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| Don't accept a ride from Harry Vincent, that's for sure. |
NOTE: This article begins my coverage of Angora Fever: The Collected Short Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (BearManor Bare, 2019).
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| Hitchin' a ride. |
Synopsis: Harry Vincent is a serial killer whose death toll is up to seven. He prefers killing pretty young girls—they scream better—but he'll settle for men, including those he meets in gay bars. He's also obsessed with "wolfmen" and insists the moon is guiding his actions. One night, he kills an old wino he finds in an alley, slicing the poor, bewildered man to pieces with a surgical knife.
Harry decides his next victim must be a young female hitchhiker, since he's convinced those "tramps" are always out to victimize men like him. He sets out on the road, but his car soon breaks down, forcing him to walk back home. Just when it seems like his night is ruined, he himself is offered a ride by a young woman in an angora sweater. But this temptress has plans of her own for Harry.
Wood trademarks: Werewolves (cf. "Howl of the Werewolf," Orgy of the Dead); cocktail bar (The Cocktail Hostesses); maggots (cf. "Scream Your Bloody Head Off," "Hellfire," "I, Warlock," "In the Stony Lonesome," "Into My Grave," "The Whorehouse Horror"); newspapers having "a field day" (cf. Glen or Glenda); angora sweaters (cf. Glenda); winos ("To Kill a Saturday Night").
Excerpt: "He spun around, and after he got out of the headlights he saw her. She was luscious. More than he had hoped for. She was wearing a tight red angora sweater and a matching red miniskirt. She was beautiful and she was blonde. No good girl would stop for a man on the side of the road like that. She had to be one of those kind."
Reflections: Well, here we are again, folks. Five years after the publication of Blood Splatters Quickly: The Collected Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (2014), we finally have a second collection of short stories by Ed Wood. As usual, this volume is the passion project of Bob Blackburn, friend of the late Kathy Wood and co-heir to the Wood estate. Bob spends his time and money scouring Ebay for back issues of the magazines—generally pornographic in nature—where Eddie's stories originally appeared in the 1960s and 1970s. And we lucky fans get to enjoy Bob's findings in these lovingly compiled books.
Angora Fever kicks off with a gruesome horror tale from 1971. Readers of Blood Splatters Quickly will find themselves right at home here, because "Hitchhike to Hell" seems like a first cousin to such Wood splatter-fests as "The Gory Details" and "Breasts of the Chicken." The similarity to "Chicken" is especially striking, as a chauvinist sicko again gets his well-deserved comeuppance. However, here is no denying that Wood seems to take gleeful pleasure in describing the man's crimes in nauseating detail. Maybe Eddie was working through some aggression.
It's worth noting that Ed wrote for both gay and straight publications, as well as specialty magazines catering to particular fetishes. This story has a little something for everyone, as Harry kills both gay and straight victims, all while wearing "rubber panties." But there are limits to his depravity. During the scene with the decrepit wino, Ed points out that Harry Vaughn "didn’t have any homosexual inclinations connected to his slasher thoughts at that moment as he had had with the boy those months before."
I guess even homicidal maniacs have some standards.
P.S. This story also offers a snapshot of America's changing views of hitchhiking. The risky practice was beloved by free-living hippies, as documented in the 1969 million seller "Hitchin' a Ride" by Vanity Fare. Ed Wood famously detested the counter-culture, though, and his feelings about the younger generation are clear in this story as he describes them with undisguised contempt. "The dirty ones," he calls them. "Broads" with "bearded boyfriends."
Next: "Gore in the Alley" (1972)