Richard Laymon – All Hallows Eve

Richard Laymon – AllHallows Eve (New English Library, 1985)

Nothing unusual ever happens in Ashburg until a local family are horribly mutilated and left to die in their own home. Since that night, the old Sherwood house has stood dark and abandoned – a constant reminder of the horrific killings.

But when mysterious invitations begin to arrive, announcing a party to be held there, nobody thinks it’s a joke. After all, on Allhallow’s Eve everyone wants to party in a house of death…

Richard Laymon – Beware

Richard Laymon – Beware (NEL, 1985)

Blurb:
The supermarket shouldn’t have been shut – it wasn’t normal for Elsie to quit early. But then it wasn’t normal for a meat cleaver to fly through the air by itself. Or for a guard dog locked in overnight to end up like hamburger meat. Or for Elsie herself to feature on the butcher’s slab, neatly wrapped and jointed…

There’s weird things happening in the town of Oasis and certain folks – like hotshot local reporter Lacey Allen – had better…BEWARE!

Richard Laymon – The Beast House

Richard Laymon – The Beast House (Nel, 1986)

Richard Laymon - The Beast House

Blurb:

The Beast House: The Sequel to The Cellar

The waxworks were so realistic.
Bodies torn and chewed. Blood blackly-encrusting open wounds. Flaps of skin hanging loose, clawed from the stripped, ripped corpses. Men, women, children, slaughtered, mangled …

The old woman who showed them round was well‑practiced in her grim, money-spinning tale of the mysterious beast that had killed and killed again. Of course it was all in the past and all nonsense. Anyone would agree to that.

Until, trapped, they heard, then smelled and felt the white, night-time creature that had come, grunting and spittle-slicked, for their bodies, their blood.

Richard Laymon – The Cellar

Richard Laymon – The Cellar (Nel, 1980)

Richard Laymon - The Cellar

Blurb:

THE YEAR’S GRISLIEST BESTSELLER DESTINED TO BECOME A CLASSIC OF HORROR

WELCOME TO BEAST HOUSE`
It’s the nastiest tourist spot in town, the scene of grisly killing after grisly killing, with every victim immortalised in lifelike waxwork .. .
For Donna and her daughter it’s just a chilling diversion on the run from a husband with twisted notions of fatherly affection.
For Larry and Jud it’s a vengeance run. The Beast is real. Larry has seen it and he’s got a scar or two to prove it.
For everyone, the real surprise is in the cellar. Down there there’s horror like no horror ever before .. .

‘Gruesome goings-on – and plenty of, them’ – Publishers Weekly

Richard Laymon – Out Are The Lights

Richard Laymon – Out Are The Lights (Nel, 1982)

SCHRECK THE VAMPIRE had been the first. the audience shuddered, screamed and loved ever moment. The man, hurled down the stairwell, had thudded to a splattered death. The girl, trapped and screaming, had died in a welter of blood as the vampire bit clean through her jugular.

SCHRECK THE INQUISITOR had followed: spiders dropped onto the naked spreadeagled girl, crawling over her terrified twitching flesh while the tall hooded figure loomed over her.

SCHRECK THE AXEMAN was promised. The audiences, growing by the week, clamoured for more. This was the horror series to end all horror series. Movie buffs especially admired the grainy amateur look that must conceal true art. All great ghoulish fun. And after all it was just make-believe. Wasn’t it?

This novel, more than any of his others, is the one to give to people who despise Laymon, just so as you can gloat over their howls of disgust and righteous indignation.

The Haunted Palace theatre are running a season of gory horror flicks(The Hills Have Eyes, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Rabid, The Night Of The Living Dead and Freaks are name checked) “Plus a special treat available only at the Haunted Palace. Each night, in addition to the regular features, you’ll witness the evil, delicious exploits of Otto Schreck, the madman – a new depravity each and every week.”

The Schrecks are grainy, fifteen minute shorts and, as Brit watches the girl having her throat torn out in SCHRECK THE VAMPIRE, she can’t help but think she looks an awful lot like her old room-mate, but surely she’d not become an actress ….? Brit investigates. And that’s how she comes to land female lead in SCHRECK THE INQUISITOR …

Chelsea began to scream.
“A true delicacy. Lightly simmered visage over steaming linguini, topped with a delicate tomato sauce. I call it Face Marinara.”
Freya watched, disgusted and fascinated as Schreck threw Chelsea to the floor and forced her to eat.
He pinched her nostrils shut so she had to open her mouth.
He snapped her fingers.
He tore open her dress and stabbed her with a fork.
At last, she choked on a mouthful of scorched flesh. She kicked and convulsed and turned blue and died.

That’s pretty much the pace of the thing. Laymon writes like a speed-freak and, despite the unsettling snuff theme, Out Are The Lights finds him at his most playful. The absurd, poetic justice ending is maybe pushing credulity too far, but it gives the whole a neat EC feel to it. By no means his best, but certainly a most enjoyable slick, sick read and the descriptions of the Schreck movies (there are 13 in all) arrive with such frequency that there’s never any time for the action to drag.

Vault Of Evil Out Are The Lights thread.