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Apagadas están las luces
El autor de "El sótano" descorre en su última novela el telón tras el cual se ocultan aberraciones indescriptibles. Cada semana, cuando se apagan las luces, el cine del pueblo proyecta una nueva película de terror. Las escenas, morbosas y sádicas, impresionan por su realismo. Los cuerpos desmembrados, las vísceras arrancadas, las decapitaciones, los banquetes antropofágicos, la sangre que mana a torrentes... todo produce una truculenta sensación de autenticidad. Los espectadores reaccionan histéricamente pero se consuelan pensando que son trucos cinematográficos...
172 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
10 people are currently reading
918 people want to read
About the author
Richard Laymon
216 books2,275 followersRichard Laymon was born in Chicago and grew up in California. He earned a BA in English Literature from Willamette University, Oregon and an MA from Loyola University, Los Angeles. He worked as a schoolteacher, a librarian, and a report writer for a law firm, and was the author of more than thirty acclaimed novels.
He also published more than sixty short stories in magazines such as Ellery Queen, Alfred Hitchcock, and Cavalier, and in anthologies including Modern Masters of Horror.
He died from a massive heart attack on February 14, 2001 (Valentine's Day).
Also published under the name Richard Kelly
He also published more than sixty short stories in magazines such as Ellery Queen, Alfred Hitchcock, and Cavalier, and in anthologies including Modern Masters of Horror.
He died from a massive heart attack on February 14, 2001 (Valentine's Day).
Also published under the name Richard Kelly
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 109 reviews
November 14, 2025
For some inexplicable reason I'm repeatedly drawn back to Laymon's work, every year or two, even though I'm batting way below the Mendoza line* as far as the hit/miss ratio. I think I like the idea of Laymon more than I enjoy reading him, much of the time. The idea of reading brainless, B slasher movies in novel form, filled with hopelessly stupid (and hopelessly horny) teens who get offed one by one seems fun as hell. But the actual reading of them can sometimes be a chore, as the characters are usually so moronic that you can't help but root for them to die, which is fine when watching a movie, but reading a novel requires — at least for me — some sort of connection with/sympathy for the characters, especially in a horror novel.
This one's an early work of his, and you can tell because it's short and moves fast — one of the only things I liked about it. There aren't nearly as many wasted pages compared with his 90s work, where he'd stretch out a 200-page story to near-epic length. I think his writing skills did improve over the years, but he also learned to pad the hell out of his novels, as became the norm in horror in general.
The basic story is that there are new films being shown at the Haunted Palace movie theater, but these aren't your typical horror films — they're quick little bursts of terror and violence, and very realistic. Almost like snuff films. These shorts are very popular among the younger crowd, until some of them become potential fodder for the next "movie." Brit thinks she recognizes an old friend in one of the films, a friend she suddenly can't get a hold of. Of course this friend was "killed" in the movie, and Brit wonders if maybe it was real, so she decides to investigate…
This is definitely lower-tier Laymon — not offensively bad, but not good either, imo. It's just sorta there, in the typical "making it up as he goes along" Laymon way, throwing anything and everything at the wall to see what sticks. The characterization is paper thin compared to his later novels, but I'd actually take that over 500 pages of the depraved thoughts of virtually every (male) Laymon character ever. It's also pretty light, not nearly as sadistic and gross as some of his other work. But I usually find that, compared with similar authors like Jack Ketchum or Bryan Smith, I'm never actually disturbed or unsettled when reading his work, as it's all so silly and over-the-top in its depiction of violence.**
And there's nothing wrong with a light, fun horror read. Hell, I've read enough of them, so I must enjoy them at least some. But this one's a little too light, and even though I just read it, it's already fading from memory, just like my last few Laymon reads. So I think I'm officially done with him, finally.
Until next time.
2.0 Stars
*That's a baseball reference that means a batting average that's very, very bad, named after a Pirates shortstop from the 70s who was very, very bad and should feel bad. In case any of you reading this are non baseball-loving heathens.
**All this makes it sound as if I hate all of Laymon's work, which isn't the case. I especially enjoy his late 80s novels, before they became too bloated, such as his books under the name Richard Kelly — Midnight's Lair and Tread Softly (i.e. Dark Mountain) — as well as Flesh and The Stake (from 1990, which is about the time when his tendency to pad started to rear its ugly head). But those were all earlier reads in my Laymon past, and I sometimes wonder if I'd have liked them as much if I'd read them later on, once I had gotten used to his schtick.
