Richard Laymon - Night Show

[dem bones]

Richard Laymon - Night Show (NEL, 1984, 1992)

Steve Crisp

Blurb:
She looked up at the window and shuddered.

The girl pressed against the glass, eyes wide open in horror, lips drawn back in a soundless scream of terror: that girl was her. That was her body roughly seized from behind, the clutching hands cupping her, pinning her, thrusting her forward.
She looked at her own face as the shotgun blasted out.

She saw the glass shatter, saw the buckshot slam into her face, saw skin, features, flesh disintegrate into blood and pulp ...

"Cut, cut!" said the director. " Beautiful.'

All illusion, her handiwork, her professional skills, her very personal contribution to the blurring of make-believe and reality.

But still she shuddered.

Just for a moment came the premonition of a horror that would not be restricted to the film set.

Two psycho's for the price of one in this brisk (190 pages) breast fest. Claymore, New York. While making her way home one evening, teenage beauty Linda Allison is bundled into a car by three stocking-masked youths she recognises as fellow High School students Tony 'the nerd' Johnson and his scuzzy misfit pals, Joel and Arnold. Tony has decided it's time Linda were taught a lesson for coming on like she's too good for them and threatens her with all sorts:

"Who knows?', Tony said. "Maybe you'll get yourself raped, or tortured. Maybe yyour pretty face is gonna get all fucked up with battery acid or a knife .... Maybe you'll get cut up into little tiny pieces: first your toes and fingers, them maybe those nice big tits ....."

They drive to the old Freeman House where local legend, Crazy Jasper, would chop up his victims and plaster their remains behind a wall. Tony and his snickering cronies tie Linda to a bannister and make like they're doing a runner, but that would be to miss out on all the fun. Linda's proves disappointingly unfazed until a nude, axe-toting sicko slowly descends the staircase. When 'Jasper' lobs a severed head in her lap, she freaks, tears free, and races from the house - straight under a car.

Tony ups and quits for Hollywood. If he's going to put his talent to the best use then he'll need a job in the horror industry and he's sure the gorgeous Danielle Larson, Queen of horror movie special FX, will oblige once she's seen what he has to offer. Dani's currently providing the gory props for Night Screams, one of them, 'Ingrid' a lifesize replica of herself. She's just began a passionate relationship with Jack, her beefy assistant.

Linda eventually comes out of her coma. Her injuries are severe, it will take time before she can walk again and she'll need to wear a wig for the rest of her days, not that life will be worth the living until she's avenged herself on Tony and pals .....

[erebus]

Its a fun book and a quick read. Not to graphic for a Laymon either. I always wanted to give Tony a clip round the earhole for how much he imposes himself on Danielle later in the novel. Like just turning up when he wants etc. Cheeky sod. And when she takes him to the fliks ...Unbelievable.

[dem bones]

"Unbelievable" is about right, mr. erebus, and that, sadly is Night Show's downfall, or rather, Dani is.

Creepy teenagers were a big Dick speciality and here he outdoes himself with Tony, a twisted, hearse driving runt who gets his kicks from putting the willies up complete strangers. Stalking, tormenting the recently bereaved, snooping on Dani when she's having sex with Jack (which is often) - all in a days work for the self-styled 'Chill Master.' Linda likewise plays a blinder, but Dani ??! Much as it pains me, i'd have to admit Dani is miles too wet to cut it as a Laymon heroine. For all her experience of Slasher flicks, when the going gets real and she's confronted by a wheedling, cry-baby, wannabe rapist, she makes all the wrong decisions, over and over. Even tough guy Jack walks into a shovel when he's no business doing so. Perhaps Laymon was still recovering from the career crippling reception/ sales afforded The Woods Are Dark (USA's loss, our gain), but neither Night Show nor All Hallow's Eve - both of them lumped together as Volume III of Headline's 'Laymon collection' (2006) - show him at anything like his best.

No red shorts in this one - kinda proves my point that his heart wasn't really in it - but bad sex and BREASTS a-go-go. Loads of pop culture references too. Dani signs a young fan's Gary Brander paperback and Linda buys another i can't place ("Oh dear, that's a scary one. Did you read the other? Those Bradleys. They had no end of trouble"). Tony takes inspiration from Corman's The Premature Burial and those characters who offer an opinion on the subject agree that Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the greatest horror film ever. Imaginary film fans are well catered for. Along with Night Screams there's Dani's earlier Eyes Of The Maniac and a trailer for something called Death Grin (Dani and Jack like to tell strangers that their next movie will be a werewolf extravaganza, The Slobbering). Finally, there's Livonia, a vampy, big-boobed Californian horror hostess who provides sarcastic commentary's to dead bad fright flicks.

[Jojo Lapin X]

Jun 4, 2012 16:41:08 GMT dem bones said:

Dani signs a young fan's Gary Brander paperback and Linda buys another i can't place ("Oh dear, that's a scay one. Did you read the other? Those Bradleys. They had no end of trouble").

That has to be one of Laymon's own, of course, but I could not tell you which one. It is not the only time he uses this trick.

[dem bones]

i thought so too, JoJo - was all set to nonchalantly type in The Beat House on the strength of the "did you ever read the other one" - but now i'm not so sure. Maybe one by his friend, Dean R. Koontz?

Had a better time with Night Show than comes across in above - i really am crap at this stuff - and it got me to wondering: i've not checked the dates yet, but it's at least possible that Laymon may even have been Peter Haining's parting gift to NEL. Either way, imagine what we'd have been denied if he'd not found another publisher after Warner's so unceremoniously dumped him after just the two novels? At least i got the "America's loss was UK's gain" bit right.

[bluetomb]

My first Laymon! Well, sort of, as I read about 100 pages or so of Darkness, Tell Us at school. From the blurb, Night Show could have been a real winner. It seems so easy, combine psycho stalker thriller and psycho revenge thriller, draw some vivid characters, stir in a few twists, maybe blur the lines of hunter and hunted, villain and victim, and there you have it, a solid straightforward entertainment. For around a third of the length things go well. The opening prank, really more outright psychological torture than prank, is queasily effective. Then we move to the set of a slasher movie and the filming of a shotgun death. Special effects assistant Jack hesitates over pulling the trigger because the dummy is modelled on his comely boss Dani and he has a crush on her, but then he does, and it goes well, and then he reveals his feelings, and that goes well too. They go out to dinner and have a nice time, though an appearance by a lunging weirdo is a little off putting. And later the weirdo gets into action in earnest... Plus there's a hop over to prank victim Linda, out for revenge and showing her colours straight away with a complete lack of remorse over accidentally killing two innocent people.

It's all going pretty well, but then for me pretty much stalled. The trouble is that the book spends far more time with lovebirds Dani and Jack and weirdo Tony than with Linda. Dani is very nice, and Jack is very nice, if a little more hot headed, and they have lots of bad sex, which is also very nice, but none of it is all that interesting. And Tony is really, really irritating. Neither brutal maniac nor effective psychological menace, just a nasty, intrusive nerd, a sad case who's not actually all that sad, just irritating. I ended up taking more than a month to read this even though whenever I picked it up I would breeze through (Laymon seems to be as easily readable as writers ever get) and it isn't all that lengthy, just because I couldn't really be arsed with the three of them. Linda has some classy scenes, in fact all her scenes are classy, but there really aren't enough. There are fun references to horror of print and screen, both real and fictional (Eyes of the Maniac sounds far gorier than what would have passed an R rating at the time, but that's a small quibble), but again not enough. It was all looking a bit bleak. But then things properly get into gear in the final 50 pages or so, tense, violent, breathlessly thrilling and nicely, fittingly worked out. So it sort of levels out and I'm not as put off Laymon as I thought I was going to be. Hopefully my next crack at him will be better (Out Are The Lights) and the other four I have (The Cellar, Darkness, Tell Us, Savage and Come Out Tonight) too.

 And a side note if I may, I'm on a bit of a horror novels (or related) about horror films kick at the moment, currently reading Ramsey Campbell's Ancient Images, plan on Out Are The Lights next, then RC's The Grin of the Dark, maybe Theodore Roszak's Flicker and Marisha Pesl's Night Film. Are there any glaring essentials in the vein that I would be remiss not to search out?

[ben]

Finished savage a couple weeks ago. Loved every second of it. Not jos most graphic of novels bit total entertainment. Also read dark mountain recently. It wasn't as good as savage but still a debt and worthwhile read.

[dem bones]

Apr 24, 2016 17:27:13 GMT bluetomb said:

 And a side note if I may, I'm on a bit of a horror novels (or related) about horror films kick at the moment, currently reading Ramsey Campbell's Ancient Images, plan on Out Are The Lights next, then RC's The Grin of the Dark, maybe Theodore Roszak's Flicker and Marisha Pesl's Night Film. Are there any glaring essentials in the vein that I would be remiss not to search out?

You might find this thread of interest, Film Crew In Peril novels. We also have an equivalent for Imaginary movies/ Film Crew In Peril shorts.

I think you will enjoy Out Are The Lights above Night Show which isn't really one of Dick's finest. The Cellar is the one got me into him, if that's any recommendation.