Beast House. It’s the scene of madness and murder dating back to the early 1900’s, and the only attraction in small-town Malcasa Point, CA. Now owned by elderly hag Maggie Kutch, she’s more than willing to cash in on the legend of a murdering beast dwelling in cellar. As if this legend needs any more boosting, just recently a police officer, a little boy, and his father are found ripped apart.
On the run from her crazed husband, Donna Hayes and her daughter, Sandy, crash their car into a ditch just outside town. Helped out by Maggie’s weird son, they are stranded until the car is fixed. Egged on by her daughter to take the Beast House tour, Donna meets former military hit man Jud Rucker and his friend Larry Usher, who turns out to be a survivor of a Beast House attack when he was a boy. Jud and Larry are there to find and kill the beast, whatever it may be…supernatural, or one of Maggie’s family members dressed up in a monkey suit. Everything spins out of control as the characters are thrust into life-and-death situations. As it turns out, there is more than one beast to be found in Malcasa Point…
A U.S. reissue, this book is a precursor of things to come years later with the influx of extreme horror. And extreme it is, too. Richard Laymon drags the reader kicking and screaming into a finely tuned, violently depraved nightmare. I’m surprised this left the editor’s desk intact.
This is a gore fest, including such abhorrent themes as bestiality, sexual torture, and sickening scenes of child rape. Ordinarily this would end up in my “you’ve got to be kidding me” pile by chapter three, never to be picked up again. However, it surpassed my expectations from the first page: it’s like being shot out of a cannon without a safety net waiting at the other end. By the second chapter, Laymon’s lean and mean prose sucks you right in, and you can’t put the damned thing down no matter how hideous the characters and content. You can tell the author is enjoying the hell out of stomping all over the line between what is acceptable and what isn’t.
And the ending? Dear God. It’s the most perverted thing I’ve ever read, but it feels exactly right.
I don’t recommend this novel for those with “delicate sensibilities.” Go hold hands with your best friends and sing Kumbaya, or you’ll have nightmares for weeks to come. But if you decide to venture into the Beast House, it’s well worth the admission…if you have the guts, that is.
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Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Leisure Books (October 6, 2006)
ISBN: 0843957484
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