June 8, 2022
Un libro que entretiene, pero que no pretende mucho y puede ser justo es en eso dónde tiene su punto más fuerte, logra una historia rápida, atrapante y muy sanguinaria, al más puro estilo películas clase b.
Toca varios tópicos interesantes que se veían en la época de los 80, y también incluye en su trama lo de las películas snuff.
Una prosa muy visual que nos adentra de lleno a las relaciones que se van desarrollando, y a las personalidades maliciosas que harán lo que sea para cumplir sus propósitos.
Una historia funcional, que cumple con su propósito. Entretener en base a muertes, sangre y violencia.
Toca varios tópicos interesantes que se veían en la época de los 80, y también incluye en su trama lo de las películas snuff.
Una prosa muy visual que nos adentra de lleno a las relaciones que se van desarrollando, y a las personalidades maliciosas que harán lo que sea para cumplir sus propósitos.
Una historia funcional, que cumple con su propósito. Entretener en base a muertes, sangre y violencia.
December 28, 2023
This months read for the Richard Laymon Book Club was Out Are the Lights which contains a novella of the title name and five other short stories. I definitely preferred the short stories over the novella Out Are the Lights but it was also decent.
Out Are the Lights follows two separate stories which take turns each chapter the first being a hideous killer named Shreck and his crew who film real murders and torture and then use the footage to play as short films at the cinema at movie marathons to the unsuspecting audience. It's ok some good kills but wasnt anything special. The second part of this story follows Connie and Dal who are madly in love before Dal finds himself falling for the seductive Elizabeth who loves playing mind games with him. Sex, murder and revenge play out in some funny and weird scenes.
The short stories were all very good. Mess hall follows a young woman kidnapped by a serial killer who struggles to survive. Dinkers Pond is a Gold prospector telling a story at a bar about how a woman got between himself and his best friend and contained some cool supernatural elements.
Madman Stan is a tale of a horrible babysitter telling the story of a madman on the loose to the children she is watching. It's all a story right it cant be true? Well maybe it is...
Bad News was just average and is the story of some hybrid killer rates which go on a rampage in a town and one family fight for survival. The last story and maybe the best behind Dinkers Pond is The Tub and follows a woman who invites her lover over when he husband is out of town. They get down and dirty in the tub when the poor bloke dies on top of her and she is unable to move. How will she get out of this situation with a corpse on top of her? This has a pretty nice twist to it and some decent tension I really enjoyed this story.
Overall it's very good I just wished I had liked the main story a bit more than I did cause the other stories were great.
Out Are the Lights follows two separate stories which take turns each chapter the first being a hideous killer named Shreck and his crew who film real murders and torture and then use the footage to play as short films at the cinema at movie marathons to the unsuspecting audience. It's ok some good kills but wasnt anything special. The second part of this story follows Connie and Dal who are madly in love before Dal finds himself falling for the seductive Elizabeth who loves playing mind games with him. Sex, murder and revenge play out in some funny and weird scenes.
The short stories were all very good. Mess hall follows a young woman kidnapped by a serial killer who struggles to survive. Dinkers Pond is a Gold prospector telling a story at a bar about how a woman got between himself and his best friend and contained some cool supernatural elements.
Madman Stan is a tale of a horrible babysitter telling the story of a madman on the loose to the children she is watching. It's all a story right it cant be true? Well maybe it is...
Bad News was just average and is the story of some hybrid killer rates which go on a rampage in a town and one family fight for survival. The last story and maybe the best behind Dinkers Pond is The Tub and follows a woman who invites her lover over when he husband is out of town. They get down and dirty in the tub when the poor bloke dies on top of her and she is unable to move. How will she get out of this situation with a corpse on top of her? This has a pretty nice twist to it and some decent tension I really enjoyed this story.
Overall it's very good I just wished I had liked the main story a bit more than I did cause the other stories were great.
October 6, 2023
Todd offers to let his friends Tina and Ray stay at his house while he's gone, but the dismal state of it, the isolation, and the bars on the window have Ray skeptical - though he agrees to have a look inside first, to appease Tina. They ultimately decide to stay, but upon waking in the night, Tina hears noises coming from a locked room; she wakes Ray and they quickly get ready to leave. As they run past the room, the door flies open and a man in a black cape rushes out.
