Customer Reviews

THE CELLAR.

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Laymon's work is so terse and hard-hitting that it's almost impossible to read it slowly. His prose style owes more to the 'hard-boiled' school of crime and mystery authors than to any traditional horror writers. This gives his best books more brute power than even hardened horror readers might expect. Sentences of sharp, brutal impact can leap off the page and strike the reader like open-handed slaps.
'The Cellar' is one of his best in that it couples this stripped-down readability with an absolutely merciless plot. At his peak, you can never tell how Laymon will end his tales, who will die, who will live and what will be left of them. The conclusion of 'The Cellar' is legendary and it thoroughly deserves this status.
If you like horror fiction, be it Poe or Barker or Blackwood or Hutson, give this book a try. Nobody ever wrote quite like this before.

This was my first Ricard Laymon book. After hearing of the plot from a friend I immediately rushed out a bought a copy of this horrorific book. A recommendation, if you get attached to characters easily and CAN'T STAND to see them hurt...dont read this. One of Richard Laymon's (RIP) great strengths is his ability to create great characters and make you pull for them. This is a fast paced read, with a story centering around the Beast House and its past infamy. Murders, rapes, gores and horrors are the norm at this house, all handed out by the 'beast'. The characters all come into place very nicely with some gruesome sub-plots to boot. With every uncovered truth we the reader are horrified at what is happening, but are left not wanting to put the book down because you dont want to leave the character in such an evil situation. The ending in this book has to be the most gruesome, gory and uh,...most DISTURBING piece of literature I've ever read (and Ive read some crazy stuff). I was left thinking, this can be over! I was outraged. Then, when i found that this was only the first book in the series i raced out and bought the rest. Richard Laymon will be missed, he is the greatest and most under appreciated horror writer of our time. Give this book a chance, its a short read and worth the nightmares

For around two decades, from the early 1980s to his death in the early 21st Century, Richard Laymon produced his own brand of horror. Among his thirty-or-so novels, I have now read five: Resurrection Dreams, After Midnight, Into the Fire, Blood Games and now, The Cellar. This last book may very well be his first novel (based on the copyrights), but it is clearly a product of Laymon's imagination. And, generally speaking, that is a good thing.

The Cellar opens up (after a brief prologue) with Donna Hayes finding out that her ex-husband Roy has just been released from prison. Roy is a true villain with no redeeming value to speak of, and he is out for revenge against his former spouse. He also intends to take up again his "romance" with their pre-teen daughter, Sandy. With a few hours head start, Donna and Sandy flee to Northern California, where after a car accident, they find themselves stuck in the small town of Malcasa Point.

This town has one tourist feature, the Beast House, where some disturbing killings have taken place over the years. Fortunately, the creature that supposedly lurks within only goes come out at night and never leaves the house. Hence, during the day, it has tours. Larry Usher, one of the rare survivors of a Beast attack when he was a kid, finds he is still haunted by the creature; he recruits Jud, a mysterious mercenary, to take out the creature.

Eventually, the paths of all these characters will cross. It's obvious that Donna will eventually be trapped between Roy and the Beast and that romance will bloom between her and Jud, one of those virtuous assassins that seem to only exist in fiction. It is to Laymon's credit, however, that he does not always go in obvious directions, and there are twists that lead to a logical if unexpected conclusion.

This is not a perfect book. Laymon's efforts to make Roy repulsive are effective yet sometimes overly gratuitous. Also, although this would actually be the first time he used this theme, he tends to produce more woman-in-jeopardy stories than the Lifetime Channel movie division. All the novels I've read of his follow this idea, albeit in different fashions. Even with his flaws, however, Laymon writes well enough and The Cellar is a quick, suspenseful read.

Richard Laymon has the knack of turning what should be abhorrent into an entertaining literary feast and this is the case with The Cellar. The journey takes us through bestiality, paedophilia, torture and some of the most finely crafted suspense horror in a long, long time.

The Cellar is located in the only attraction in Malcasa Point, the infamous Beast House with its blood steeped history and the even stranger Kutch House with no windows and only one door. Running from her deranged husband who has recently been released from gaol Donna Hayes finds herself stranded in Malcasa Point after a car accident in the fog. At her daughter's insistence she takes the Beast House Tour and meets Jud Rucker who changes her life around, albeit temporarily.

What happens from here on in is bloodsoaked but so gripping you don't want to put the book down. Does the beast exist or is it one of the Kutch family playing dress-up? Will they all escape alive? Will they escape the clutches of the Beast House at all?

If you like your horror novels with gore dripping from the page onto your lap as you read this is definitely the book for you.

Richard Laymon is an author who holds nothing back in his horror stories, and this book is a prime example. We are introduced to Donna, a single mom and her daughter Sandy. Donna gets a phone call one day that her ex just got out of prison. She grabs her young daughter and together they immediately vacate their home. You see, Roy- the scumbag exhusband - did a very bad thing to Sandy when she was younger ( as well as abused Donna )and Donna wants to protect her beloved daughter and herself from Roy, because she knows that he will try and get his revenge on them for putting him in jail.

