Thank you, Flame Tree Press and NetGalley, for the chance to read and review Ramsey Campbell's 'Ancient Images.'

This is a reissue of a late 80's Ramsey Campbell novel. It reads like that - in a good way.

The narrative is straightforward search for a mythical lost Lugosi/Karloff film trails death, horror, and mystery behind it.

It reminded me just how much of fun and complexity and possibilities that mobile phones and the internet have taken out of crime and horror novels. The main character here spends days and weeks zipping around London and the midlands of England search for clues and people that would've taken 10 minutes on Google. Whole segments of the story hang on the fact that she can't get people on the phone. Story arcs like that can only happen these days if a character is in a convenient no signal area or there's an apocalyptic power and communications outage!

The interactions between characters reek of the misogyny and classism that was rife into the 80s. Again, although they still exist nowadays, it would be impossible to take a novel seriously with those clear themes in 2023.

The only criticism I had is the number of times the main character disregarded the evidence of her eyes, ears, and smell. Too often something was seen out of the corner of her eye or looked like a dog.

What I love about 'Ancient Images' is Campbell's signature folk horror themes combined with 20th century technology - film, cars, phones, etc.

Great fun and very enjoyable - much credit to Flame Tree Press for the ongoing reissues. Ramsay Campbell deserves to be accessible to a new generation of readers.

When a film historian dies after supposedly locating a copy of a mythical film starring Karloff and Lugosi, his friend, Sandy, sets about finding the film and proving her friend wasn’t mad. But no one wants to talk about it because they think the film was cursed as numerous crew members, including the director, died. Investigating rumours and hints and wading through an ever-increasing body count, Sandy discovers the film could be in the hands of a wealthy, titled family who lives in a perfect paradise of farm fertility and financial security. Can Sandy uncover the film’s secret and that of the family, protecting it before anyone else is killed?
Ancient Images is a re-release of a book originally released in 1989, which is important contextual information for placing this book in time and attitude. I didn’t have this information when I started reading, so the homophobic and casual sexism towards women caught me off-guard. Once I was armed with the original release date knowledge, I enjoyed the story more. It is a story of it’s time, capturing the attitudes of a moment and showing how far we’ve come, or haven’t, in our understanding of people different to ourselves.
Ancient Images is a tour of the horror scene in the late 80s, the fans and detractors, the snobbery within the film critic community, and the underhand tactics used by the press to get a story. The story is based on a horror film that has mythical status starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. The film had such bad luck on set and upset so many people that it was never released, and all the copies were hidden. Sandy’s friend, Graham, is a film historian who has made it his life’s mission to find this film; only once he does, he falls from a rooftop and dies. Sandy feels there’s more to Graham’s death than suicide and sets out to find the film.
I found the pacing quite slow, and some elements didn’t make sense until the end; however, Ramsay Campbell is a master storyteller, so I entrusted myself to his narrative and wasn’t disappointed. The gradual build of tension and suspense gave way to Once I had finished Ancient Images, the more I thought about it, the more I realised how everything was connected. From the graphic opening scene to the travelling community known as Enoch’s Army, it all served a purpose within the narrative, and I appreciated the tightness of the storytelling. There was no unnecessary padding (well, perhaps we could have done without the sex scene, but it isn’t very long, so we’ll gloss over that), and every character served a purpose, even if they were a red herring.
This is not the first re-issue of Ancient Images, and it is easy to understand why. With tight storytelling and a wealth of interesting characters, it is bound to find fans with a new audience.

Good for people who like films, especially older films, and mysteries. The writing is pretty dry and it's very slow, and I found the characters somewhat flat. Pretty progressive toward LGBT+ characters despite being originally written in 1989. Would call it more of a mystery than a horror, although I could not finish before any horror happened. Definitely a slow burn.

I feel a bit of shame for having not read this in the decades since it’s first publishing. Thanks to NetGalley, I had the opportunity to indulge in it for the republishing.

I love the chokehold beginning that eases into a slow burn. Even as a sucker for a slow burn, I did have a few moments of impatience. That being said, I still wouldn’t refer to it as a book that in itself is slow nor is it boring.

I would have loved to be a bit more invested in the characters, but I definitely latched onto the settings and plot of Ancient Images. Some areas of the story had me reminiscing about our less tech heavy times, and others had me excited about the references along with the hunt for the most obscure, banned or questionable (back then) movies.

