Thursday 14 March 2019

AUTHOR FAVOURITES: VAMPIRE SIEGE AT RIO MUERTO by JOHN WHALEN


Alongside film reviewing John Whalen (writing as John M. Whalen) is the author of ‘hybrid’ novels where the western meets the future, or the cowboy hero is just as likely to encounter vampires or monsters as regular bad guys.

One of his favourites of his own novels is VAMPIRE SIEGE AT RIO MUERTO.

John tells me bounty hunter Mordecai Slate is modelled on the characters LEE VAN CLEEF played in movies like FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE. Except, as Mordecai states: ‘Hunting monsters is my business.’


A New Mexican ranchero hires Slate to track down the vampire who ravished his daughter. Don Pedro Sanchez wants Kord Manion brought back alive, so he can drive in the stake himself.

Slate captures his prey and comes up with an unusual way to transport him back to Sanchez. Kord’s brother, Dax, and his gang of vampire outlaws pursue. During the chase, Slate rescues a girl and has to get her out of harm’s way.

The climax in a desert ghost town, Rio Muerto, is like THE WILD BUNCH with the addition of vampires!


WILLIAM HOLDEN in ‘The Wild Bunch’ (1969)

Vampires turn up out west as early as 1959 in CURSE OF THE UNDEAD.



‘Curse of the Undead’ (1959)

The Gorch Brothers of ‘Wild Bunch’ fame re-surface as vampires on TV in the ‘BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER’ episode ‘Bad Eggs.’




A ghost town shoot-out reminded me of western movies YELLOW SKY (1948)




and THE LAW AND JAKE WADE (1958)


RICHARD WIDMARK in ‘The Law and Jake Wade

And aliens (spiders this time) also assault a ghost town in the classic ‘OUTER LIMITS’ episode ‘The Zanti Misfits.’





Reviews of RIO MUERTO:

‘As weird westerns go, this one is an instant classic…. If you're a fan of spaghetti westerns or Hammer horror films, this book is for you.’
‘A dandy yarn, a Western-horror mashup that could shoulder up to Stephen King and Louis L’Amour with equal comfort, and yet maintain stature as a creature all its own… Whalen doesn’t drop the reins of either genre: There are gunfights and fangs, wagons and coffins, townfolk and bloody necks, and one fast-paced tale that doesn’t turn in directions the reader might expect.’
‘A rip-roaring tale to be sure and - as usual - something more. …the author achieves yet a new pinnacle of genre-bending suspense…his cagey knack for fleshing out characters that may at first seem cliche is especially notable…. the novel rolls out like a particularly gripping film.'
Find it here:

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