Each night at Haunted Palace Theater, a horror movie starring Otto Schrek will play over the next few weeks. One night, Brit thinks she sees her friend, Tina starring in one of Schreck's movies, where her character is killed - the two girls identical down to speech and mannerisms. Not only that, but try as she might, she can't get ahold of Tina anymore...
Brit goes in person to talk to Tina; her roommate, Freya, tells Brit she'll be right out, inviting Brit inside to have a drink. While she waits, Freya confirms yes, Tina was indeed in Schreck the Vampire - the last thing Brit hears before passing out.
Freya isn't just an innocent single woman looking for a roommate to live with, but rather she seeks out beautiful women via ads in the paper under the guise of wanting a roommate, instead luring them to Todd's house, where unbeknownst to them, they will become the next star in the real life Schreck horror movie franchise, where there are no actors, only totally real, gruesome deaths.
----------------
This was probably my least favorite Laymon book for some reason - while still good, I just wasn't in love with this one. It was a very quick, easy read, and still fun. However, Laymon tends to have his characters come up with these totally over the top, off the wall plans and schemes that are just so crazily unbelievable, convoluted and unrealistic, and that was one of the side plots here, which required some serious suspension of disbelief. Honestly sometimes Laymon's characters come across as aliens that aren't human and have never met another human, because some of the crap they do is just so far out of the realm of realistic, which is usually funny and entertaining anyways, but also worth mentioning.
Each night at Haunted Palace Theater, a horror movie starring Otto Schrek will play over the next few weeks. One night, Brit thinks she sees her friend, Tina starring in one of Schreck's movies, where her character is killed - the two girls identical down to speech and mannerisms. Not only that, but try as she might, she can't get ahold of Tina anymore...
Brit goes in person to talk to Tina; her roommate, Freya, tells Brit she'll be right out, inviting Brit inside to have a drink. While she waits, Freya confirms yes, Tina was indeed in Schreck the Vampire - the last thing Brit hears before passing out.
Freya isn't just an innocent single woman looking for a roommate to live with, but rather she seeks out beautiful women via ads in the paper under the guise of wanting a roommate, instead luring them to Todd's house, where unbeknownst to them, they will become the next star in the real life Schreck horror movie franchise, where there are no actors, only totally real, gruesome deaths.
----------------
This was probably my least favorite Laymon book for some reason - while still good, I just wasn't in love with this one. It was a very quick, easy read, and still fun. However, Laymon tends to have his characters come up with these totally over the top, off the wall plans and schemes that are just so crazily unbelievable, convoluted and unrealistic, and that was one of the side plots here, which required some serious suspension of disbelief. Honestly sometimes Laymon's characters come across as aliens that aren't human and have never met another human, because some of the crap they do is just so far out of the realm of realistic, which is usually funny and entertaining anyways, but also worth mentioning.
November 5, 2015
‘Apagadas están las luces’ (Out are the Lights, 1982), de Richard Laymon, se divide en dos tramas bien diferenciadas. Por una parte tenemos a Connie, escritora, que se verá involucrada en la venganza de su ex novio. Y por otra parte, tenemos las películas snuff y el Palacio Encantado, el cine en el que se estrenan estos cortos con muertes reales, pero que la gente que asiste cree que son ficticios. Esta parte es la más sangrienta. En la parte final es cuando ambas tramas convergen. Hasta llegar aquí, la novela no tiene el ritmo trepidante habitual en Richard Laymon, pero aun así entretiene y mantiene el interés del lector.
October 29, 2020
4.5/5 I really enjoyed this collection by my favorite author Richard Laymon. One novella and 5 short stories make up this work and they were all pretty damned good. Below is a mini review of each story.
Out are the Lights - 4/5 This novella is the majority of this collection and the title piece. Two separate tales told through out the novella. The first is of Schrek who stars in a series of horror shorts that are being aired at the local cinema during their horror double features. However the kills look too real, the voices don’t line up, and some of the actors are looking familiar to the locals. The other narrative is of a deaf woman whose boyfriend is having an affair with a psychopath who has her own plans for everyone involved. I really liked this novella. Fast paced, compelling and fun. The characters didn’t veer to far into the bizarre. A brutal novella that Laymon fans will enjoy.