Does it age well? Absolutely! It may not be 100% relatable to all, but it’s like a time capsule and if every republishing took the road of modernization, we’d never know the roots of the arts…or ourselves for that matter. While I’d be curious to see how all would have played out with modern resources, the state of society and lack of accessibility are (in my opinion) relevant to the plot.

Campbell is a beast when it comes to providing vivid imagery and making the reader uneasy…all accomplished without the shock value fluff. It’s refreshing to read a story that can carry its own without a sprinkle of jump scare gore every few pages. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy those too (when they don’t feel like plots picked out of a hat), but I love substance, eeriness and build up.

Ramsey Campbell's work is not my usual genre however I have always wanted to read his work as he's a local author to me. I will start by saying this book was originally published in 1989 and it does feel very dated at times. Sometimes this works, the old style phoning system, no mobile phones, and no internet has a wonderful classic feel similar to the movies it's describing. The cats being called Bogart and Bacall was a brilliant touch. The world of homophobia is rife at the start of the book which didn't sit well with me as a modern reader. The timings of the book were also off, it took a very long time to get going before there was the finale which felt almost rushed. The reading style also took some getting used to for me before I began to enjoy it. I did have to go back and reread a passage as I had lost the trail of the narrative. I think this was more my reading method than the author. Overall an okay book but not one of the best. I would however like to read more of the author's later work.

~ 3.75✰ rounded to 4✰ ~

I had a really fun time with this book! This is my first Ramsey Campbell read, and it's gotten me excited to check out more of his work. He did a fantastic job building up the atmosphere and tension in this story + I appreciated that he was able to subvert some of my expectations too.
This story centers around a lost horror film starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, so it's no surprise that there were a lot of classic horror references sprinkled throughout the book. Additionally, the story takes place in 1980s England and gives some interesting history about the horror panic happening at the time. I'd never heard about this before so I found it really fascinating to read about. (Love learning about real things from my fiction reads, lol.)
There were some things that brought the rating down for me, however. While the opening + ending of the book were very satisfying to me, there was a definite saggy middle. I got tired real fast of pages and pages of the main character driving everywhere. Didn't really need to hear the details about every. single. trip. Additionally, I was only lukewarm about the characters. Sandy was the only character that I really cared anything about, but she wasn't very well developed. The minor characters all kind of blended together and were meh at best.

All told, I still enjoyed this book for what it was. If you're looking for some plot-driven horror that's just an atmospheric + scary good time, I think this is worth the read.

A slow burning, creepy old school horror that I enjoyed. It's more psychologic than gore, there's a constant tension and well developed characters.
It was written more than 30 years ago but it aged well and the last part is truly terrifying.
Ramsey Campbell is a master of horror and I recommend this book.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

A tense slice of old school horror.

This was my first time reading Ramsey Campbell work and overall it was a mixed bag in my opinion.
Although I would say that from reading this that Ramsey Campbell is a master of creating suspense general atmosphere, this book was just paced way too slowly for my personal preferences. Part of this is no doubt down to the fact that Ancient Images was originally published in 1989 (when I was only ten years old) and is written In a style which I'm not so well acquainted with.
I found the story itself to be more of a tense thriller for a large portion of the book but then it slowly winds up to becomes the horror it is billed as. It was well written, with well formed characters and plot lines throughout.

Regardless of these negative points, I did enjoy reading and will most definitely be reading more of Ramsey Campbell's work in the near future.

I used to read Ramsey Campbell all the time when I was younger. This is a reprint of N old novel from I believe 1989. It still wor,s as far as I'm concerned but is definitely different from the horror of today. Campbell builds the suspense slowly. Makes you nervous as something moves in the shadows or hides around the corner, just out of sight. It's almost quaint in his manner of style, but we are all so much more jaded than we were decades ago.
I recommend this because it's a good story, and a reminder of when horror had that uncomfortable, look over your shoulder as you read feeling.
Thanks to @netgalley for the opportunity to read this in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion.

This book read just like a movie - very atmospheric with vivid scenery and great character builds. It’s set in the 80’s and very British, which I really enjoyed. I thought the opening chapters were a fantastic lead up to a bizarre and very scary mid-section but for me, the end felt a little rushed - perhaps I just wanted more.

