Horror Review: Night Show by Richard Laymon (1984, New English Library/1994 Headline)

modernzorker (66)in #books • 7 years ago (edited)

Dani Larson is the hottest name in Hollywood horror. Forget Rick Baker's work on The Exorcist. Never mind Rob Bottin's puppetry from The Thing. Tom Savini's stuff? Old news. If you want the best makeup and FX work for your horror feature, Dani's your gal. Whether it's doing head casts of actors to create replicas so convincing they make the would-be killers think twice before blowing them open with a shotgun, or stuffing just the right amount of pig entrails into a fake torso to give a disembowelment the perfect level of gravitas, Larson's work is second to none.

Larson's abilities are so legendary they've caught the attention of small-town dreamer Tony Johnson. Tony's been obsessed with scaring people for as long as anybody can remember, and as he's grown older, his plots have grown too: more elaborate, more messy, and, as one unfortunate victim discovered, more dangerous. Now eighteen, fresh out of high school, and looking for a change of scenery, Tony's made his way to California. His plan to get Dani's attention with his own abilities (and the creepy-ass hearse he drives around town) is in full swing: once she sees how earnest and deep his desires run to terrify everybody, she'll have no choice but to take him on as her assistant.

Tony's dream is to scare the world, but his arrival and interdiction into Dani's life are putting a strain on Dani's relationship with Jack. Trying her best to let him down easy, remembering he's just a kid and what life was like for her at that age, Dani walks a precarious tightrope as Tony manages to squeeze himself more and more into her world. What started as a gesture of kindness on Dani's part may wind up ruining everything as Tony's obsession leads him to believe he's in love with Dani. Tony's willing to do anything for love, especially if it means scaring other people to death.

Night Show is Laymon's love letter to 70's and 80's horror cinema, and unfortunately that's about the only thing it has going for it. It's clear he did a great deal of research on the techniques of makeup and effects artists of the period, and the scenes where Dani explains the creation of certain props and how the effects work with the cinematography are a great behind-the-scenes look at how many hours are often invested in what turns out to be a few seconds' worth of screen time, but everywhere else, Night Show falls flat. It's still Laymon, so the book moves at his traditional rapid-fire pace, and its 289 pages blow by in a single afternoon, but this story telegraphs itself so clearly from the start that Samuel Morse should receive co-author credit.

The biggest problem I have with Night Show is that I can't tell if it's trying to be serious or satire. A common trope of horror films, especially cheese-filled schlockfests like Friday the 13th, is the main characters consistently making the wrong decisions because it's what the script calls for. Every time a group decides to split up, every time someone goes off alone to investigate a suspicious noise, every time the half-dressed heroine quavers out a "Who's there?" to the person knocking on the other side of the door, we're seeing a writer using stupidity to involve the characters in a gimmick scenario instead of doing the heavy lifting to get them there through more sensible means. When characters act a certain way purely because that's what the script dictates, we're left unsatisfied.

This is Night Show's most egregious sin. Otherwise-sensible characters behaving in manners contrary to all common sense is understandable when they're frightened out of their minds and running on adrenaline, but when confronted with a scenario allowing them time for reflection and they still pick the 'dumb' option, I start losing confidence. There's a point where Dani's boyfriend Jack flat-out tells her exactly what the reader's thinking: her idea to invite Tony into her life, even briefly, is the worst one since New Coke.

Tony's weird. He exhibits stalker-ish behavior and all but directly assaults Dani before he's introduced himself to her. It's a cute angle he's playing, trying to get his foot in the door of the world where she works by giving her a demonstration of his talents instead of a resume, but everything she sees of him sets her senses on edge. Taking pity on someone like this is the worst idea in the world. Falling for it multiple times is inexcusable. Women like Dani Larson don't get to the heights of their professions due to incompetence.

The one thing that could save this book was an indication, any indication, that Laymon was satirizing his subject matter. His homage is clear, playing up to his cinematic heroes from the pages of Famous Monsters of Filmland, Fangoria, Cinefantastique, and similar publications. Going tongue-in-cheek could have worked wonders for Laymon: look at the success Andrew Kevin Walker enjoyed in the aftermath of Scream, a film which raked the genre tropes over the coals by presenting a cast of characters too familiar with them for their own good. Laymon's smart enough he could have made this work, evidenced by his subsequent work putting new spins on vampires, zombies, and other mythos staples. I could even pull together a few points in favor of this notion from the sub-plot of the book, which involves a girl previously scared and traumatized by Tony tracking him and his friends down for some payback of her own that takes its cues from the infamous revenge flick I Spit On Your Grave.

I'd fail under the scrutiny of any halfway-serious plot analysis, but I could make the effort. Nevertheless, for as much of a fan as I am, even I have to admit Night Show is a weak entry. There's no sign of Laymon trying to make this out to be anything more than a simple slasher set amid the non-glamorous side of the Hollywood horror film scene, with two-dimensional characters scarcely worthy of the life Laymon breathed into their forms. Like the shambling golems of Jewish legend who exist to fulfill a single purpose and then depart once their task is completed, Laymon's characters here are flat enough that training bras would be generous, and about as sympathetic as gas pains after a late-night Taco Bell munch-a-thon. Sorry Richard, you brought it on yourself. Night Show just isn't good. What's more, it doesn't even have the temerity to be bad.

There's something to be said for stuff so bad it's good. There's a case to be made for stuff so awful it inverts upon itself and becomes memorable--maybe for reasons the author didn't intend, but authorial intention isn't everything. Laymon's got a few that fall into this category for me, mainly his Beast House series, but Night Show's damning grace is sheer unmemorable mediocrity. If it's worthy of attention for any reason, it's as a curiosity to show just how hard it is to write horror, even when you're one of the well-respected names in the genre. Unless you're dedicated to reading Laymon's novels in chronological order, you're better off saving Night Show for after you've finished his top-tier stuff. It's a fast read because it's Laymon, and his prose is always worth examining for its page-churning quality alone, but if the only reason you're picking up a book is because of how quickly you can file it as 'Read' on Goodreads, I'd advise you to reconsider.

Two machete-ravaged corpses out of five.

Best Scene:

There is exactly one truly memorable scene in Night Show, and while I don't normally write spoilers in my reviews, I'm going to do so here. Those of you planning on picking this one up and hoping for a surprise, skip the rest of this section or hit your 'Back' button now.

So much of the book's plot revolves around Tony's attempts to get Dani alone, separated from her boyfriend Jack, and as the story progresses his tricks get more complicated. When it becomes clear Jack isn't going to just step aside and let Tony fill his shoes, Tony goes in for the kill by knocking Jack unconscious, dragging him to the coffin in the back of his hearse, driving to a secluded area, and burying Jack alive.

The scene from Jack's perspective, as he wakes up in the coffin, realizes where he is and what's about to happen as the dirt starts raining down from above, covering up the little air hole drilled in the lid, is enormously tense, but that's only half the best part about this scene.

The other involves Dani, fighting off Tony's advances, and convincing him to tell her where he took Jack. After a prolonged battle of both fists and wits, Dani succeeds in drawing the information out of Tony by tying him to a chair, dousing him head to toe in charcoal lighter fluid, and playing with a book of matches. Tony spills his guts faster than the first kid to get wasted in A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Dani speeds off to his rescue...where we discover Tony didn't have time to actually bury Jack after kidnapping him, so he just put the coffin on the ground and scooped a few spadefuls of dirt on top of the lid. This wouldn't have left Jack any less dead if Dani hadn't been able to find him in time, but it's one of the very few times Laymon effectively manages to pull the wool over the reader's eyes in this story, and I always give credit where due.

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