Richard Laymon - The Midnight Tour

[pbsplatter]

Haven’t cracked open a Laymon in about 6 months and doesn’t seem like Vault ever cracked this installment of the BEAST HOUSE CHRONICLES

Never really liked The Cellar (it’s just too nasty and downbeat, even for Laymon) although I liked Beast House a lot. Not sure we needed another sequel and a half (where’s my Woods Are Dark sequel?)

A little under half thru and Laymon has been setting up the pieces well although not that much depravity so far.

We have three plots running at this point and I’ll have to start summarizing at a later date but the big important part is that Beast House is an international sensation with 7 movies (part 3 in 3d) produced to date; I suspect Laymon is sending up the Amityville Horror here.

The world building continues with the revelation that the “hairless orangutan” on display at the Funland freak show may have been a stolen Beast—which marks the first “shared universe” continuity for Laymon world I think.

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We have three subplots going. As of page 232

1) 1980-Sandy Blume and Eric.

The continued adventures of Sandy Blume and her beast-child Eric. Sandy has been living in a trailer near town since her escape, but a sleazy movie producer has hunted her down. This being a Laymon novel, he promptly tries to rape her, and she and Eric make short work of him. She then has to go on the lam (after a topless interlude) with a woman who just killed her abusive husband. They’re making quite a Thelma & Louise out of it when a man comes into the picture.

2) 1997-Lynn Tucker and Dana (not sure on the last name)—Lynn is stepdaughter of Beast House survivor turned millionaire and a tour guide at Beast House; Dana is the tall blonde friend and newbie at the House. So far Dana has attracted the attentions of (in order from most to least welcome: I) Beast House concessions stand worker Warren, II) two idiot teen doofuses who are instantly lovable, III) Owen (more on whom shortly), IV) haughty muscle bound man whore co-worker Clyde, and V) a prowler who was watching Tuck and Dana in the hot tub.

3) Owen and Monica, school teachers and lovers. Owen is a Beast House obsessive and the reluctant boyfriend of bitchy, haughty, Monica, who looks like young Liz Taylor. On a trip to San Francisco, Owen cajoles her onto the bus to the Beast House, while Monica whines about everything and becomes jealous when she sees Owen taking a shine to Dana.

[dem bones]

Jan 8, 2023 22:28:30 GMT pbsplatter said:

Never really liked The Cellar (it’s just too nasty and downbeat, even for Laymon) although I liked Beast House a lot.

I loved The Cellar, still do, and the bleak ending has much to do with it. Trouble is, I liked it so much, I then went crashing through every Laymon the local library could provide, and pretty much o.d'd on his stuff (same thing happened with Simon Clark and Bernard Taylor). Think I preferred The Midnight Tour to The Beast House, though I remember little other than the fit blonde cop ... and the ending.

[pbsplatter]

Oh, I admire the ending; I just think it was a bit much for me, especially as the little girl was concerned. Although as it turns out Sandy can take care of herself…But I do have a condemnable weakness for happy endings, at least in novels. Oddly, though, I think Beware! had a grim ending and that didn’t bug me.

Anyway, we are on page 284 and the plot continues to thicken. Sadly little Laymon goodness so far (only four murders, two erotic scenes and one attempted rape) but this is really good.

1) Sandy—we have jumped ahead a few years, following her impulsive murder of some new friends. Little Eric is doing well too, foraging in the woods for his own animals and people to eat. But rather than focus on that we have the story of her work as a model for endearingly camp painter Blaze O Glory.

2) Tuck and Dana—still not much going on here, although Clyde has passed his audition for “Gaston-esque character” leading me to hope and believe he’ll try to rape Dana and wind up impaled by a beast (one way or another (I have largely avoided spoilers for this one but I understand there may be some beast buggery this time around)

3) Owen—I do think we are seeing a favorite arc of mine, the “nice guy turned monomaniacal sex fiend!” Owen suffers through the rest of his day in SF with Monica, but has some consolation when she comes out in her new nightie and strips for him. Turns out it’s just a sexual torture—she’s still sore that he had the hots for Dana, and after teasing him to the brink, she removes herself to the bathroom for the duration. “Owie” considers battering down the door to take her by force, then considers apologizing, but goes with option 3–pack up, sneak out, and head back to Malacasa Point.

Monica clearly the “Gloria from Funland” of this book although she is a bit less sympathetic.

