Friday, October 04, 2019

The Midnight Tour by Richard Laymon

(pb; 1998: third book in the Beast House Chronicles)

From the inside flap

“It is the summer of 1997. Many years have gone by since Janice Crogan’s summer of horror. The town of Malcasa Point has changed a lot─and so has the Beast House tour. Due to several popular books and movies about the infamous house of death, the tour is bigger and better than ever.

“The self-guided daytime tour, safe for the whole family, gives the sanitized version of the attacks and murders. If you want the real story, however, you can get it.

“Just take the Midnight Tour.

“Every Saturday night, for a hundred dollars, you and twelve other guests can participate in the special picnic, private screening of The Horror, and the tour itself.

“The tour starts at midnight. Your guide is the spunky young ‘Tuck,’ who knows everything about Beast House. As she leads you through the gloomy old house, she’ll be happy to tell you all the most grisly, shocking, lurid details about the beast, its weird anatomy, and the horrible rapes and killings that have been committed in the various rooms and corridors, in the attic, in the cellar.

“Don’t worry, the tour’s a little scary and disgusting, but it’s perfectly safe.

“Usually.”


Review

Warning: possible spoilers in this review.

One of the things I like about the Beast House Chronicles is how Laymon approaches each book from a different, often plot- and character-progressive angle. Sandy, one of the main characters in The Cellar, is a welcome, major player in this longer-than-other-Beast books. Like its previous Beast novel, The Beast House, there is plenty of violence, rape-happy monsters, other disturbing sex and humor. Again, there are some Scooby-Doo-ish, gung-ho characters. This time out, the vibe is more plot-oriented and characters’ personalities and characters get more airtime than the horrifying rapes and other sexual intensity.

If there is a big flaw in Midnight, it is that the ending is essentially, almost-word-for-word the same as the finish of The Beast House, with some rapeable characters being subjected the brutal, bloody and intoxicating (read the book before you judge that last word) desires of the “bad” characters.

This is worth reading and owning─if purchased for a few bucks. Followed by Friday Night in Beast House.

No comments: