creature, then come up with a solution from what they have seen.

The story does leave a lot of unanswered questions, from the beginning it was so vague what experiment the class were doing, I thought that Miss Ray was behind it, (it wouldn’t be the first time a nice new teacher wasn’t what they seemed). So how the cloud/shape was created was unclear and also what it’s ultimate goal was. The girls are surprised when it seems to read the noticeboard, showing it has some intelligence, perhaps it particularly wanted to stir up jealousy as the swimmer, hockey and prize giving instances were all related to people being better at something than others. Whatever the reason, it is quickly defeated in the last episode and the girls are happy to just forget about it, which is a bit of an anti climatic ending.

 

 

The Hateful Hands of Heather Smith [1979]

Judy, Tracy, , ,
  • The Hateful Hands of Heather Smith – Tracy: #01 (06 Oct. 1979) – #13 (29 Dec. 1979)
  • Reprinted – Judy:  #1523 (18 March 1989) – #1535 (10 June 1989)

Plot

On a school trip to Cumner Castle, a guide tells the story of the Cumner tyrants, who locked a witch, Elfrida, in a dungeon and left her to starve and die. Her hand-prints are left on the wall from where she clawed trying to reach the window,and the guide says she left a curse “let mortals beware the evil in my hands”.  Jane thinks the story is rubbish but her friend Heather Smith points out the marks on the wall and that her hands fits on them, not knowing that she has now brought the curse upon herself. She soon finds out how real the curse is as later she her hands nearly pushes Jane off the castle roof! (Luckily Jane obliviously moves out of way in time).

Soon whenever the hands wants revenge, no matter how small the infraction, Heather hears the witch’s voice in her head and she can’t control her hands. Like cutting her friend’s hair as she thinks she has been excluded from a party that her friend was invited to or being mean to her young cousin by taking his bear. The hands even hurt Heather when she tries to resist them, like when she tries to post  a card to her relative from their Gran, the hands pinch her until she takes the money and throws the card away. While it causes trouble for her it seems no-one else notices, and they always end up blaming something else. When her cousin doesn’t receive the card, he assumes it got lost in the post and not to upset his Gran he thanks her for the card. When her hands ruin a mural painted by a classmate, Sharon, the hands block her from speaking out and Sharon gets in trouble. At a carnival she is going to take a peg up and collapse a tent, the vicar comes along and thinks she is helping to fix it.

At the same carnival she meets a fortune teller, the woman senses the evil in Heather’s hand and refuses to give her fortune. The more Heather tries to resit the more violent the hands are to her,  when she tries to resist ruining competitor’s  cake at school her hand takes a rolling pin to her other hand. The hands then wants her to push an old woman down a hill in her wheelchair but luckily a neighbour Jim comes by and offers to help with the wheelchair. After a few more incidents, she happens upon an old shop that has a book “Legends of Castle Cumner” and she wonders if it contains a way to break the curse. She goes in to buy the book but the hands of course want to destroy it,she manages to handcuff herself and asks Mr Adams, the shop owner to read anything about the curse. He tells her of a girl a hundred years previously who had been cursed too. A wise woman told her to crush garlic in her hands, place her hands in the prints again and to say “I take back what is mine. No longer shall my hands be your slaves!” Heather follows this advice an is at last freed from the curse.

Thoughts

It’s Halloween time again, so perfect time to look at a story about a witch’s curse (there are plenty to choose from!) and some body horror. As with many of these stories an innocent happenstance causes the protagonist to be cursed and fall under an evil influence which then causes trouble. A big difference to other stories is usually people around the protagonist would notice the change or she would lose all her friends. Not the case here, the evil hands do cause trouble and Heather distress, but  no one else notices  or if they do they always blame something else. Occasionally people get annoyed but for the most part Heather is deemed such a good person it doesn’t cross their mind that she would do something malicious, like when the vicar catches her with the tent peg at carnival, he assumes someone else loosened it and Heather was fixing it.

Some of the story’s logic is inconsistent like most times she is aware of what her hands are doing and tries to stop them but other times she is taken over completely and  doesn’t remember what she did.  Being aware of what she is doing but not being able to stop it, is more interesting dilemma in this case, there are some intense scenes like when she beats her own hand with rolling pin. There have been many horror films with possessed hands, although often they were severed already, and many of those films came after this story. Two that come to mind is The Evil Dead II (1987) and Idle Hands (1999), where the protagonists hand become possessed and attacks people, in both these films the protagonist had to cut their hand off and kill it. Heather luckily was able to break the possession without these extreme methods!

In the end things are wrapped up too quickly as she just happens upon a history book with the answer to her problems (although I did like her quick thinking of handcuffing herself). The witch, Elfrida although vengeful, I can feel sympathy to her at the start, as she suffered a terrible fate and those that locked her up were terrible people. But her vengefulness comes across as petty while  controlling Heather, she is not on a quest to punish the Cumner ancestors or people like them, instead she makes Heather act out when someone bests Heather at cooking  or even for no reason at all, like when she makes her release Mrs Dickson’s bird. But maybe that’s the point, after all they are “hateful hands” they don’t need any more motive than that.

 

 

 

Mona in the Village of Fear [1966]

Bunty, ,

Plot

Mona Masters, a master magician, is summoned by her friend Anita to the village of Wishpool. Wishpool is in the grip of Father Frobisher, financially and economically, apparently because he is able to control the weather, crops and fortunes of the farmers. The villagers are terrified of him and will not do anything without his permission.

Notes

  • Artist: Peter Kay

Appeared

  • Mona in the Village of Fear – Bunty: #458 (22 October 1966) – (?)

Charm of Evil

Tracy, , ,

Plot

Twelve year old Jane Lake and her younger sister Katie, were taken to Skerry Holt’s Children Home after their parents’ sudden death. Katie found a charm in the garden and it was the exact replica of Skerry Holt. She put it on her bracelet without telling Jane. The charm had an evil influence over Katie, but Jane thought  grief was the cause of her bad behaviour and she kept getting in trouble trying to cover for her sister.

Notes

Appeared

  • Charm of Evil  – Tracy: #176 (12 February 1983) – #183 (2 April 1983)