And I do feel your sympathy for having the effect of Laymon diluted by a binge; the man is so good that I tend to read his stuff in two or three book bursts but by the end you get a bit tired of it. I think that’s why I haven’t always gotten on with his short stories—read in rapid succession, they just seem sort of chintzy. But encountered one at a time, whew!

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Read a little bit more today on the way to and from watching the excellent M3gan.

The pieces are all coming together a bit more; Owen has obtained a ticket for The Midnight Tour at a whopping $100–but for that price you get a picnic at 8pm, a screening of The Horror (the first of the Beast House films) at 10pm, and then the tour starts at 12 sharp. There are 13 slots for the tour, which suggests that Laymon will have to start establishing the Expendable Meat quickly. We have met one meaty example, John, who has just spent the last of his money getting to Beast House, and who has found a reluctant patron in Owen. There’s also a whole horde of Japanese tourists (!) which seems more surprising than it should.

Owen, meanwhile, is obsessed with Dana and actually spoken to her, telling her of his whole story. Dana seems intrigued by him but is it just because she thinks he’s the prowler?


Over in flashback land, Sandy is continuing to muse about her career as a model for Blaze and bemoaning the fact that she and Eric aren’t as close anymore (Eric was insulted when she wouldn’t join him in eating the boy he dragged back to their home). She’s also just been getting propositioned by a creepy hunk who, we’ve just learned, seems to be a cop.


The whole thing is getting pretty, well, plotty. It is fun, though, seeing the ins and outs of how a real life Beast House attraction might operate. But Dick had better bring the big guns out for the Tour or else this will be his tamest work to date outside of, IDK, The Halloween Mouse?

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Page 396 and things are going nuts:

Owen and his “friend” John have a Planes Trains and Automobiles thing going on, united only in their lust for Dana.

Dana, meanwhile, is on a date with Warren from the concession stand. Unfortunately, he’s being a bit of a cold fish sexually even though they have chemistry. Turns out that he used to be a Beast House tour guide but quit after getting raped by a beast one night!!!!


Meanwhile, in the flashbacks, Sandy is smitten with cop Terry, who is a huge fan of her from Blaze’s paintings. In fact, the painter colluded with Terry to get them together! Alas, after an early morning assignation, beast son Eric shows up (just as Terry is ejaculating) and proceeds to disembowel Terry and rape his mom before fleeing.

It took us a while, but we’re finally in “did I actually just read that?!!” territory.

[pbsplatter]

Page 425-ish--just a hundred pages or so to go, and it's finally the Saturday for the midnight tour. Let's check in on our subplots:

1) Owen continues to let fat horror fanatic, shutterbug, and pervert John mooch off of him, driven by the prospect of photos of Dana that he can ogle. That's after Owen gets angry and beats up the dweeb, though. John, by the way, is very much of a piece with Roland from Flesh--both are repulsive horror-addled perverts, which is an interesting character choice for someone like Laymon. I wonder whether it's based on any fans he didn't like, or is a send-up of the sort of person critics would assume would read his work--a sort of winking, 'this is all in good fun and anybody who takes this sex and horror stuff seriously is a weirdo.' Anyway, their dreams and ours are answered when they go stake out the Tucker house and see Eve the cop, Tuck, and Dana skinny dipping while armed to the teeth. This sequence is a crowning achievement in Laymon's career, although far from the only one. However, the voyeuristic dream is slightly ruined by i) the nude, armed girls coming to look for the intruder they think they hear, and ii) another stranger who seems to be lurking nearby. Owen flees and spends the night in weird fever dreams (John smoking his severed penis like a cigar; the nude girls chasing him down the beach wearing cowboy boots), and John is AWOL. 


2) Dana--just before the Andy Sidaris-esque hot tub incident, Dana managed to get Warren to nail her, and leaves her bra and heart behind at his place (the first literally, the second figuratively--this is a Laymon novel, so I have to specify!). After the failed search for the peeping tom(s), Dana wakes up with her shirt ripped open and a bloodied telephoto lens on her floor. This all suggests that someone's been sneaking around and may have gotten themselves got. . .we know it's almost certainly John, but this is yet another mystery. 


3) 

Here's our twist--Eve is actually Sandy! After Terry's murder and her rape at the hands (paws? claws?) of her son Eric, and her subsequent pregnancy (we're not told yet whether it was Eric's kid or Terry's, or what happened), she figured he'd flee to Malcasa Point at has shown up to track him down. But her stakeouts haven't gotten her anyway, so now she's just a town cop. It's a fair twist, I guess, although I don't think it was done as well as the similar twist Laymon pulled off in Funland. Eve is still trying to hunt down and kill Eric (although her maternal instinct means she wouldn't mind so much if he just gets away and vanishes), and we've last seen her poking around the Beast House attic, where a little kid saw 'something' the other day, when something grabs her. . .