Mess Hall - 4/5 Jean has been kidnapped by “The Reaper”. Justice comes for “The Reaper” in an unexpected way. But will Jean be saved? Gruesome short story very graphically violent and semi-sexual.
Dinker’s Pond - 5/5 A woman comes between 2 prospectors. One with a propensity for morbid tall tales. This short story was a blast quick, funny, and grotesque.
Madman Stan - 3/5 A scary children’s bedtime story rings true. This one was good but there could’ve been more to it. Really tame compared to the other stories in the collection.
Bad News - 5/5 A Monster is delivered to a man rolled up in his newspaper. Chaos and bloodshed ensue. I loved this one scary gory fun.
The Tub - 5/5 Sexcapades go terribly wrong in a bathtub. Such a depraved wonderful short story.
Out are the Lights - 4/5 This novella is the majority of this collection and the title piece. Two separate tales told through out the novella. The first is of Schrek who stars in a series of horror shorts that are being aired at the local cinema during their horror double features. However the kills look too real, the voices don’t line up, and some of the actors are looking familiar to the locals. The other narrative is of a deaf woman whose boyfriend is having an affair with a psychopath who has her own plans for everyone involved. I really liked this novella. Fast paced, compelling and fun. The characters didn’t veer to far into the bizarre. A brutal novella that Laymon fans will enjoy.
Mess Hall - 4/5 Jean has been kidnapped by “The Reaper”. Justice comes for “The Reaper” in an unexpected way. But will Jean be saved? Gruesome short story very graphically violent and semi-sexual.
Dinker’s Pond - 5/5 A woman comes between 2 prospectors. One with a propensity for morbid tall tales. This short story was a blast quick, funny, and grotesque.
Madman Stan - 3/5 A scary children’s bedtime story rings true. This one was good but there could’ve been more to it. Really tame compared to the other stories in the collection.
Bad News - 5/5 A Monster is delivered to a man rolled up in his newspaper. Chaos and bloodshed ensue. I loved this one scary gory fun.
The Tub - 5/5 Sexcapades go terribly wrong in a bathtub. Such a depraved wonderful short story.
October 16, 2014
I picked up Laymon's "Out are the Lights" for a little 1980's horror throwback fix. I can honestly say that the book was a fun read though a little disjointed at times due to the merging of storylines.
What turned me off was the abrupt ending, and calling it "abrupt" is an understatement. It almost seemed as if Laymon just got bored writing the book and just pinched it off several chapters too early. Maybe that was some early 1980's artsy-fartsy thing to do. I don't know. All I am certain of is that it did not translate well in 2014.
2 STARS
What turned me off was the abrupt ending, and calling it "abrupt" is an understatement. It almost seemed as if Laymon just got bored writing the book and just pinched it off several chapters too early. Maybe that was some early 1980's artsy-fartsy thing to do. I don't know. All I am certain of is that it did not translate well in 2014.
2 STARS
April 6, 2022
I really enjoyed this book but the ending was too quick. I thought I missed some pages before seeing the Epilogue but no. The book ended. I felt cheated, there should have been more and that’s why I gave this book a 4 out of 5 stars.
May 15, 2018
This is a cherished part of my Laymon library. Not because it's my favorite book of his or anything, but because my lovely wife gave it to me as an anniversary gift a number of years back, along with Dreadful Tales, Fiends, Alarums, and Allhallow's Eve.
These five books filled in the final five gaps of my 'cheapie' Laymon collection. All I'm missing now are expensive books (A Writer's Tale, In Laymon's Terms, his Fastbacks, etc...), and a number of his hardcover releases that I already have copies of in paperback, but I keep my eyes open nonetheless. They've got to cross my path at some point, don't they?
Of course they do. Thankfully, between the ebook market and the stuff on my shelf, I've got a complete Laymon reading library at my disposal. That means the rest of you are in for a few dozen more book reviews as time goes by. Sorry, not sorry. :)
* * * * *
Out Are the Lights is actually an anthology. The first story is the title piece, which runs 238 pages. Pages 239 - 344 are filled out with five more short stories: Mess Hall, Dinker's Pond, Madman Stan, Bad News, and The Tub but we'll get to those in due time. Please silence your cell phones, and no talking during the movie. The concession stand's still open, and you have a few minutes to grab some popcorn and a drink before the feature presentation starts.
...
