The Cellar [Paperback]

Richard Laymon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1987

Visitors flock to see the Beast House with its blood-soaked corridors and creaky doors. Armed with video camcorders, these poor sould enter the forbidden house, never to return. The deeper they go into the house, the darker their nightmares become. Don't even think about going into the cellar.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Richard Layman was born in Chicago in 1947. He grew up in California and has a BA in English Literature from Willamette University, Oregon, and an MA from Loyola University, Los Angeles. He has worked as a schoolteacher, a librarian, a mystery magazine editor and a report writer for a law firm. He now works full-time as a writer. His novel FLESH was shortlisted for the prestigious Bram Stoker Award, as were FUNLAND and his short story collection, A GOOD, SECRET PLACE. Richard Layman is the author of many acclaimed works of horror and suspense, including THE STAKE, SAVAGE, AFTER MIDNIGHT and the three novels in the Beast House Chronicles: THE CELLAR, THE BEAST HOUSE and THE MIDNIGHT TOUR. He lives in California with his wife and daughter. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 252 pages
• Publisher: Paperjacks (December 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0770107559
• ISBN-13: 978-0770107550
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (75 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,678,395 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Hardboiled Horror, April 15, 2003

By 

John C. Hocking (Ann Arbor, MI United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Cellar (Paperback)

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.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars your left in shock and horror, April 25, 2001

By 

johnny-g (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Cellar (Paperback)

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

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Early Laymon, extra grim, February 24, 2007

By 

mrliteral - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Cellar (Mass Market Paperback)

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.