It took a little while, but we're grooving in a pleasantly pervy Laymon mode. I'm still not convinced this had to be a quadrology, let alone a trilogy, and there's something of the soap opera about trying to remember all the characters from previous books (although Laymon does a good job of keeping readers up to speed who haven't read/have forgotten the other books; the fact that the novels revolve around a guided tour attraction mean he can do some major expo dumps without completely dragging things to a halt). 

[dem bones]

Cover and blurb of the UK edition. Series probably should've ended with this one. The posthumous Friday Night at the Beast House was truly too much of a good thing.

Richard Laymon - The Midnight Tour (Headline, 1998).

Steve Crisp

Blurb:
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...

[pbsplatter]

Jan 17, 2023 17:20:13 GMT dem bones said:

Cover and blurb of the UK edition. Series probably should've ended with this one. The posthumous Friday Night at the Beast House was truly too much of a good thing.

Richard Laymon - The Midnight Tour (Headline, 1998).

Steve Crisp

Blurb:
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...



That's a much better cover (the Steve Crisp ones always are) over my less inspired Leisure Books copy:




Although, they did get the house right. 

[pbsplatter]

The denoument has finally arrived and it's. . .really something so far.

The Midnight Tourists assemble--they include Owen, the two likable teen idiots from earlier, Professor Bixby (a Colonel Mustard type in full white hunter regalia), three nice and bland middle-to-upper middle class couples, and Vein and Darke--a pair of vampire fetishist goth-punk chicks.

And Monica, who has arrived and tracked Owen to the Midnight Tour.

Monica's instantly back to her old ways, alternately belittling and seducing Owen, while falling in with Professor Bixby. Owen gets waylaid in the men's room by the vamps, who suck him dry in both senses of the word, and before he knows it he's something of a boyfriend to the androgenous Darke.

Darke is an all time contender for Vault member--she's hip to Poe, Hodgson, and a certain writer whose "little known 1982 horror novel" inspired Janice Crogan to name the town cinema "The Haunted Palace." She goes further and endears herself by proclaiming that she's a fan of "Herbert, James," but not the "bore" Henry James, as the latter doesn't know anything about rats.

Sadly, we don't get to see much of the 10pm screening of The Horror (airing here in its exclusive uncut edition with 13 excised minutes reinstated), since we're busy watching Dana and Warren get it on in the Beast House museum.

Then, once we get in the Beast House itself, things really go nuts. Clyde jumps out and scares everyone with a hyper-realistic Beast costume, but when they get in the cellar, they here Sandy/Eve calling from one of the tunnels. Dana investigates and finds her nude and cuffed up, along with some other mangled bodies. It sure seems like Eve was victimized by Eric or another beast, but then maybe it was Clyde (Eve notes that her assailant ejaculated, which would suggest a beast, but then it was too hazy for her to be sure).



Freed, Eve goes charging armed and unclad after Clyde, who has shown his true colors. In the confusion, Monica stabs Owen, Clyde kills one of the other tourists, and then flees to the Kutch house. Eve apprehends him, but then Agnes waddles out with a Tommy gun and opens fire (this is getting into Funland denoument levels here). Eve shoots her and executes Clyde.

Meanwhile, back in the cellar, an actual beast has shown up. . .

[pbsplatter]

The girls fight the beast, but Vein gets ripped to pieces. The beast starts stripping Dana and trying to rape her, and she winds up with her stomach sort of impaled on his penis. But she manages to stab it to death.

Then there’s a series of phone call excerpts wrapping things up (including the repugnant idea that Clyde, the beast, and Agnes had a sexual relationship all together)

Owen winds up in the hospital, where he gets raped (sort of?) by Monica; meanwhile his girlfriend Darke (real name, Karen Marlowe) is off with Tuck and Dana at the hot tub when…

Well, Eric isn’t dead! He apparently wasn’t the Beast that attacked everyone at the House (no idea at all where it came from), but he was the one who killed John and brought the camera to Dana as a gift.

He charges at the pool, grabs Dana and runs away with her to rape her, and the very last chapter is Dana’s internal monologue ending with her orgasming. It’s positively JOYCEAN.

It’s a good read; I forgot just how nuts things can get with Laymon, which isn’t a complaint.