Kensington Gore's Hammered Horror: Another Year Closer To Death

By Graeme Parker

Kensington Gore's Another Year Closer to Death, is the hysterical hit comedy from the horror director leg end. Warning horror comedy fans; you may die Laughing!
It follows a year in the life of the iconic horror director as he struggles to make his swan song last horror film. Follow him in his laugh out loud adventures from London on the famous street that bears his name in 2012.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Graeme Parker
• Release date: Jun 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781912638796

Graeme Parker

KGHH Publishing is a small indie book publisher based in Scotland, we publish every genre, but we specialise in Horror and comedy.

Book preview

KENSINGTON GORE’S HAMMERED HORROR:

ANOTHER YEAR CLOSER TO DEATH

by Graeme Parker

Copyright KGHH Publishing

Graeme Parker has asserted his right under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or other-wise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

This is a work of fiction based on a mixture of real and fictional events and woven using fictional characters with references to some real people. In the interests of a good story, comedy and satire, names, times and locations have been altered a little in some cases and any resemblance of the fictional characters to real persons is purely coincidental and non-intentional.

DEDICATION

To my one and only American first lady, the Eve to my Adam. The Yoko to my John Lennon, she that must be obeyed, my good lady wife.

Also a big thanks to all my real family in the UK and my in-laws in the USA and also my surrogate writing family Leesa, Ian, Dave, Ed, Stephanie and Maria. To all my many fans and supporters on Twitter, a list of some of the many is at the end of the book, I couldn't have done it without all you guys your encouragement gave me the desire to spread the Gore.

Finally, this book is dedicated in loving memory to my parents Alan and Maureen.

FOREWORD BY MARIA OLSEN

By top Hollywood horror actress Maria Olsen, known for her appearances in movies like ‘Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief’ and ‘Paranormal Activity 3’. Maria is producer of her very own production company MOnsterworks66 and has worked closely with Kensington Gore.

When I first met Kensington Gore on Twitter, I thought he was just two straight roads that run south of Hyde Park, but I soon came to realize that there was nothing at all straight about Kensington and that he was as twisted and bent as can be!

Kensington, or, as his friends like to call him, Kenny or That Dirty Old Man, is a living legend who should, according to the medical profession, have died a long time ago. Luckily, he is still going strong and has chosen to grace us with both his presence and this little gem of a book.

Another Year Closer to Death is a deeply disturbing and in places horrifically funny Diary. It is best to be enjoyed along with a good glass of wine, and maybe a finger or two. Um…finger sandwich or two, that is.

Kenny is very special – some like to say Special Ed – and his heart is always in the right place, although other parts of his anatomy are frequently in very wrong places indeed.

With his first published diary he has given a warts and all glimpse into his everyday life, thoughts, dreams, and failings. He has produced a gory insight that will, rather like his sordid reputation, last through the centuries and continue to entertain, horrify and, in some cases, make people physically ill with fear and laughter.

Kenny is, above all, kind – definitely to animals and sometimes to people too – and has been described as having the biggest…um…heart…in all of the movie industry. His generosity, kindness, compassion and deviance knows no bounds, and many scream queens will remember their time on set with That Dirty Old Man with pleasure, albeit pleasure laced with a trip to the clinic.

Kenny’s book, Another Year Closer to Death, will appeal to everybody at some stage of their lives, perhaps while they’re waiting for a hanging jury to decide their fate, and is a stunningly funny romp of a read!

Buy it…and then, at your own risk, explore Kensington Gore’s Hammered Horror website.

A world without Gore is certainly not one that I would adore.

Maria Olsen, Actor, Producer MOnsterworks66

Follow Maria's glittering career on IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1864017/

JANUARY

Sunday, 1st January

Dear Diary, every year bloody New Year comes around, and every year I promise myself I will not overindulge. So how is it that every year I end up in an even worse bloody state than the previous one? Last night I was on a boat – well, the floor kept moving so I hope I was on a boat! I was in fact on HMS Belfast, which is moored on the Thames, along with a few hundred other VIP revellers.

