Happy Goat Horror

Coral and Allan Clarendon have just moved to the seaside town of Barnwall with their young son Dean. If an uncommon number of children have died unnaturally in Barnwall throughout history, surely Dean must be safe with his parents. Could their house be a source of peril? Allan and Coral seem to think so, since they call for an exorcism. Allan’s father Thom believes his wife is wrong to think the ceremony has left Dean in worse danger. But if she’s alone in seeing the terrors that are gathering around him, how desperate will her solution have to be?

The Ramsey Campbell Special Editions. Campbell is the greatest inheritor of a tradition that reaches back through H.P. Lovecraft and M.R. James to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and the early Gothic writers. The dark, masterful work of the painter Henry Fuseli, a friend of Mary Wollstonecraft, is used on these special editions to invoke early literary investigations into the supernatural.

Why did I decide to review these two stories together? It is not because they do not deserve full reviews, I enjoyed both and both have taken up residence in my brain since finishing them. I think it’s because, thematically, they are closely linked, and I felt that the reviews would be deeper and broader when considered together.

An Echo of Children was first published this year (2025), in a special hardback edition, by Flame Tree Press. Weapons got its cinema release in August 2025 and is now available to rent or buy via Apple TV, Amazon, Sky and Rakuten.

An Echo of Children deserves a shout out for its main protagonist, Jude, the elderly grandmother of Dean, and mother of Allan, who, together with Coral, have recently moved to a new home in the small seaside town of Barnwall. Jude’s voice and the way she must battle against her family’s expectations and marginalisation ensure the stakes keep getting higher.

Weapons is told from multiple points of view, a Rashomon tale, with each narrator/focal character revealing new information, allowing the viewer to build a more complete picture until a full understanding of the true horror is known.

An Echo of Children is a quiet, mostly psychological horror with elements of the supernatural. Weapons contains extreme violence, jump scares, deeply flawed characters, and <spoiler> witchcraft </spoiler>. In Weapons, the antagonist or villain is elderly, although we never learn how old she is or her true relationship to Alex’s family, but there are clues “consumption” that Aunt Gladys is very old indeed.

Anyone who works with children or vulnerable adults will know something about safeguarding, the legal obligation to speak up when we suspect someone is being abused or there is a risk of abuse. Weapons and An Echo of Children scrutinise whether this obligation can overcome social barriers and concepts of appropriate behaviour. Both conclude that, at least in small towns where people know each other, it is easier to ignore the signs than confront them.

Jude fears that Dean’s parents are psychologically damaging their son, and she is terrified that he is being physically abused as well. We learn the terrible history of Barnwell and the family’s new home early on in Campbell’s novel, and Jude cannot stay silent while history is repeated.

Justine Gandy, portrayed brilliantly by Julia Garner, is Alex’s teacher. She is deeply flawed and considered troubled by many in the town. An alcoholic who tramples over social and professional boundaries, and who, we suspect, has narcissistic tendencies, in short, an unsympathetic character from the get-go, difficult to like, but impossible to ignore. Her determination to speak to Alex, dubious motives aside, is the only reason that his situation is brought to light. She refuses to stay quiet and ignore the potential abuse.

Everyone else: family, social workers, headmasters, teachers, priests are too constrained by politeness and afraid to overstep to act. It is the two women, Jude and Justine, who refuse to stay in their lane, and take extreme steps to protect a child. And they are both punished for their determination.

An Echo of Children and Weapons are indictments of the reticence of the very structures designed to safeguard and protect children. In both stories we are dealing with white middle-class families, I am cynical enough to suspect the social barriers of politeness and professionalism would be far weaker if these were black and/or poor families.

The main difference between the two stories is the treatment of the elderly women at their centre. Jude is silenced, shamed and eventually committed to a hospital to treat her “mental illness” – she is ultimately powerless even when she acts. Aunt Gladys is the most powerful character in Weapons. She can control and weaponise anyone she wishes to. Her influence is foreshadowed in the dreams of Justine and Archer, the father of a missing boy, who glimpse her painted and terrifying face in vivid nightmares.

On an aside, Archer is portrayed as a hero in the story, but there are clues that he is problematic and perhaps abuse as a father. His son leads the bullying and tormenting of Alex, and he admits (at least to himself) that he has been unable to show the boy any love. And he is at the forefront of the hounding and psychological torture directed towards Justine after the children vanish, ironically calling the teacher a witch, which is our first hint that the mystery may be supernatural in nature. So, Justine is accused of witchcraft and Jude of madness, two tried and tested methods of silencing difficult women.

Unlike An Echo of Children, which ends with an act of self-sacrifice that offers a glimpse of hope, Weapons refuses to leave us anything other than extended trauma – how can the children and the community heal after what has happened? We doubt they will. But there is one moment of levity, a slapstick Evil Dead cum Benny Hill scene that made me laugh out loud, a temporary relief from the dark despair.

I would recommend watching and reading Weapons and An Echo of Children together if you can. I think you’ll agree that they complement each other.

Order An Echo of Children by Ramsey Campbell from:

Flame Tree Press: https://www.flametreepublishing.com/an-echo-of-children-isbn-9781787589797.html

Amazon US: https://www.amazon.com/Echo-Children-Special-Ramsey-Campbell/dp/1787589781

Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Echo-Children-Special-Ramsey-Campbell/dp/1787589781

Carmilla Voiez can be found at www.carmillavoiez.com