All settled in? Good. Let the show begin.
* * * * *
Before getting into the plot and characters, I'd like to point out a few things I love about this anthology that aren't immediately story-related. Out Are the Lights may seem like a nod to horror movies given the subject matter and the fact it name-drops every infamous film from Night of the Living Dead and Texas Chain Saw Massacre to Halloween and The Hills Have Eyes within the first few pages, but I'm not inclined to agree given that a mere two years later, Laymon wrote Night Show. Night Show is an overt tip of the hat to the horror film industry, and Laymon wasn't apt to revisit scenarios so soon after he'd already done so the first time.
Instead, I propose a different idea: Out Are the Lights is an homage, but not to cinema. This is Laymon giving a nod and a wink to another mainstay of his youth: pre-code comics from the likes of EC, Ace, and Fawcett. Titles like Tomb of Terror, Weird Chills, Eerie, and Fantastic Fears thrilled and frightened the youth of Laymon's generation, and their plots, while simple and compact, were delivered with an artistic style where what you didn't see was just as important as what you did. Stories centered around revenge, whether of revenants returned from the grave or ordinary people of ordinary means paying back the dirty deeds done to them, were extremely popular. Often the stories in these comics 'ended' just as the terrible revenge was struck, leaving the reader to imagine for himself the full consequences as the hordes of zombies close in, the fire creeps closer, or the first spadeful of dirt dashes against the lid of the coffin.
Awful people doing awful things and receiving their comeuppance was the order of the day, and while many of Laymon's tales feature an innocent taking revenge on his (or more often, her) enemies, none of them takes such a great and perverse delight in the revelation and vengeance as Out Are the Lights does. If you've not read Out Are the Lights before, but you're familiar with the storytelling tropes and devices of the pre-code horror comics and keep them in mind while reading, I think you'll get much more out of the story than a straightforward reading may otherwise deliver.
But that's just one man's opinion, and you know what they say about opinions.
* * * * *
The Haunted Palace theater has an extra special treat for folks braving its weekend evening horror fares. Between the billed double features, audiences get the first look at some truly horrific pieces of underground auteur cinema. Running only ten to fifteen minutes, with obviously overdubbed dialogue and low-budget amateur production values, these grisly terrors all feature Otto Schreck, a cinematic beast who delights in dispatching his teenage protagonists in unique and horrible ways, with visual effects rivaling those of the best gore artists in the business. Whether he's playing a blood-drinking vampire, an out-of-control savage, or an ax-wielding madman, Schreck's antics both enthrall and discomfit audiences, prompting them to return, week after week, to witness the next work of depravity and hypothesize how he makes decapitations, surgeries, amputations, and other grotesque visuals so life-like.
The truth is, Schreck has no need of an effects budget because it's far easier to scalp, stab, disembowel and mutilate his young victims for real while the director catches it all on tape. With the help of his friends, the director lures in victims who are far from home and who won't be missed. Since each of his masterpieces only screens once at one independent movie house in California, all his victims' lines are overdubbed, and no one in the audience has any reason to suspect they're seeing real life captured on tape, Schreck and his director have little concern of getting caught.
If only Connie hadn't crossed their path.
Connie, who was taught to defend herself by an ex-Marine. Connie, who's broken up with her boyfriend Dalton because he's been cheating on her. Connie, who's found herself a new man in Pete, the sexy private investigator who's in town looking for his old girlfriend who ran out on him after leaving some confusing messages on his answering machine begging for his help. Connie, who unknowingly holds the key to uncovering Schreck's horrible scheme.
All she has to do is go to the movies...
* * * * *
Out Are the Lights is early Laymon: characters aren't as developed, the story isn't as padded (Island this ain't), but the action still moves along at a brisk pace. Laymon's strengths in his earlier works are their breakneck pace: several weeks pass in the span of 238 pages, but it feels like mere days since Laymon never lets off the gas.
I enjoy Connie as a protagonist. While she's not the most level-headed of Laymon's main characters, she's certainly not the dumbest either and the fact she successfully navigates the world with a disadvantage any of us would hate to suffer (and does so with such an 'oh well, life sucks, get a helmet' attitude) is...I'm not going to say 'inspiring' necessarily, but it's very nice to see a character like her who isn't a victim. I'm being deliberately vague here because the reader doesn't discover this about Connie until well into the story, and Laymon is very good at not giving away the game. Revealing what's different about Connie isn't a spoiler, per se, but it does play a role in the plot, so I'm not going to blow it.