My darling wife, Marge, or She That Must Be Disobeyed, had a great time chasing the sailors. I think half of them jumped overboard to get away from her. The other half she tossed over the side in her urgency to get dancing with the Captain!

In her day my Marge was a true beauty. A work of art; a real Moaning Lisa oil painting. Now she’s like me, needs a bit of restoration and is in desperate need of a touch-up, in more ways than one.

As I write this it’s New Year’s Day and I’m sat with the mother of all hangovers, a life-ring around my neck, my trousers around my ankles and my shirt covered in vomit! I’m not even sure if it’s my own. The shirt, that is. I’m wondering what the bloody hell went on last night? Answers on a postcard … to me, Kensington Gore, care of the London street that bears my name.

That’s for those who don’t know who I am – and let’s face it; there are times when I haven’t a bloody clue myself! Normally I prefer to remain anonymous and don’t like to expose myself. I’m a semi-retired director of horror films – I’m in my mid-seventies. Sadly, at my age everything seems to have gone semi… from semi-detached, semi-literate to semi-conscious. I’ve reached the age where I’m old enough to know better, but too old to care.

Enough with all of this grow old gracefully tosh! I intend to do it as disgracefully as I can. I’m going downhill with style and panache. More Torvill and Dean than Eddie the Eagle, you could say.

2012 is a big year for London, in case you haven’t heard. It’s an Olympic year and I have decided it is also going to be my big comeback year. I may not win any gold medals – unless they are for drinking, farting, fornicating and falling asleep – but I do want to get back to where I truly belong, which is in the movie limelight.

I plan to write and direct one last great horror feature. My Magnus Magnusson Opus if you like, and you don’t have to be a mastermind to work out that the sands of time are ticking against me.

This diary will chronicle my journey, recording my one last shot at the big time for posterity. I will allow you, Dear Reader, an insight into my everyday life. This is not to be a boring journal for film geeks to witter and Twitter about, endlessly dribbling on about the size of my lens or what exposure I plan to use. As I’ve said to many a leading lady in the past, my lens is more than big enough, thank you very much, and I’ll expose what I bloody well like!

Speaking of leading ladies, I’d best see if my dear wife Marge has surfaced. She’s a former big screen siren – I call her that because every time she was on screen, people said she was alarming. The last thing I recall is that she wanted to go down with a submarine commander; something about seeing how he got his periscope up …

I’m fighting the urge to get my own head down at the same time. I can’t cut it like the old days. I want to get back to Kensington, SW7. Yes, we do live in a posh part of London, but that’s not a crime. It’s a bloody big house and, rather like Marge, takes a lot of upkeep. It’s a bit like me too: certain parts are in desperate need of repair. In fact, exactly like me, the plumbing is well and truly fucked!

Monday, 2nd January

Dearest Diary, I promise to make lots of entries into you this year. More entries than a porn actress will allow, if I have my way. Porn actresses on the hole are lovely. In my heyday I dated plenty of them. I once was a bit of a ladies’ man, even if I do say so myself. I used to have to beat them off with a big stick, and some liked it even kinkier than that.

Having admired the art of pornography from an early age, I’ve always wanted to direct a porn movie myself. Something arty, with a trademark Kensington Gore gothic-horror vibe. Idea to self: The Penis Fly Trap – a film about a woman who is obsessed with giving oral sex. Sadly, the fellatrix suffers from lockjaw and an uncontrollable urge to bite down. Tag line: She bites off a bit more than she can chew.

Speaking of mastication, my beloved wife Marge has made a curry with the Christmas turkey leftovers. It looks, and probably tastes, like something from the Black Lagoon. I’m a bit worried about Marge’s bum-burning curries. The last one she made took the enamel off my teeth.

I might stick to an all-liquid diet today. The Brandy Diet is one of my personal favourites – you don’t lose any weight, but if you drink enough of the stuff then you neither care what you look like nor what people think of you. Also, if you’re very lucky, you can lose days.

As a septuagenarian, and yes, I did have to look that up, time is the great tormenter. There’s the horrible feeling that you are on the scrapheap of life, sitting in God’s big waiting room. The body might be uncooperative but the mind is still as sharp as a button, and I’m as smart as a pin, or is it the other way around? Bugger it, at my age, who cares about the details?