A young women witnesses the death of her friend and colleague who had just acquired a ‘long lost’ horror film which is itself surrounded in strange mystery. She takes on the task to uncover the mystery of this movie which takes us to some very dark and scary places.

I went in to this book not realizing it was first published in 1990. It’s a timeless read though and I’ll be looking for more Ramsey Campbell books in the future.

When I first saw this title I hadn’t realized it was a revamped version of the original. When I started to read it, I was thinking about how familiar it sounded. Not realizing I knew this book.

When I was able to read this book it reminded me how much I enjoyed Ramsey Campbell’s horror. This book and all the historical context and details was just so wonderful tied together. This book reminds me so much of the horror films I love, so I know other horror fans will enjoy this read.

My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Flame Tree Press for an advanced copy of a story of horror set in England in the 1980's, featuring a missing movie and a small rural community with plenty of secrets.

Back when I first started in bookstores, there was a whole section of horror novels, with some of the most amazing covers a person ever saw. Each book offered its on little universe of scares and terrors, from classic stories to masked murderers, ghosts, ghouls, and darkened souls. Some were great, some were ehh, but there were so many it seemed to choose from. Robert McCammon, Skipp and Spector, Slade, Rex Miller, Charles Grant, Poppy Brite, the list goes on. Ramsey Campbell was also one of these authors, one whose short stories and novels were always perfect little stories. Not just stories of horror, but of unease. The sun might be shining, but out there just in the trees, deep in the shade, something is looking back, and it is not nice. Ancient Images is a fine example of this kind of horror. A story about a film, the tales behind it, and the evil that wants to prevent the truth from ever being told.

Sandy Allan is a jack-of-all-trades at Metropolitan Television in London during the 1980's. Sandy can edit, research, splice video, whatever needs to be done. Her friend, Graham Nolan, has been looking for a lost film, starring two horror mainstays Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, that has become his great white whale. Graham has found a copy of the movie entitled Tower of Fear, and invites Sandy over for a screening. Sandy arrives to find Graham dead, by accident, or by his own hand is hard to say, but the film is missing. Sandy vows to find it, and as she investigates she finds a cast and crew who wish never to discuss the film, while rumors about a town entitled Redfield keep coming up. While someone or something plots to keep the story of the film a secret forever.

The book takes off immediately, setting the stage and getting the heart racing, before cooling down and introducing the main characters. Campbell has a very steady hand, leading the reader through various scares, peaks of tension, and relief like a master that he is. The story is violent in spots, but a lot of the story is more suggested, until near the end. Campbell adds a lot of information, about film editing, classic movies, history that give the reader a lot to think about and fill the plot, keeping everything both real and centered, which makes the supernatural aspects hit harder. The mood and atmosphere aren't oppressive like in a lot of horror books, there is a bit of humor, black humor and cinema humor, which again adds to the story. Sandy is great character who is both believable and perfect for what is asked of her in the book. The same can be said for all the characters in the book. The story holds up well, and unfolds in a good way, nothing jumpy and characters remain consistent throughout, which is sometimes rare.

A interesting horror story, not at all dated being forty years old. London seems as dangerous and rude now as it did in the 1980's and the story benefits from lack of Google and cell phones. For people who grew up reading horror books they bought from a pharmacy in their small town on spinner racks. That's one of the best recommendations I can give. A really good horror story.

Over the last few years Flame Tree Press has undoubtedly become the new home-from-home for horror legend Ramsey Campbell, who have released a number of both new novels and repackaged a number of his older works, including Ancient Images, which was first published back in 1989. As a reader I have particularly enjoyed Campbell’s association with Flame Tree Press as the blend of the old and the new fiction is nicely pitched due to the fact that this author’s current output is so strong he does not need to rely upon past glories. But at the same time, mining one of the most outstanding back-catalogues in 20th century horror fiction and bringing works such as Ancient Images, The Influence (1988) and the much more recent Three Births of Daoloth trilogy back into print/ebook format is a smart move which hopefully brings this unique author new readers.

