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Post by vaughan on Sept 6, 2009 2:12:15 GMT
Richard Laymon - The Cellar (Nel, 1980) 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 .. .
Well well well, what do you know, in the end the book saved itself. I was quite taken back with the sexual content in this book. That never really lets up throughout, and I think it's a needless addition. If none of that had been in there nothing about the story would have changed. I can only surmise that it exists as a shock tactic. If so it worked. It almost stopped me finishing though. Plowing through that the story was actually quite interesting. It mixes the story of "Beast House", a mansion supposedly haunted by a "Beast" that had indeed killed several people through the years (more than 70 years!), and the tale of Donna, on the run from a murderous husband just released from jail. Somehow Laymon manages to tie it all together. All it takes is a little bit of the improbable, some of the impossible, and a demand that the reader just go along with the flow - and voila! The final scenes are well done, with the ending coming as something of a surprise. Laymon's writing is smooth and simple, using as much dialog as possible to cover for the lack of descriptions. As such it's a fast read. The big question is, do I really like the book, and will I recommend it to others? That's not easy to answer. Inevitably it's the sexual content that bothers me. I wouldn't recommend it without warning a potential reader of some of the things in the book. On the other hand it does have something for horror readers to enjoy. So I'd recommend it with caution. I've read three Laymon novels thus far - this one, All Hallow's Eve, and The Woods Are Dark. Of the three I think this is the best. Which is saying something given my moaning about certain elements of it. I probably have 6 or 7 more Laymon books here, so of course I'll be revisiting him!
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Post by dem bones on Sept 6, 2009 13:10:11 GMT
Just goes to show, one mans reservations are another man's recommendations, which is exactly as it should be of course!
I'd argue that this, his debut, is the best place to start with Laymon as if you don't enjoy The Cellar, little point troubling yourself with the rest - you probably won't go a bundle on them either. The bulk are unrelenting in their "sexual content", it's pretty much his trademark. The nearest he comes to experimenting is Savage (after Mary Kelly's murder, Jack the Ripper escapes to America - minus his nose) but even that's no great departure from the norm. In a Laymon novel, if you ain't a homicidal maniac, a horny teenage guy, a hot, resourceful babe in peril or a subterranean monster, you're no-one special, so The Cellar's main sicko, Roy Ayers, fresh out of prison after serving six for molesting his daughter, fits into the scheme of things very nicely.
Not through lack of trying, i don't think Laymon ever "bettered" The Cellar (although he came close with The Funhouse, Funland and Midnight's Lair, and i've a stupid fondness for the barking snuff romp Out Are The Lights). It's compact (220 pages), nasty, the characters are extremely well drawn and the nihilistic pay off makes for one of the great endings.
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Post by erebus on Sept 6, 2009 13:41:19 GMT
First Laymon I got was FLESH many moons back. And from then on in I didnt look back. Read all the buggers but this one still holds a special place.
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Post by vaughan on Sept 6, 2009 14:32:04 GMT
Whoa! That cover is SERIOUSLY better than the one on my copy.
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Post by dem bones on Sept 6, 2009 15:04:23 GMT
Just noticed the artwork is credited for once, David O'Connor (the children's illustrator?). The artwork for the Nel Out Are The Lights is a bit tasty, too. I was disappointed Laymon took his Beast House mythology down the Chronicles route, as, for me at least, the other novels didn't really live up to The Cellar. I found The Beast House so-so, The Midnight Tour was more like it but then the truly dire, thanks-but-you-shouldn't-have-bothered Friday Night At The Beast House afterthought. It's weird how his career went. The Cellar shifted loads in the US but his next one, The Woods Are Dark, didn't do at all well whereupon his career at home was finished! Meanwhile in the UK, for years you could walk into a high street booksellers or public library and there'd be a row of Laymon's masquerading as the horror section like he was Stephen King or something! Consequently, as with King, Koontz, Herbert & Co., the horror elitists didn't want to know on the grounds that if Joe Public could buy him, he wasn't obscure enough for them! |
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Post by vaughan on Sept 6, 2009 22:14:21 GMT
Blimey, I've been wracking my brain all day - and finally the answer came to my mind! Big white monster, Victorian era, raping women. The women like it. Now where have I heard that before? And of course, it's in the movies. I wonder if this was influence? Anyway - here's an IMDB link: www.imdb.com/title/tt0072752/La bête by Walerian Borowczyk (1975). |
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Post by jonathan122 on Sept 7, 2009 13:39:16 GMT
Blimey, I've been wracking my brain all day - and finally the answer came to my mind! Big white monster, Victorian era, raping women. The women like it. Now where have I heard that before? And of course, it's in the movies. I wonder if this was influence? Anyway - here's an IMDB link: www.imdb.com/title/tt0072752/La bête by Walerian Borowczyk (1975). That's a great film. Very much recommended. Apparently it's based (roughly) on Prosper Merimee's "Lokis", and the real-life mystery of the Beast of Gevaudan: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beast_of_G%C3%A9vaudanIt's also the only soft-porn movie about bestiality to feature a member of the cast of Casablanca. |
