Horror Aficionados discussion

The winner of our CRYPTID poll is Richard Laymon's The Cellar!
Here's a place for us to discuss it. Please be careful of spoilers and Happy Reading!

Think I'll go with this one next month. For all the good things I've heard about him, I don't think I've ever read any of Laymon's novels.

This will be my first Laymon novel despite having heard a lot of good things about his novels. Can't wait to join in in June!

I'm going to pass on this one but I think i'll follow the comments.

I’ve been wanting to read this but, I have to read others first. Sad.

Awesome-- I actually own *this* one! --Jen from Quebec :0)

My library system actually has this, so I put it on order.

It has been a couple of years since I read this, but this should make for an interesting comment section. Laymon is one of the worst writers I have ever read - and I still read ten or so of his books (despite only one being what I would call "good")! For us horror fiend types, he's like a bad series of slasher films that scratch a certain itch regardless of any lack of quality. Sometimes you just want to watch Friday the 13th Part 5 and not Rosemary's Baby.

Layman books have always been my favourite. Fun sexy and gory to the max!

I cannot wait to read the comments on this one :)

Thought I had this one but it's a book with the same name by a different author , shucks

This has been in my TBR pile for a long time! Can’t wait to finally read it!! :D

Haven’t done a group read for a while but I have the ebook of this already, so I think I’ll jump in.

I still haven't read this so I'm going to try to join in with the group. :)

Cool, Jennifer! It’d be great to have you. :)

I need to see if I still have my copy but I have vague memories of wanting it removed from my home as soon as I finished it so I probably traded it.

Bark wrote: "I need to see if I still have my copy but I have vague memories of wanting it removed from my home as soon as I finished it so I probably traded it."

This made me laugh!

I'll be glad joining if I'm going to find my copy lost somewhere on my dusty overcrowded bookshelves :)

Laymon is my absolute favorite. I have read this but it’s been awhile. I hope to join as well assuming I find the time between other reading projects. If not I’ll just be here trolling the comments.

A few of my personal thoughts regarding Laymon. First of all he opened me up to the Horror genre. I had previously loved King, Koontz, Anne Rice, and a couple of Sauls books but I was unaware of so much more. I picked up a copy of No Sanctuary from a 2nd hand book store and was hooked. this was the sort of dark twisted and depraved stuff I’d wanted. I quickly read a few more of his novels before I realized they were all from Leisure Books and that they had a horror book club that provided 2 horror novels a month for $15 at the time I was in horror heaven. My interest led me to Steve Gerlachs website Richard Laymon Kills and to several other message boards like Horrorworld and eventually here. I have gotten to read and become internet friends with several horror novelists all because I took a chance on a used Richard Laymon novel.

Sadly only a year after I initially discovered his work he passed away on my birthday. Such a sad day.

Sorry I’m rambling but I think it’s an interesting story about how a man I’d never met who writes trashy horror novels had such a profound impact on my life.

Greg wrote: "Laymon is my absolute favorite. I have read this but it’s been awhile. I hope to join as well assuming I find the time between other reading projects. If not I’ll just be here trolling the comments..."

I miss Leisure Book Club more than words can say :(

Indeed Bark 😢

I know that at the end they were treating their authors poorly but I loved getting two new books a month in the mail. Most of them excellent. Lee, Keene, Laymon, Garton, Waggoner, Laimo just to drop a few...

It was awesome.

What does "Cryptid" mean? Is that a horror book genre? I mean, what was the criteria to group the books of the poll "Cryptid group read"? I can't seem to find what it means...

It’s supposed to mean mythical creature examples being big foot, lochness monster, jersey devil, chupacabre etc.

Not sure this met that requirement but 🤷‍♂️

Just finished it. I liked it better than most of the books I've read of Laymon's. My one big issue with it was the more-than-implied repeated (view spoiler)[ child molestation (hide spoiler)]. It takes a lot to offend or even really bother me, but that element really stuck in my craw.

Alan wrote: " It takes a lot to offend or even re..."

There was another by Laymon that featured this sort of thing as a major plot point (or maybe it was this one - my memory is crap) and I remember it really disturbed me and had me thinking bad thoughts about the author. He was rumored to be one of the nicest guys around though. Maybe writing is how he got all of the demons out. But, yeah, reading about that kind of thing is always a terrible surprise.

It was quite a prominent plot point in Island. And there’s a bit in Endless Night as well.