After hours of driving they hit a bad patch of fog, and their car has a bit of an accident. A strange man comes along and eventually they hitch a ride with him into Malcasa Point, which is a small town but one that has a big tourist attraction...."The Beast House". There's a dangerous, bloody and fatal history to the Beast House, and the current owner offers grisly tours daily.

Donna and Sandy, take the tour and meet a couple of gentlemen also touring the place. One is named Judgment and the other, named Larry, has a long history with the Beast House. The displays at the house are very life-like and gruesome and the story the owner tells is beyond believable...or is it?

Meanwhile Roy is going through innocent people like a hot knife through butter and kidnaps a young girl, doing unspeakable things to the poor child. He eventually finds out where is ex and daughter are and follows them, excited at the thought of taking his revenge.

Reading how all the characters and their stories work together is like unwrapping a piece of chocolate...you can't wait to devour it. As with the other Laymon books I have read, this one doesn't skimp on sex ( human and subhuman )and the body count goes up and up. What happened in the past, as revealed by a long ago writtern diary, and happens now in the Beast House had me hooked, and I couldn't read this book fast enough to see what came next.

A great book. I have to say I rank it pretty high among all the Laymon books I've read. I am dissappointed to know it's a part of a trilogy and now I must find the other two books to read! This is more gore than most of his books but it didn't stop me from loving it. This is Laymon and the ending is a jaw dropping thrill!

In 'The Cellar', we see all the hallmarks of Richard Layman's unique mix of sadism, sexual deviance, horny girls, priapic males, hairy beasts, messy sex and messier deaths. For all the silliness of the story, Layman revealed, even in his earliest work, an innate genius for writing un-put-down-ably compelling narratives. Reading Layman is like reading those vaguely scandalous and disreputable pulp fiction rags of the 1920s and '30s. He may have written trash, but he was the most satisfying writer of unapologetic trash in the genre.

I did not know that this was Laymons first book, although now, after reading it I can see signs to that effect. First, the horror part and the creature were fine, nothing wrong with them. Its the woman with the child I found hard to believe. She is on the run from a very abusive ex-husband who beat her, degraded her and raped their young daughter, but she immediately takes up with two strange men who stay in the same hotel as her and her abused daughter. She leaves her daughter in the care of one of them having barely known them for two days, then she learns that the ex-husband had killed her sister and husband and for about, oh, five minutes or less she is upset, but then has sex in the bathroom with one of the strangers, leaving her daughter alone in the other room. They know that the ex-husband is very close to catching up with them but does the mother leave? No, of course not, she stays there because the man she has hooked up with says he will kill the ex for her. The ending is also very abrupt, but I am now reading beast house so maybe that will help. Not Laymons' best. Read the Traveling Vampire Show or the Stake if you want really good Laymon.

Laymon fans will revel in "The Cellar", one of Richard's first books and the start of the "Beast House" trilogy. There's no question that this one will shock the casual reader who picks it up based on the back cover description.

Donna Hayes and her daughter, Sandy, are on the run from Donna's abusive husband, Roy. As they escape north along the coast of California, their car breaks down in quiet little Malcasa Point, home of the infamous Beast House. While they are waiting for their car to be fixed, Donna and Sandy meet Judgement (Jud) Rucker and his friend Larry Usher. Unbeknownst to Donna, Usher has hired Jud to help him kill the infamous occupant of the Beast House. Years earlier, Larry escaped the clutches of the Beast during an attack on him and a young friend (who was killed during the attack). Larry has waited years for revenge and now he has help. The plot soon takes off as Roy arrives in town just as Jud and Larry finalize the plan to kill the Beast.

Without revealing anymore plot details, let me just say that the action in "The Cellar" is non-stop. If the reader can deal with a number of disturbing and uncomfortable moments involving rape, bestiality, and vivid descriptions of gore, then he or she will find an exciting and fast-moving story.

This is a hard book to find but an easy one to read as Laymon packs moment after moment of gut-wrenching suspense and horror. Weighing at a mere 256 pages, the reader will find themselves wanting more. Which is just what Laymon figured so he finished the trilogy with "The Beast House" and "Midnight Tour".

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED TO ALL LAYMON FANS

Laymon is known to a select few of us as the true master of horror. His race-car fast style and narrative drive as well as his capacity for downright sick stories make for some of the finest reading in the horror genre. With The Cellar Laymon proves he can outdo anyone in the realm of shock horror. A house with a deadly reputation is visited by dozens every day trying to get a glimpse into the slaughter that happened at the Beast House years before. Enter a young mother and her daughter, as well as a hired killer and the neurotic man who has hired him to kill the creature that haunts the Beast House. These four individuals are caught up in a myriad of plots and subplots as Laymon takes us into the Beast House for one more killfest before reaching a climax that is so sick and twisted you'll put the book down in shock and not want to return. For fans of Laymon I urge you to look for this book. I know it's out of print and difficult to find, but it is definitely worth the trouble of looking. Not as good as The Stake or Midnight's Lair, but damned good all the same. Highly recommended.