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Post by franklinmarsh on Jun 6, 2011 10:00:34 GMT
I was disappointed Laymon took his Beast House mythology down the Chronicles route, as, for me at least, the other novels didn't really live up to The Cellar. I found The Beast House so-so, The Midnight Tour was more like it but then the truly dire, thanks-but-you-shouldn't-have-bothered Friday Night At The Beast House afterthought. First semi-delirious pulp horror book I've read in ages is ...er...Friday Night In Beast House. I picked it up cheap in (ptui!) hardback. It's only about 150 pages long and has large print, so, yeah, there's not much to it, but as a handy, let's get back into the swing of things, primer, I've found it very useful. It's more of an EP than his other Beast House albums (and made me want to have a go at them - I've only read The Midnight Tour which I really enjoyed) Was this published posthumously? If so, it does smack a little of Let's Squeeze The Last Few Cents/Pence Out Of Our Author. |
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Post by dem bones on Jun 11, 2011 21:17:14 GMT
'pologies, FM i only just found this: yes, posthumous and ropey. i'm not a big fan of all this 'chronicles' malarkey. The Beast House was a comedown after The Cellar, then things pick up considerably with The Midnight Tour - i guess all but the most rabid fans would consider that a good place to end the saga. on the plus side, if you can get on with Friday Night At The Beast House, you should be able to cope with anything Laymon has to throw at you. |
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Post by franklinmarsh on May 14, 2012 8:00:36 GMT
Just finished The Beast House. Enjoyed it, but can understand your so-so comment Dem. It seems very toned down compared to some of his work. Deliriously nutty shoot-out ending and some creepy/disgusto stuff in there, but not quite enough somehow. The soppy love story doesn't really help. I quite liked the idea of the dodgy horror writer.
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Post by dem bones on May 14, 2012 11:35:14 GMT
It's been an age, but it was the first of his novels that didn't really do it for me, though, if I remember, it starts brightly enough. always loved the cover. Richard Laymon - The Beast House (NEL, 1986) 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. |
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Post by erebus on May 14, 2012 14:31:22 GMT
Gearing up for a re-read of this myself as its been over a decade.
Of the four Beast books The Cellar is without a doubt the best. In fact they went downhill in sequence. I thought Midnight Tour was overlong and somewhat redundant. And Friday Night at the Beast House was just a pointless dull nothing.
Taking nothing away though, I love/loved Laymons work. I bought all of them brand new so I must like the man. Greatly missed.
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Post by franklinmarsh on May 14, 2012 17:39:42 GMT
 Here's the NEL fifth impression 1993, clawed hands harking back to The Cellar, but no real connection to the story (unlike the cover above - Good Lord! *choke*). No artist credit. |
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Post by dem bones on May 14, 2012 19:35:03 GMT
Richard Laymon - The Midnight Tour (Headline, 1988)  Steve CrispBlurb: `The Beast House – legendary site of ghastly murder! See with your own eyes where the bloody butchery took place! Witness authentic reproductions of the Beast's ravaged victims in their actual death garments! Listen to the true story of the only known survivor of the Beast!'
The sales pitch hasn't changed much over the years – except now you can listen to it on earphones as you take the audio tour of the house. But the taped tour only gives you a sanitized version of the horrific events that made the Beast House infamous. If you want the full story, you'll have to take the Midnight Tour. Saturday nights only. Limited to thirteen unlucky tourists. It begins on the stroke of midnight.
Tonight the guide will show you every nook and cranny of the house. She'll tell you everything - including details too ghastly and perverse to be mentioned in daylight.
But she might not be able to save you. Because this Saturday night, those on the Midnight Tour will be joined by an unexpected visitor.
They'll be lucky to get out alive...i'm so tempted to have another go at this as my memories are vague, but the gist is that Dana, a typically gorgeous Laymon heroine, has been recruited as a Beast House tour guide. Business is thriving, the gift shop can barely keep up with the demand for merchandise, while rival authors hack out best-selling non-fiction accounts of the atrocities. All that's missing is the beast itself, done to death by some fool in only the series' second book. Lucky for us, Sandy Blume, the little girl molested at close of The Cellar, has escaped and gone into hiding with her monster birth. erebus is almost certainly right that this is a step down from The Beast House but i far preferred it, mostly likely because i didn't have high expectations. The Midnight Tour runs close to 600 pages, but if you like Laymon, chances are you'll burn through it, and if you don't, you'll not go anywhere near it, so everybody's happy.
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Post by franklinmarsh on May 14, 2012 22:23:38 GMT
Oh for..... if I hadn't just started Slade's Hangman (c'mon Andy - it's not as good as the old 'uns), I'd revisit The Midnight Tour - one of my early Laymons that I did enjoy. *sigh* s'pose I'll have to seek out and read The Cellar too....
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