It does tend to pop up in his other books but not quite as much as those.

Greg wrote: "It was quite a prominent plot point in Island. And there’s a bit in Endless Night as well.

It does tend to pop up in his other books but not quite as much as those."

Endless Night! That's the one.

Greg wrote: "It was quite a prominent plot point in Island. And there’s a bit in Endless Night as well.

It does tend to pop up in his other books but not quite as much as those."
Oh good. I have both those books in my TBR pile. Looking forward to them now.....not. :/

I do highly recommend Island I really enjoyed that one. But maybe that’s just me 😁

I'm about 20% in so far. It's alright so far. Not a fan of children characters in books. And (view spoiler)[ is he implying that the beast is having sex with the people it kills? o.o (hide spoiler)] I really like the idea of a creepy house that has some crazy shit going on in there. Can't wait to find out what this beast really is? Any guesses so far? Doesn't seem very cryptid, but that's ok. We can always do another cryptid theme some other month and maybe get a real cryptid.

The only thing I'm not a fan of, is the dialogue. Is it just me, or is it kinda wonky? I don't know, like, it doesn't flow very well or something? Not horrible, but not great either...

Just finished it. (I guess I started a little too early, but I get excited for these group reads at HA.) I have mixed feelings about it. I’m still trying to process them. Some I think have to do with it being a little dated nowadays, which is no fault of the book’s. I look forward to what others think.

Started it last night.
The prologue reminded me a lot the one in Laymon's Allhallow's Eve and the infamous scenes for what The Cellar is so famous disturbed me a lot, but for that I'm loving the small town horror atmosphere here.

As some have mentioned earlier, there are a few scenes in here with kids that is just too much for me.
I read some other Laymon before and it was more cheesy than scary. This is just gnarly!

Off to the DNF pile.

I'm about 70% done. If you can get past the rape, pedophilia, bestiality and the necrophilia...... this book is alright, I guess. Reminds me of a B movie from the 70s that I would watch. The plot is interesting, and I'm curious enough about what or who the beast is, that I'll go ahead and finish the book.... but I don't really know how I'll rate it. Don't hate it, I guess, but I'm not in love with it either. I'm not really offended by all the pedo and sex and WTF stuff, but.... man, there sure is a lot of it. o_O I mean.... a LOOOOOOOOOTTTTTTTTTT. Geez. We GET IT. Roy is a horrible, terrible, monster of a person.... you don't have to keep cramming that down our throats every Roy chapter. The author is really beating a dead horse about it. It almost feels like filler! Like, the author got done with the book, realized it was too many pages under what he was supposed to have, then just went back and beefed up sections with more descriptions of sex and pedoness. *shrug* I think this book might be heading towards my Meh shelf....

Okay, I have read some horrible comments about this book, but I am going to give it a try!

Tiffany: Damn, I’m sorry to hear that you’ve been hit with negative energy.

I have read some Laymon & yes; it’s very different than “regular horror” but he is not a bad writer-in fact quite the opposite.

Thank you for giving it a shot so you can decide if you like The Cellar for yourself. And just because I enjoy his books that contain some very taboo subject matter, that doesn’t mean that I’m OK with rape or anything along those lines.

I mean, many of us enjoy horror books where usually there are some deaths. This doesn’t mean that I “like” murderers or watching people die. It’s supposed to be scary. I mean we are horror aficionados, right?

I hope you enjoy it. But, if you don’t, at least you discovered that by reading it yourself.

Well said Sheri. I have a hard time recommending Laymon novels to friends usually female friends because I’d hate for them to respond with “you like this stuff!!”

Yes I do I love horror and splatterpunk but that’s not saying I condone it.

Wow! I’m 20% in & I can’t believe that a Laymon book could remind me of my childhood. I’m quite familiar with Donna & Sandy’s ordeal as far as running on the road goes, trying to stay safe.

As far as Roy is concerned-I hope the beast renders him useless as far as male anatomy goes.

I'm just curious.....I read "The Cellar" about 15 years ago and it just sort of left me a bit "cold" .. not horrible but not great. Is Laymon the kind of author where you have to be in a certain "mood" to appreciate him? (I'm beginning to think I might have been in just the wrong frame of mind at the time of my reading.) Perhaps I should give it another go-round or perhaps delve into his "Traveling Vampire Show", I hear it's one of his better efforts.
Any feelings about "The Cellar" in terms of moods etc.?