I have been reading Campbell since I was a teenager, which was around the time Ancient Images was first published, but for whatever reason was not a book I came across during my formative years, or any time since. The book concerns a woman researching an obscure horror film, and since it was written in 1988 this makes it incredibly different to how one might carry out similar research in 2023. Back then there was no internet, instead there were telephone books, finding telephone boxes, getting change for telephone calls, endless calls chasing down leads, hotel rooms with no telephones, and convoluted searches for contacts in address books or time-consuming dead ends. To younger readers this method of ‘research’ might come across as dated or quaint, but I found it both nostalgic and exhilarating. My favourite novel of 2022 was undoubtedly Paul F. Olson’s Alexander’s Song, which was similar to Ancient Images in that it included a long and very complex search for a dead author. Olson’s book was also written in the late eighties (and largely dismissed or ignored) before recently being revived by the publishers Cemetery Dance. If Ramsey Campbell has not read Alexander’s Song, I have a feeling he would enjoy it tremendously.

In the thirty odd years since Ancient Images was first published the cinematic landscape in the UK has had a major shift in that all of the films which were once labelled ‘Video Nasties’ in the early 1980s and were unavailable or banned are now legal and can even pop up on television. Ancient Images has an element of social commentary on this period, which is long since past and there is a funny scene where the researcher visits the home of the editor of a gory horror film fanzine which is vehemently against censorship. It was undoubtedly inspired by magazines I enjoyed in my youth, ‘Deep Red’, ‘GoreZone’, or ‘Fangoria’ with other more explicit examples springing to mind.

I am also old enough to remember the fact that in those days viewers had to put a lot of effort into finding banned or films which were refused BBFC certificates. Imagine the excitement when I finally tracked down a bootleg VHS copy of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and illegally imported it into the UK, this type of ‘hunt’ shapes the core of Ancient Images as Sandy Allan attempts to track down a horror film supposedly starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, made in England in 1938 and which was immediately suppressed. I absolutely loved being a back-seat passenger on Sandy’s journey, which turns into an obsession, to find a copy of the long-lost film ‘Tower of Fear’. In the eighties there were a lot of real people just like Sandy trying to track down films which seemed forever out of reach.

Anybody with more than a passing interest in the work of Ramsey Campbell will undoubtedly know he is incredibly knowledgeable about film and his excellent collection Certainly: A Collection of Essays more than proves the point, as many of these pieces are cinematic in nature. In some ways Ancient Images is a horror film buff’s dream, as it is a fascinating take on the ‘cursed film’ trope, which throws in a lot of true facts, ideas about censorship and it even had me wondering whether Lugosi and Karloff actually did make a film together in the UK!

It was interesting that Campbell decided to build his ‘cursed’ film around actors more associated with the golden period of Hollywood, but this allowed him to build a fascinating backstory around the near-mythical Tower of Fear, the accidents which happened on set and the fact that so many of the actors and crew (including the director) had died prematurely. Screen legends Lugosi and Karloff might be from too far back in cinematic history for younger readers, but there never seems to be any shortage of books featuring them. Just in the last year I have reviewed two novels Julian David Stone’s It’s Alive and Kim Newman’s Something More Than Night which fictionalise both men in some form or another.

After Sandy witnesses the strange death of a media colleague, who had tracked down a copy of Tower of Fear which was then stolen, she sets out to recover the film and prove its existence. Along the way she falls foul of a newspaper film critic and the book illustrates the incredible power such critics had in the days before the internet. I enjoyed the numerous interviews Sandy has with those connected to the film, whilst she is seemingly stalked by bizarre creatures that sometimes look like dogs and other times like scarecrows. In the end the conclusion fans out beyond the cursed film and almost has a strange Folk Horror vibe. Interestingly, Campbell was to have another stab at the idea of the cursed film with The Grin in the Dark, which ranks as one of my absolute favourites of his.

Although Ancient Images is a great book it is not one I would particularly recommend to a Ramsey Campbell beginner, try The Grin in the Dark instead. But if, like I, this is one you have previously overlooked it is highly recommended and is an unsettling read, where things often happen at the far edge of vision. Even though it is slightly dated, Ancient Images still holds up well as an entertaining supernatural mystery as the young woman digs deeper into the origins of the film and the bad luck which seemed to follow those involved in its making. As Sandy traipses around Britain looking for the film you will be transported back to Thatcher’s decaying Britain, enhanced by Campbell’s stellar grimy descriptions, and will be thankful you never need to ask a pub landlord for chance for the payphone again!