Tuesday, 3rd January

I did make a few New Year’s resolutions, but I’m buggered if I can remember what they were. Whatever they were, I’ve probably broken them all at least a dozen times by now and we’re only on the third of the month. I think one of them was to give up bloody swearing, so that one’s fucked for starters.

I must warn you, Dear Diary Readers, that I do swear a bit, so if you’re easily offended, best stick this book back on the shelf and fuck off out of it right now! I swear so much that Marge installed a swear box one Christmas, and by Easter – thanks to my effing and blinding alone – we had enough money for a fucking world cruise! Bugger, that’s another 50p in the box.

Mind you, Marge is partial to a good bit of swearing now and again herself. We acquired a charity collection box to act as our swear box. The life-size kind that has the little blonde girl with a guide dog that you normally see outside shops. Marge got it off Mr Khan who runs the corner shop. The local kids kept sticking used condoms and syringes in the money slot in the top of the girl’s head, and Mr Khan said he wasn’t going to risk catching bloody AIDS for a handful of coppers and a few foreign coins, so he kindly sold it to us.

Since she took up residence in Gore Towers, that little girl has had more money shoved into her slot than all of Stringfellow’s strippers and lap dancers have had shoved into their G-strings. Would probably have worked out cheaper for me to get a live-in lap dancer and splash out on her instead!

Wednesday, 4th January

I like to plan. I am a meticulous planner. It’s the secret of any good endeavour, never mind a multi-million-pound film project. You can’t beat a good bit of planning. For example, I’ve seen many a movie budget sky-rocket due to an errant paper clip. I’ve shot entire scenes that the writer had already rewritten, but the rewrite was lost thanks to said errant paper clip. (I warn you now, there will be no rewrites in this diary. This is me, warts and all.)

Unlike the movies, in life there is rarely a chance for a second take. Okay, my career in horror movies was well documented in my autobiography, Kensington Gore: The Whole Gorey Story, a book which is still available in all good charity shops.

The thing is, that book isn’t quite the whole story. I have been enjoying my retirement for some time now with no intention of making a comeback. Old horror directors always should know when to yell CUT! But because of unforeseen circumstances – mainly me being skint – I’m forced to get into the director’s chair one last time. This all came about after I was badly advised to invest in the big dot-com boom and was told to go fishing for a business opportunity on-line. I totally got the wrong end of the stick when I bought a million on-line fishing rods by mistake. Now, unless there is a huge boom in course fishing I’ve made a rod for my own back.

So, Dear Reader, I have been forced to come out of retirement to make one last movie in an attempt to keep my wife Marge in the lavish lifestyle to which she is accustomed. To be honest, to keep her happy it needs to be a major success, a genuine blockbuster. If I don’t score a box office windfall similar to the likes of Titanic or Avatar, it will be me turning blue because I can’t bloody afford the heating this winter.

So, to start writing a script. When writing horror, or any genre, the blank page is sometimes the most scary thing a writer can face ... tell you what, let’s leave the rest of this one blank and I’ll nip off to the pub for a pint or three of inspiration.

Thursday, 5th January

Twelfth Night. Took the Christmas decorations down. I removed the bauble and the gruesome angel from the dead tree, and I pulled my cracker, alone as always. Then I chucked the dead tree out in the garden, where it will no doubt sit until next bloody winter.

Friday, 6 th January

Thank Crunchie it’s Friday. As a retired horror film director – sorry, semi-retired, I’m always looking to slip my semi in somewhere – you’d think weekdays and weekends wouldn’t make much difference to me. However, they do as it’s all about attitude and frame of mind. People are always happier at the weekend, well Friday night, Saturday and the chill-out bit on Sunday afternoon. Then, of course, they realise that they have to start thinking of work on Monday and back to the daily grind.

Not that anyone seems to work these days. A lot of people are sitting at home watching these chat shows that feature even worse inbred thickos than themselves. People watch under the false pretence that they are somehow better. I don’t mince my words. I speak my mind, and if you easily take offence, then I might as well show you the gate now.