I'm not a fan of Laymon, mostly because I've read about 7 books of his and I find them to be too formulaic and the writing to be juvenile. The Cellar was his first book and was likely written intending to shock and horrify. I think it's actually one of his above average books, but as I mentioned earlier, there was one pervading element that I found unnecessary and in poor taste even for a splatterpunk author.

All that being said, some of his books are a bit more elevated writing, Traveling Vampire Show being one of them. Although I still think the gore and sex sound like they were written by a teenager instead of a grown man, the story itself was actually quite entertaining and original. I think you would be OK reading either as your first Laymon book, but understand that his prose is not refined or nuanced, it's more sprayed all over the pages.

Finished last night, it kept me awake until 2 am reading 200+ pages. It was a morbid and twisted page-turner ride, with characters acting in idiotic and unrealistic way sometimes but that's a Laymon's trademark (together with his explicit sex depictions and his obsession for boobs), but I enjoyed it a lot and that twisted ending was really unexpected.
Maybe I've enjoyed it much more than I should have (Roy's scenes made me feel disturbed and sick) but it was a solid 80s extreme horror/splatterpunk read, just not for everybody and you really have to be in the right mood or a die-hard Laymon fan to enjoy it. 3 stars rounded to 4 by the twisted shocking ending.

Ugh, Bark. I see why you wanted this book out of your house. This is not what I was expecting.

I finished this the other day.

I don't get grossed out or offended easily and really the only thing that will make me angry and rage quit is lots of animal deaths or cruelty, so the more WTF scenes in the book, while not condoning it nor being happy to read it, were meh to me. As someone has already said, it felt very juvenile or amateurish, making it not shocking but kind of boring (at least for me). I just ended up going "Oh. Another Roy rape-the-child chapter. *skips ahead 4 pages* "

Like I said, I don't condone all of that rapey pedo beasty sex stuff... but that was not my biggest problem with this book.

My problem with this book is that I went in to this wanting to read about the BEAST in the BEAST HOUSE. But this book was a majority of Donna and Sandy running from Roy, and how horrible Roy is. That was the main plot it felt like. I understand that they wanted to build up Roy so the whole finale with him was cheered for. I get that... but, I don't know... For me, I would have liked to have the whole wife, daughter, husband/ dad thing gone, and just have 100% of the book be about Jud and Larry figuring out what was going on in the Beast House and how to take care of the beast. To me, the book really became interesting in the scenes with Jud and Larry, and I would have liked to have seen more of just them doing what they went there to do. *shrug* Maybe that's just me. The Donna / Sandy / Roy stuff was so boring for me. When I got to the 60% done, I just started skimming their sections unless it had to do with Jud and Larry. I just got to the point where I just didn't care anymore about their story line. -.-

Robert wrote: "I'm just curious.....I read "The Cellar" about 15 years ago and it just sort of left me a bit "cold" .. not horrible but not great. Is Laymon the kind of author where you have to be in a certain "m..."

maybe not a certain mood, but more like just knowing what you are in store for when going in to the book? I think of it as like watching a B movie. Some people think it's going to be a great movie, and when they are done, they go "what a piece of shit! that wasn't good at all! it was so campy and cheesey!! And it had this and this and this wrong with it!!" then they get angry. BUT, if you go in to the movie thinking how it's going to be good in a bad B movie way, you actually enjoy the movie more for it's campy cheese. You know what I mean?

I'm in two chapters, and I have issues with the dialogue as well, Ami. The writing just isn't very good.

I made it past the 50% mark, and I'm out. I thought the child rape would end by now, but it hasn't.

Jennifer ☼ wrote: "I made it past the 50% mark, and I'm out. I thought the child rape would end by now, but it hasn't."

Oh, brother. I think I'm going to pass on this one. Dammit.

Jennifer ☼ wrote: "Ugh, Bark. I see why you wanted this book out of your house. This is not what I was expecting."

Yeah, it was rather icky. My husband LOVED it though. That worried me for a bit :) If you quit now though you are going to miss the gloriously disturbing end!

Sorry, Char. Oh, Bark, don't say that! LOL. Can I just read the last chapter or something?

Jennifer ☼ wrote: "Sorry, Char. Oh, Bark, don't say that! LOL. Can I just read the last chapter or something?"

Sure, why not. It's going to haunt you no matter which way you read it :) Just remember some things cannot be unread!