Total amateur hour - The Cellar is that bad.īeen reading horror fiction for almost 30 years and it is easily You got your rape and torture, but when it comes to depicting, even minimally, real human interaction and psychological motivation, Laymon's at a complete loss. Sadism and humiliation are in clear detail human relationships and sex scenes, not so much. There's something that squicked me when faced with Laymon's horror scenario I was unsettled not by the situation but by his envisioning of it: it seemed like a peek into a part of his mind I really wanted nothing to do with. Of course we fans know how insulting and idiotic this is.īut while I was reading The Cellar (Warner Books, Jan 1980), the debut novel from the late cult horror writer Richard Laymon (1947 - 2001), I suddenly felt like one of those non-horror fans who wonders how people can write this stuff. Non-fans seem to think that dreaming up all that horror must mean there's something not right with the creator's brain. This surprises who exactly? Do people who don't follow horror think that all its writers - or filmmakers - are hunchbacked, drooling monstrosities with blood beneath their fingernails and fetid breath? My god. We all know horror writers have a creepy reputation any mainstream interview or feature about them must point out how, well, normal the writer seems.
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