As for the other characters, they're kind of a mixed bag. Pete the P.I. is an OK guy, even if he takes Connie's ex- too seriously. He's right to, considering what Dal and his co-conspirator Elizabeth have in the works for them, but the guy flat-out breaks the law by impersonating a cop, and his actions cost Dal his job. This is a crime the guy could not only serve time for, but could very easily result in his being stripped of his P.I. license, yet his reaction when Connie points it out reminds me of a frat boy shrugging off the fact that, yeah, the house threw an alcohol-fueled bender yesterday, and one guy got arrested for public intox, but he probably won't blab to the Dean, so it's all good.
Dal's an interesting antagonist. I don't call him a villain because he's not really evil, just easily waylaid and manipulated by others, especially Elizabeth, who ensnares him in her web early on. Elizabeth's the definition of the femme fatale black widow: unaffected by conscience or morals, and willing to go to truly tremendous lengths to get back at those who wrong her, as her husband discovered to his chagrin. Holy hell, do not cross this woman! :D
These characters all interact in what would be a comedy of errors if we weren't reading a horror novel, and it's only by sheerest chance that Connie gets caught up in Schreck's business. A part of me likes this, since it's often coincidence in real life that leads to the most interesting encounters, that 'wrong place, wrong time' deal. But there's not much of a collision course plotted by Laymon in this one, at least not with the Schreck side-plot, and I've never been a fan of coincidence resulting in resolution. There are steps taken to establish Connie's abilities, so the final chapter doesn't hit you out of nowhere, but without these two plotlines overlapping we have a relatively mundane game of brinksmanship between four people driving the novel forward and it's just not as high-stakes as the amateur filmmaker sub-plot...and yet, when viewed as a pre-code comics narrative, it all makes sense. Especially Elizabeth's vendetta against her husband.
In case you really missed the ball, the Epilogue drives it home: this is all in good (awful) fun, the bad guys all get what was coming to them, and the good guys live happily ever after. Close the cover, call 'cut', put it in the can, and that's a wrap, people.
* * * * *
Only it's not the end, is it? We have five other short tales of depravity to fill out the rest of the page count.
Mess Hall I had encountered before in the horror anthology Book of the Dead edited by John Skipp and Craig Spector. It was an OK zombie tale then, and not much has changed today. Perhaps the most notable thing about it is that Laymon never bows to the traditional or conventional wisdom when it comes to his use of any of your typical supernatural horrors. His zombies are nothing like your Romero-inspired shambling corpses, and it's actually not clear this is a zombie story until its climax. It plays like your traditional serial killer tale until the dead start walking, and given that it starts with the protagonist mostly naked and humping away at her boyfriend, it's about the most Laymon-esque zombie story you'll ever read. It's also EC as hell.
Dinker's Pond is a short tale-within-a-tale about a woman who comes between two would-be gold prospectors, and her fate when she chances to take a dip in the titular body of water. Another very simple narrative related in that pre-code style that stitches together this anthology like the Y-incision of an autopsy.
Madman Stan is, in my opinion, not only the gem of the anthology, but one of the best short pieces Laymon ever produced. This one wouldn't have been out of place in one of those classic "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" anthologies that kids my age grew up reading. It's the story of an easily-scared child and his mean old babysitter, who regales him with the worst bedtime story/urban legend imaginable. It takes place right there in town where they live, of course, and it involves 'Madman Stan', a maniac who just can't resist going out at night, walking up and down the streets, looking for doors that have been left unlocked. I'm not going to lie, I was double- and triple-checking the deadbolts on the doors before I went to bed for weeks after I read this one the first time. It's both creepy and creative, with the best final line twist to any Laymon piece since Island. It's worth picking up the book for this one alone.
Bad News is one of those monster stories where everything starts out normal then events rapidly swirl down the drain. If you've read Laymon's novel Flesh, then you know what to expect here, as the creature that shows up in the morning newspaper to harass Paul and his family is one of the invulnerable tooth-mouth slug critters featured in that book. Reminded me of King in a way, not for Laymon's way with words, but because the ending is one of those non-endings King is famous for: the initial danger is over, but safety is far from guaranteed. If you're OK with that, you'll like Bad News. Otherwise you can skip this one as its the weakest of the bunch.
