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Post by dem bones on Feb 3, 2008 17:44:56 GMT
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? When I slipped this in on the old board's Laymon thread, I made some mind numbing observation to the effect that the blurb rendered any synopsis obsolete, and that's almost true. This novel, more than any of his others I think, 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 linguine, 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. Mark Taylor It's probably fair to say that some people have a sniffy attitude to Book Club editions, but they have their moments. The first hardback edition of Clive Barker's collected Books Of Blood was a BCA job - presumably it changes hands for a tidy sum these days - and the BCA edition of Out Are The Lights contains a bonus five stories. Mess Hall Bad News Dinker's Pond Madman Stan The Tub. I think the same is true of the Headline version of the same year? What you don't get though, in either case, is that gloriously horrible and entirely apt cover.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Mar 5, 2013 15:34:24 GMT
I have the Headline p'back, which does have the short stories, and also the not-as-good cover. You're not wrong about this being a rush - Blimey! And it keeps twisting and turning all over the place. The heroine's deafness has just come in handy in possibly derailing Shreck's film factory, but we'll have to see. So many unexpected happenings! In such a relatively short book!
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Post by dem bones on Mar 6, 2013 8:22:16 GMT
If you only attempt one of the shorts, make it Mess Hall because after that you'll want to read the rest anyway.
Have you tried The Woods Are Dark? It's another Laymon that moves at 100 mph, quite notorious in that the US critics evidently detested it to the point where his career was dead in the States for a decade. Laymon blamed editorial sabotage. I'm not sure if the Headline edition is a restored version or what, but it hit the spot for me.
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Post by franklinmarsh on Mar 6, 2013 9:44:36 GMT
Finished OATL - tremendous stuff, right up to the last. Have just piled through Mess Hall (Eurgh!), Dinker's Pond (brilliant in the old EC manner)and Madman Stan (more old fashioned goodness).Two to go.
I think I read the NEL version of The Woods Are Dark which was heavily cut (for length mostly ISTR - there was still plenty of disgust within)
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Post by erebus on Mar 6, 2013 14:42:24 GMT
I always liked Laymons older stuff to his more recent. Although those too are very entertaining. The few extra tales in this book are superb little stories. The ingenius way the protagonist escapes from THE TUB. And DINKERS POND is rather similar to a story in the old long defunct comic SCREAM that ran for 16 issues way back in the 80s . Issue 3 I believe had a story about a pond and its creepy inhabitant.
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droogie
Devils Coach Horse
Posts: 100
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Post by droogie on Mar 6, 2013 14:45:26 GMT
I feel that credit should be given to the fine artist Steve Crisp for painting the original NEL paperback covers to Out are the Lights, Beware, AllHallows Eve, Night Show and The Beast House.
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Post by erebus on Mar 6, 2013 15:44:20 GMT
I concur, he is a superb artist. Only saw recently that he also did the cover to Stephen Kings INSOMNIA .
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droogie
Devils Coach Horse
Posts: 100
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Post by droogie on Mar 6, 2013 18:02:33 GMT
He has a website where you can view some of his work. Unfortunately those Laymons and many McCammons are not shown, as well as who knows what else. The only other Laymon cover artist of that period I know of is Danny Flynn, who did Tread Softly and Flesh (my favorite, but the hardcover version easily blows away the later, toned-down paperback cover which loses the creature).
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Post by dem bones on Mar 6, 2013 19:15:50 GMT
Thanks for confirming that the Laymon NEL covers are Steve Crisp's, Droogie. You're right, he deserves plenty of credit. When horror novels actually looked like horror novels .... Franklin, uh, yes you did read the NEL edition of The Woods Are Dark. I forgot we had a thread for that one!
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droogie
Devils Coach Horse
Posts: 100
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Post by droogie on Mar 7, 2013 3:10:43 GMT
You are welcome. I must say, as far as 80's horror goes, the UK paperback editions consistently blew away their U.S. counterparts as far as cover art was concerned. Some of them were really incredible; I have bought many just for their art, regardless of author. Laymon was a prime example, as his U.S. covers were mostly "eh", with the only exceptions being the 1st TOR paperbacks of Nightshow and Tread Softly (both painted by Jill Bauman).
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Post by franklinmarsh on Mar 7, 2013 9:48:39 GMT
The few extra tales in this book are superb little stories. The ingenius way the protagonist escapes from THE TUB. Not 'arf! Bad News was pretty good, but The Tub was amazing in that Laymon way. Crackin'!
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Post by franklinmarsh on Mar 7, 2013 9:49:31 GMT
Franklin, uh, yes you did read the NEL edition of The Woods Are Dark. I forgot we had a thread for that one! So I did! Blimey!
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Post by dem bones on Mar 7, 2013 13:22:26 GMT
Try get hold a copy of the Dreadful Tales paperback. Twenty-four stories of psychos, private dicks, sex fiends, animated skeletons, sadists and a thing in a jar, plus a zombie novella. if i remember, the shorts in peril quota is slightly sub par on this occasion, but some of the endings ...
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Post by erebus on Mar 8, 2013 11:02:37 GMT
Loved the Scarecrow story in Dreadful Tales ( Stickman ? ) Brilliant.
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Post by dem bones on Mar 8, 2013 18:46:54 GMT
Loved the Scarecrow story in Dreadful Tales ( Stickman ? ) Brilliant. So many to choose from. The Grab and The Champion will always be personal favouites as they kicked off my whole thing with Laymon. Herman and Stickman (can't remember a scarecrow, but there is a skeleton up a tree that ... does things) are delightfully twisted. If i'm not hallucinating, there's another one features a penis-eating mermaid. But above even these, the once read, never to be forgotten Saving Grace. Who needs cosmic terror and all that malarkey when you've got other people?
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