Saturday, 7th January

I am an original. I am unique. I never repeat myself. Did I tell you I’m original?

I’m also serious about getting back into my scriptwriting. I went out and spent a fortune on a new writing chair recently which cost me an arm and a leg. I got the best that Brargos could supply. It’s a strange shop, Brargos; it’s like the fast food restaurant version of the department store world. The staff members are programmed to repeat the same mindless script over and over. It’s like some kind of retail Groundhog Day!

Many a time I’ve walked straight up to the counter with no one in front of me, and the assistant still says, Sorry for your wait. I presume he meant wait as in waiting time, although maybe it was a pop at my weight?! Cheeky bugger.

Sunday, 8th January

Sunday in the Gore household is very similar to Sunday in other houses, I’m sure. We have lots of little rituals like listening to the bells of the Holy Trinity Church, and wishing they would pack that fucking racket it in, as I usually have a splitting hangover from the night before. And ah, the smell of Sunday lunch burning throughout the house. The relatives sitting over you, gagging for a free feed, and the emergency food parcels Marge insists on dishing out to them. Don’t get me wrong, I love my family dearly, but I would love them so much more if I saw a lot less of them …

Monday, 9th January

I have decided to go and see my agent, Sol. He hasn’t been very well of late – in fact, he’s been in a coma for the last six months. The doctors are somewhat baffled as to how and why he’s in a coma but I think he is doing it for a tax fiddle and to scrounge off the National Health.

I had a lot of money from the many Hammered films I made tied up in an offshore account. It was so far offshore it floated away and sunk without a trace. So now I need to get some backers and somehow raise the funds for my last great horror movie.

I know that in these days of fame and celebrity, I need a big name to carry the picture. Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example, is a big name on the page. But I’m not sure if a horror movie would lure him out of retirement. I personally think he would be great in horror, so if you are reading this Arnold, dear boy, call me; you’ve got my number.

Harry Potter, sorry I mean Daniel Radcliffe, is starring in The Woman In Black. I was lucky enough to have a sneak preview recently and I have to say I think he was pretty darn good in it. Hopefully he’ll break that horrible type-casting albatross that some actors have suffered from in the past. Like that Luke Skywalker chap in Star Wars; who played him again? See, hardly one remembers, least of all me. Mind you, I’ve got a mind like ... like... oh bugger, kitchen implement, bloody use it to sieve vegetables and things. Colander!

Anyway I digress. I do that a lot so try and keep up with me. Luckily I tend to drag it back to the point eventually.

It’s strange looking at my dear friend and agent Sol, all hooked up to those beeping machines. It’s even stranger to find yourself talking away to someone when they are lying there seemingly lifeless. You’d think I’d be used to it with so many years of marriage under my belt, but no.

Sol, in his heyday, was always full of beans. He was the Simon Cowell or Malcolm McLaren of his era. He knew how to handle people and get them to see his point of view. He was also a workaholic, often talking to people on two separate phones at the same time whilst barking orders at his PA. It was beautiful to witness, like the conductor of a symphony orchestra waving his baton like magic and making it all come together.

He had all the big music hall acts on his books when I first joined his stable. If this book were a TV movie, the screen would go all wibbly-wobbly around about now, but it’s not, so it won’t. So use your bloody imagination. After all that’s what books are for.

The first time I met Sol Weinstein I was a young, eager writer and wannabe director, who was desperate for representation. Sol, like on most days, was in a bad mood. He had just heard The Beatles had got their second number one hit in a row and he’d turned down representing them the year before. If this was a warning sign then I ignored it like the dangerous driver I am.

Sol and I hit it off right away. He liked a drink, as do I, and he needed someone to drive him to the pub for a very important business meeting with Lulu. We were in the pub six hours before he let slip it wasn’t in fact Lulu he had planned to meet; the pub let him use their loo as a second office. It was strange holding negotiations sat on a toilet while Sol passed the contracts underneath the cubicle stalls. I always made doubly sure I carried my own pen to these meetings.

Anyway, enough reminiscing. I stood up and said goodbye to Sol and said I’d be by later in the week. When I did this I could have sworn I saw a couple of his fingers twitch. Maybe he can hear me after all.

