Darkman

by Randall Boyll, Sam Raimi (Story)

Once, he had a normal life, a beautiful girlfriend, and a brilliant medical career--creating synthetic skin for accident victims...
Then, he was a victim himself, brutally attacked by sadistic criminals--his face and body burned beyond recognition...
Now, he walks the night, searching for the woman he loves. A man who looks like a monster, he hopes to salvage his scorched flesh... and take revenge on those who destroyed his life.
Every soul has a dark side. This time, it walks like a man...

Genres: Horror, Science Fiction, Fiction

252 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[K.T. Katzmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

The film Darkman... is goofy as hell.



Wonderfully so. It's a cornucopia of madness that Sam Raimi serves up with aplomb.

The novel takes that ridiculousness at actually [i]makes sense of it[/i].

In the film, scientist Liam Neeson develops a recipe for fake skin, gets burned by a gangster, and squats in his burned out lab, using his discovery for a revenge that's equal parts Batman and Phantom of the Opera.

Hey, did any viewer ever wonder what Darkman ate for dinner? Now you'll know!

What I liked was the detail with which the author gets inside the head of the characters. You truly understand the descent into madness and angst that bobs around Darkman's mind. The villains all get characterization, too. Faceless goons become comic-tragic characters that you love to see vengence strike.

There's a guy in the first five minutes of the movie who is hopping up and down on one leg, because his other was a prostetic that concealed a machine gun. Because Sam Raimi. His name is [b]Skip.[/b]

That dude gets a mental life and disturbing background that stayed with me.

I liked this one. It apparently was so successful to start it's own sequel series, which I've got a few books of.

Bascially, you should follow the immortal advice of flesh-melting Liam Neeson from the movie.

[b]Take the fucking elephant.[/b]

Which I think means to read the book.

I think.

[BrokenMnemonic · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was as brutal as the film, but helped to add more understanding of the characters involved, with the equivalent of bonus deleted scenes in text form. Oddly, Peyton didn't feel as sympathetic in the book as he did the film, but it highlighted how very 80s the collection of villains was, and had the same manic energy as the film.

[Jaime · Rating 4 out of 5]

The character of Darkman was created by Sam Raimi and fleshed out by Joshua Goldin's movie screenplay for the film of the same name. The novelization of the movie was written and released
alongside the theatrical release in 1990. Randall Boyll wrote the novelization which was released by Jove Books. The character of Dr. Peyton Westlake (aka Darkman) starts off as a brilliant scientist who is left for dead after being burned alive and beaten. Boyll's character of Darkman is an antihero out for revenge on those who disfigured him. The character is part super hero and part monster with the soul of a tortured man who uses his invention of synthetic skin to masquerade as those who destroyed his former life. Honestly, this character is part Phantom of the Opera and part Frankenstein who gains one's sympathy as a social outcast who feels no pain now. This is a terrifying read that led to Boyll returning to write more adventures of Darkman in a four-novel series (The Hangman, The Price of Fear, The Gods of Hell, and In the Face of Death) from Pocket Books starting in 1994.

[Cláudia Martins · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a modest fantasy and science fiction paperback. The theme is interesting (a man who survived a mass fire and developed a technology that allows him to "wear the skin" of anyone whose face he has a photograph of, enabling him to appear in public without the shame of looking like a monster due to the disfigurement he suffered after the high-degree burns that left him practically skin and bones). But it could have been more developed, not only in the technological aspect but also in the secondary storyline of the romance that never happened due to the accident he suffered. The ending is disappointing, not one of those happy endings, and it leaves you with a bitter feeling when thinking about the plot. The character's evolution is sudden, but I also think we can't ask for more from a typical paperback from the 80s/90s.
Rating 6/10

[Catalin · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 stars for the book + 1 star for nostalgia.

This was the first full length novel I read in English, gifted to me by my English teacher. It might seem like a strange choice, but it was spot-on with my interests at that age, and I loved it back then.

Reading it more than 22 years later, I still enjoyed it, about the same level you'd enjoy an early 90s thriller/horror movie: just ignore some unrealistic action and goofy characters, and you'll get a good few hours of entertainment. :)

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow now this is taking me back - the film I remember was covered heavily in a short lived magazine called FEAR, so much so that I wanted to read the story before I could see the film and the only way as the book. Well this was in the when the novelisation was practically identical to the film and so I got my wish.
The book is basically the film in words (wow does that sound daft) but I guess anyone who has read a novelisation of a film will know what I mean. The book is not very challenging and I guess looking at it now it has a bit of the "pulp" feel to it but it does have a ripping pace and didnt really let up till the finale.
On a side note I must admit I miss the FEAR magazine - ok it was a very niche publication and not a very high print quality but I do feel it was before its time and sadly suffered for it- although it did introduce me to Brian Lumley and his Necroscope and for that I will always be grateful.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back in the days when Sam Raimi used to direct low budget horrors he made Darkman, the tale of a disfigured scientist's revenge on the men who murdered his wife. Desperate to see the film at the cinema, but too young to go I had to make do with the novelisation, purchased whilst on holiday in Florida.

[Avaris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a surprisingly fantastic movie novelization. Most novelizations are obviously hurried, but this one seemed to flesh out the characters more, give more detail to various situations, and made it feel like it's own living world. It almost makes me want to say the book was better than the movie.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worth reading.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worth reading. Way better than the usual movie novelization.

[bluetyson]

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