Flametree’s re-release of Ramsey Campbell’s novel Ancient Images, originally published back in 1989, is a trip back to a time when bookshops (and we’re talking real, physical bookshops, rather than online stores) had whole sections devoted to horror and when Campbell’s novels stood alongside the likes of James Herbert, Peter Straub, Clive Barker, Ann Rice, Robert R. McCammon and Stephen king among others, rather than today’s state of play where other than the latterly mentioned King, a reader can struggle to find any real, genuine, unapologetic horror novels on the high street.
The story itself is a world those of us who were around at the time will remember all too well – a land before mobile phones, DVDs (never mind Blu Rays), during a Thatcher government.
It was strange to revisit this after so many years and read it as a period piece – back when video nasties and home printed film fanzines (both featured here) and not streaming movies and online blogs and were the order of the day, but it was as effective to read in this way as it was as a contemporary work.
Plotwise: Ancient Images sees Sandy, a film editor, looking for answers behind the apparent suicide she witnessed of her friend as he was about to screen for her a long-lost, almost mythical film – Tower of Fear, starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff - a movie many claim never existed and those who believe in its presence, claim to be cursed. Following his death and a break from work enforced upon her, she sets of to try to locate those involved with the film and uncover the truth behind it and her friend’s death.
What follows is a slow build of creepiness. Fleeting shadows, half glimpsed sightings, and a general sense of foreboding set against an early 80s world of public phones, cheap hotels, first forays into computing and, of course, the movie industry. Campbell has never, unlike some of his contemporaries been one for gore – his writing is at the same time subtler and more powerful than those writing of Killer (insert animal/ reptile/ mollusc of choice here).
Re-reading this was evocative in all sorts of ways: Campbell is highly knowledgeable on cinema both historic and of the time, and it is fascinating to read of the ‘lost’ film, but he’s also expert in writing of England at the time and the atmosphere and ‘feel’ of that time creeps off every page.
It is a quintessential portrayal of the country of the time – both urban and rural, with nods to the likes of The Wicker Man as well as the ‘classic’ horrors and a whole lot more (there is a whole lot of story packed into these 300 pages).
I’m pleased to see a publisher reprinting this and several others of Ramsey Campbell’s back catalogue. There’s a reason the Penguin Encyclopaedia of Horror and the Supernatural calls the author “The greatest living exponent of the British weird fiction tradition”.

I cannot describe how much I loved this book. Ramsay Campbell is a master of horror but his writing is so skilful I believe he could write any genre. Much like James Lee Burke his characterisation is flawless & dialogue exceptional. Heartily recommended. Five stars all the way.

Ramsey Campbell has done it again. I have been reading their books for decades, and they've never let me down. Always very strange and scary.

Although originally published in 1989, this novel deserves to be re-released just so more people are aware of it.

I love how the author intertwines historical accuracies along with the suspense. And this book is suspenseful. It doesn't rely on gratuitous blood or gore but rather a slower, ever rising sense of dread.

Perhaps our main protagonist was a bit too eager to dismiss all the strange things that happen but this very minor gripe aside, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I would recommend it!

This is only my second book by Campbell, first one was Overnight, which has left me interested in the writer, but not overall impressed by the book. Ancient Images "wowed" me. I could barely put it down, the San Francisco Chronicle claims on the book cover that it's to be read in one sitting, took me 4 days on and off(life kept getting in the way), but what a great book. There is just something so right with the way this guy writes, the way he brings on the dread, the suspense, the unease without having to resort to gore and guts on every other page, not that I don't appreciate a gorefest now and then. The story is ingenious, a movie buff's dream, a film editor's in pursuit of a missing pre-war (WW2) horror film starring Lugosi and Karloff. The film's existence has been in question for 50 years and seems like someone or something will stop at nothing to keep it hidden...or maybe it's all a bunch of spooky coincidences and overactive imaginations. Campbell's done great things with this plot.
It is set in the late 80s, so no cell phones or internet, which actually adds to the suspense and occasional isolation the main character deals with as she struggles to find the film. It's also occasionally extremely British, where politeness and propriety can be a tad maddening at times. Keeping that in mind, this is a great book, intelligent, well written and really scary. The cover, however cheesy, is actually plot relevant. I can't wait to read more of Ramsey Campbell's work and I highly recommend this book. Thanks Netgalley.