Tuesday, 10th January

I think my office chair is fucked. It keeps going down on me at the drop of a hat. Now, if I could only get Marge to do that, my hat would never be fully on my head. When I mentioned this to Marge she handed me a screwdriver and told me to try a bit of DIY, so no change there.

A tip I would give to any writer is to find a good place to write, ideally a room or space set aside solely for that activity. No outside interruptions, no phones, no TV or radio on in the background. A writer’s room should be like a temple.

Always write with the door closed, literally and figuratively, as it shows you do not wish to be disturbed. Close the windows too. I always do, as Marge has been known to shimmy up the drainpipe and climb in through the window in order to see what I am up to.

Wednesday, 11th January

My bloody new office chair is not very comfortable. Might have to take it back. I’ve screwed it as tight as I could. I think its pneumatics are on the blink now. Not noticeably – when I start writing a scene I am sat high and mighty, but by the end of the scene I am sat on the floor with my knees above my head, like I’m about to bloody give birth!

Marge is out with her friends, The First Ladies Club, for the day. I call them that because they’re all American ladies who are married to poor British guys like me. They are like a mixture of the stars of the Golden Girls and the girls from Sex In The City. Sadly, they are as about as sexy as the former, and as about as funny as the latter …

Anyway, the First Ladies – and as I hinted earlier I do mean ladies in the loosest possible sense of the word, because believe me, they’re pretty loose – are out for a day of shopping, bitching, lunching, more bitching, drinking, bit more shopping, more bitching, and then more drinking … all rounded off with a lot more bitching. What do they bitch about? Me, usually, and the other members of the SAPs Club – Stupid Anglo Partners. Us poor SAPs don’t get to meet too often since we are always too busy earning money to pay for their bloody shopping trips.

Thursday, 12th January

The most amazing thing happened today, Dear Reader. I witnessed a miracle. I went along to see Sol, and was surprised to see his identical twin sister, Luna. Lovely woman who likes a drink and is very friendly with members of the services. She’s always on the lookout for an able seaman, if you get my drift?

She had brought along some post from Sol’s office, although I’m not quite sure how he was going to work on it when he is in a coma. I guess she reads the letters out to him, hoping the feeling of normality might go some way to snapping him out of it.

Anyway back to the miracle, she was saying that there was a letter relating to me. It was dated a couple of months ago as she hadn’t been able to get to Sol’s offices to collect the mail for a while. She has this problem with her legs, you see; apparently she can’t walk past pubs without going into them. I suffer the same affliction on a semi-regular basis. Hello, another of my semis there.

I asked Luna to read the letter out to the both of us, as I was sure Sol wouldn’t mind. It’s from a TV company, Luna began. "Dear Mr Weinstein, We would be interested in the availability of your client, Mr Kensington Gore. We would like him to take part in a celebrity edition of our highly-rated TV show, Come Dine With Me ... "

At this point the miracle occurred. Sol sat bolt upright as though he were a jack-in-the-box.

He’s alive! Luna screamed.

I felt as if I was in the scene from Frankenstein where the monster rises from the slab. I wanted to rush off and grab a burning torch.

Sol jumped out of bed. Work, Kenny! he shouted. No more having to hear you wittering on about the good old days. I need to get you saturation press coverage, get you on the breakfast TV couch! At this point Sol marched out of the hospital room dragging the life support machines and monitors behind him.

Maybe we can get a couple of shock-jocks to call you an old fucker or something. Maybe they could say they want to shag your granddaughter – or maybe they already have?

I very much doubt it, I said. Well, not both at the same time I hope!

"Maybe we can get you on The Graham Norton Show. You’d be good on Graham Norton ... Could get you to pull his lever when the ordinaries tell a boring story. Could get you a regular gig doing that ..."

"Sol, dear boy. You have your arse showing. I think you should at least put some pants on, me old mucker, I said as I put my arm around him and began to lead him back to his hospital bed. But I’m happy to see you up and about again, a bit like your normal self."

I thought I could feel a draft, Sol muttered as he checked his back passage.

You’re also leaving a trail of piss down the corridor.

