Customer Reviews

Dark Mountain

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

Two families get together to go hiking and camping in the northern California mountains. Unbeknownst to them, they are not alone as a crazy old witch and her son are hiding out there. As the group gets into the mountains, the villainy arises. What we get here is a very good build up that feels a bit like Wrong Turn, which I just love. Events lead to a curse being laid on the families by the witch turning the story into something a little reminiscent of Stephen King's Thinner. This in turn leads to a smaller group returning to the mountains to try and remove the curse. What I always find odd with Laymon, is he introduces some hint of a life changing event in one character's past life but then never really ever expands upon it like you want him to do and you're always left with a nagging "what was the point of that sub-story then" kind of feeling; in this one, it's Karen's car crash from years before.

All in all, I was absorbed into the first portion of the book in the mountains. The next portion when the families return home has to deal with a drastic slowing of action or suspense but there are still a couple solid scenes within. The last part, the return to the woods, picks up again although becomes predictable until the end scenario. Overall, certainly better than some of his other stories but still doesn't contend with the The Beast House series.

I love Mr. Laymon's books. I just wish they were easier to find and more readily available. Once again he takes us on an adventure that we can't resist. What's so scary about going hiking and camping? The great outdoors, fresh air, fresh water, beautiful countryside and good company. No, nothing scary about that. Unless, of course, some weirdo attacks you and rapes you in the middle of the night and your campmate is forced to kill him. Unfortunately, it doesn't end there. The weirdo has an evil witch for a mother and she's not about to let you get away with killing her precious son. Anyone know how to remove a curse?

In Richard Laymon's latest re-released book, Dark Mountain, the reader finds himself (or herself) in familiar territory with a plot that focuses on ordinary people who encounter nasty things in the woods. In fact, many of the elements of Dark Mountain will seem familiar to Laymon fans, but that won't diminish the end result: another nasty yet entertaining book.

For the divorced Scott, a camping trip to the mountainous forests of California is a perfect chance to get away with his new girlfriend Karen and have her bond with his kids, Julie and Benny. Julie is a sullen teenager, while Benny is the fantasy-loving pre-teen. Also along for the trip is Scott's friend Flash and Flash's family, including teenage son - and soon to be Julie's love interest - Nick. Unfortunately, the woods they visit are already occupied by an old woman with supernatural powers and her monstrous son who wants to rape and murder every woman he sees; it is an urge that not even his mother can stop.

Although you might expect that the story would involve an increasingly desperate battle between the campers and their stalkers, Laymon throws a twist in: by the halfway point, the two families are safely back home. Actually, "safe" may be overstating things, as new problems beset them and force a return to the woods for a final confrontation.

In many ways, this is standard Laymon material, with vicious villains and an obsession with sex (and no end to the descriptions of female anatomy). Yet, in a way, this is almost a kinder, gentler Laymon, with a slightly more restrained level of violence. But only long-time Laymon fans will notice that difference, and even they won't be disappointed in the final result. Dark Mountain may not be for everyone, but horror fans should be pleased with it.

Dark Mountain was originally published in the 80's and was re-released by Leisure this month. It tells the story of two families who go camping together in the woods. While there, they get ambushed by a horrible, cave-dwelling pervert who rapes one of the women before getting axed to death by another camper. Unfortunately, this pisses off his curse-throwing mother. At the end of the first part of this book (which is split into three parts) everyone makes it out alive (except for the bad guy). This by itself shocked the Hell out of me. This is Richard Laymon, after all. The second part tells about how the curse affects the two families; this time, almost no one dies, and ironically enough, it's someone who didn't get cursed. This sets up part three, wherein a few members of the original camping group hunt down the witch and kill her. Again, no one dies except the villain. If if weren't for the trademark Laymon Sexual Undertone Overkill (he came soooo close to crossing the line with the pre-teen boy's attraction to his father's girlfriend it was more uncomfortable than the parts where they faced the witch), I'd think it was someone else's book.