No matter, Lazarus himself had risen from the not-quite-dead, and I was delighted to see him back on form.

Friday, 13th January

Bloody Friday the 13th today and I knew I should’ve stayed in bed.

I tried to take my chair back to Brargos but they took one look at me and said that I was over the chair’s weight limit. Thus this made the guarantee null and void. They still had the cheek to apologise for my wait.

I was in a terrible mood but I needed to get a photo done for my passport renewal; the one where I look like George Clooney was a bit faded. I made my way to the local shopping precinct, which is not the nicest place in the world, and found one of those little instant photo booth machine thingies. On pulling back the little curtain I was horrified to find that someone had taken a shit on the photo booth seat. What were they doing? Some kind of modern art photo project? Or more like a dirty protest at the rip-off prices they charge for getting those little passport-sized photos?

After wheeling the broken chair around the shops like an extra from the X-men in search of Professor Xavier, I hit upon the idea of getting someone to take a picture of me using the camera on my phone. I could then use that for my passport. I’d have to shrink it and print it out, but you can do all sorts of things with my iPatch phone gizmo. Luckily I spied who I thought was a boy scout, and in the spirit of bob-a-job, I decided I’d get him to take a portrait picture of me. I gave him the iPatch, sat down in my broken chair, and he took a picture. At this point the chair collapsed on me and I went arse-over-tit, but rather than helping me up the bleeding boy videoed me – with my own bloody phone – and then legged it, nicking my mobile in the process.

Saturday, 14th January

Sol is wasting no time with getting me back in the limelight. He was at my house at the crack of dawn this morning. He said he’d been trying to call me on my mobile, but kept getting a young kid calling him an old tosser. Sol threatened him and said he was going to report him to ChildLine. I don’t think Sol quite gets how ChildLine works.

He sat eating my breakfast – he likes to get his dam thirteen per cent, unluckily for me, on just about everything – as he outlined our plans for the coming year. Sol thinks the new movie is a big risk, and that the easy money is in TV and in front of the cameras. "This Come Dine thing will be the tip of the celebrity iceberg," he said skewering my sausage with his fork.

I nibbled on a slice of cold soggy toast as Sol continued. According to him the schedules are full of celebrity shows that I would be great cannon fodder for. He also wants to get a camera crew to follow me constantly throughout my day to see what I get up to. I explained that it would be the most boring show on TV: Let’s follow Kensington as he goes down to the library to read the papers and pick the horses for an accumulator bet at Newmarket. Then Kenny goes into the pub and sits putting the world to rights with his drinking buddies.

Drinking buddies? You never used to invite me down to the pub of an afternoon, Sol said indignantly.

I had to quickly lie and explained it was a fictitious example to show how boring and tedious my life is. I mean, who in their right mind would want to read about my boring life (present company excepted, Dear Reader), never mind see it on TV.

Oh, we’d juice it up a bit. Add a few scripted scenes, like you at the post office stopping an armed raid, he said, as though it was the most common thing in the world.

You can’t do that, I protested. This is my real life. Not one of my movies.

All is fair in love, war and light entertainment, Kenny dear boy, Sol smiled as he munched on my sausage.

I was going to dismiss the idea offhand until he added, Of course, we’d have to get a young dolly-bird actress to play the part of Marge. Someone with a nice pair of knockers!

I thought about this for a moment. You know, it’s not that bad an idea after all, I began but then reality hit. No, no, what am I saying? We can’t do that ... can we?

Sol shrugged. Maybe. Possibly. Probably not … you don’t think Marge would go for that, do you? Sol asked.

If I was even to suggest it, you’d have to rush round with a needle and thread, I replied.

Why’s that? asked Sol.

It would take very big balls to suggest it, and a needle and thread to sew the bloody things back on afterwards, I told him, making him wince and put the half eaten sausage back on my plate.

Sunday, 15th January

I had the most delightful early morning stretch today. Have you ever noticed the best ones are when you end up with a face like a chipmunk being taken from behind?

I go to a lot of charity dos, but I don’t like to talk too much about all the good work I do. This one was a charity dinner to help famine relief. They give you a set meal of what an African person might eat in a day in one meal. Some