This is Laymon Lite, compared to everything else of his I've read. Nevertheless, I enjoyed Dark Mountain and passed it to a friend, who immediately began enjoying it as well. 7.9/10

As a fan of such 1980's classic slashers "Don't Go in the Woods....Alone!", "Madman", "Just Before Dawn" and of course "Friday the 13th" campers fighting off a stabby lunatic is one of my favorite horror sub-genres. "Dark Mountain" starts off as if it were a novelization of one of those classic films. Two families out for fun week of camping, hiking and swimming in cold lakes draws the attention of a homicidal maniac and his backwoodsy mother. The set up is perfect, we get to know the families quite a bit so we come to care for the characters much more than usual in this type of story. The setting is picture perfect and Laymon does such a great job describing the setting you can smell the woodsmoke and taste the mountain stream water. The story slowly builds and you just know some awful things are about to happen and things start clicking into place...and then wham...halfway thru the story everything shifts gears from a slasher tale to a goofy witchcraft tale.

The second half of the novel where the protagonists are dealing with a curse is simply dull. We get one minor calamity after another..all suspense is lost, and Laymon begins adding additional sub-plots which resemble just so much filler. Almost the entire second half of the novel feels like it's just padding until Laymon can find an excuse to get his characters back into the woods.

Normally Laymon's novels are filled to the brim with blood, monsters, sex, gore, suspense and horror, but "Dark Mountain" while it sets the stage....simply fails to deliver any of the author's usual trademarks.

I have read quite a few Laymon books and this book is very different. The characters are good, but the story was slow at times. I skimmed past many pages because they dragged on and lacked the suspense and fast paced style of other Richard Laymon books. This is a book worth reading, but a die hard Richard Laymon fan will proberbly be disappointed. The books writing style is similar to Stephen King and Dean Koontz.

I really liked the structure of this novel. It's broken down into three different acts.

In the first segment, two families go out camping together in the woods, where they run afoul of an old woman and her very large, strange son, who happens to be a homicidal killer and rapist. The woman doesn't seem to be so evil. She spends most of her time trying to keep her son from hurting others, which he does uncontrollably. They are hiding out in the wilderness after he had killed someone in Fresno and they had to flee their home. When the son tries to attack the camping families, they kill him with a hatchet, setting his mother off on a mission of revenge. There's a really good sequence where the group wakes up in the middle of the night to find their tents slashed with a sharp blade and each of them has been cut across the forehead and a lock of hair taken. Suddenly the old woman appears on a rock, informing them that she's put a death curse on them all. Of course, they don't believe her. After dealing with the authorities about the killing (self defense), they go home.

The second chunk of the story deals with the two families after their return from the mountains. One of the kids in paranoid, as he believes in the curse, but everybody else has forgotten about it, until things begin to happen. Nightmares, ghostly apparitions, dog attacks, near drownings, all manner of nastiness begins and does not let up. It becomes obvious that something nefarious is happening. The curse is at work! Everything gets worse, leading up to a terrible auto accident, which is the last straw, and the group decides they must find the old witch and end the curse by ending her!

The third and final act has a few characters from each family (the ones still up and around, who have not yet been too badly injured) heading back into the mountains. There's a pretty satisfying final confrontation, with a lot of suspense. The climactic scenes take place almost completely in and underwater, and they are really suspenseful scenes.

This is fast, easy reading, and the last third is a real page-turner. There's a few gripping sequences and a couple characters I really liked. Richard Laymon is skilled at writing good, strong female characters, and there's always at least one in each novel.

I liked the tone of this book. It's not really horror. It reads more like adventure/suspense, and the bad guys are not so over the top bad, which is a refreshing change of pace. The good guys are just really normal middle class people that you can understand and relate to. They aren't Rambo's or James Bond's or trained fighter's or anything exciting, which makes their trip back into the woods more frightening and a possible suicide mission.

I was not dissapointed with this book. Good story sprinkled with typical Laymon themes. You won't regret purchasing this one.

Okay, I hope I'm not stepping on anyone's toes but this novel sucks. Laymon wastes soooo much time on mintutia that it leaves me wishing he was an actual HORROR writer. I don't care about "little moments," but, dude, get to the friggin point! Should have been about 100 pages, and that would have been pushing the envelope. Peeee-youuuu!

I decided to have a go at a Richard Laymon novel after reading many positive reviews of his work here on amazon.com. After finishing DARK MOUNTAIN, I can say this book is a compelling mess of genres: outdoor adventure, teen romance, witchery and mayhem. The end result is kind of like a novelized EC Comic, with its pulp elements and lurid appeal firmly in place. Laymon does have a morbid, juvenile obsession with the female anatomy and rape that seems to carry through his work. At times, it makes for uncomfortable reading, so be warned if you're sensitive to female exploitation. Overall, an exciting page turner, perfect for a cold Winter's night.