Finally, we reach The Tub. This one's another EC-style fare all the way, with a cheating wife who calls her boyfriend over for a game of 'hide the meat popsicle' while her cuckold husband's out of town, only to get trapped in the bathtub under the weight of her steroid-popping side when he suffers a heart attack and dies. With an entire weekend before dear Harold gets back in town, Joyce is on her own with only the dead body of her lover as company. Question is, what's her husband going to do when he arrives home to find her cheating on him with a corpse if she can't get herself extricated? There are two twists to the ending with this one, and I'd have honestly found it more satisfying without the second. Not quite as weak as Bad News, but I find this one of the rare times Laymon totally missed the mark. Interestingly enough, this story was adapted to the screen as a short film of the same name in 2003.
I'm honestly not sure what would possess someone to want to adapt this particular Laymon story, and I'm even less sure why, upon securing the rights, Carter Doyle (the director and screenwriter ) would run it off on a completely unrelated tangent. Laymon's piece is a mundane, straightforward thriller, and Doyle turns it into a bizarre paranormal affair involving curses and other mystical crap completely absent from the story. Note to film writers everywhere: this is why novelists cringe at the thought of other people adapting their work, and sometimes disavow the results. That's not to say the author's always right (Kubrick's The Shining is a phenomenal film, no matter what King thought of it at the time), but let's just say there's a reason so few of the films based on King's body of work are considered major successes.
All told, Out Are the Lights is a mixed bag. I'm of the opinion that Laymon's longform writings are superior to his short stories with very few exceptions, and Madman Stan's presence here doesn't hurt the presentation at all. Buy the book for it and the titular novella, and consider yourself lucky if you derive any enjoyment out of the other four stories as they aren't all that memorable. Three scalped victims out of five.
* * * * *
Best Scene:
Mess Hall, Dinker's Pond, The Tub, and Bad News don't stay around long enough to leave us with anything worth retaining aside from their endings. Madman Stan's best scene is one I won't talk about, because you deserve to go into it with no idea of what's about to happen.
For Out Are the Lights though, the book's most memorable scene for me is when Connie sits down to enjoy the horror double feature and not only realizes there's something off about the film, but also that she's the only one in the entire packed theater who recognizes what she's actually watching. That dawning horror is the pivotal point of the story, and the one thing you'll remember long after you've put the book back on your shelf.
If you're expecting to see that scene depicted on the cover though, don't hold your breath. I've no idea why the artist was told to illustrate this, because neither the tied-down hand nor the creepy spider crawling over it have any relevance to the plots of any of the stories within. I mean, it's cool artwork and all, but it's got nothing to do with the contents. It's not the first horror novel to suffer this fate, and it won't be the last, but I expected more of Headline than this considering some of the other covers they've done for Laymon's books.
These five books filled in the final five gaps of my 'cheapie' Laymon collection. All I'm missing now are expensive books (A Writer's Tale, In Laymon's Terms, his Fastbacks, etc...), and a number of his hardcover releases that I already have copies of in paperback, but I keep my eyes open nonetheless. They've got to cross my path at some point, don't they?
Of course they do. Thankfully, between the ebook market and the stuff on my shelf, I've got a complete Laymon reading library at my disposal. That means the rest of you are in for a few dozen more book reviews as time goes by. Sorry, not sorry. :)
* * * * *
Out Are the Lights is actually an anthology. The first story is the title piece, which runs 238 pages. Pages 239 - 344 are filled out with five more short stories: Mess Hall, Dinker's Pond, Madman Stan, Bad News, and The Tub but we'll get to those in due time. Please silence your cell phones, and no talking during the movie. The concession stand's still open, and you have a few minutes to grab some popcorn and a drink before the feature presentation starts.
...
All settled in? Good. Let the show begin.
* * * * *
Before getting into the plot and characters, I'd like to point out a few things I love about this anthology that aren't immediately story-related. Out Are the Lights may seem like a nod to horror movies given the subject matter and the fact it name-drops every infamous film from Night of the Living Dead and Texas Chain Saw Massacre to Halloween and The Hills Have Eyes within the first few pages, but I'm not inclined to agree given that a mere two years later, Laymon wrote Night Show. Night Show is an overt tip of the hat to the horror film industry, and Laymon wasn't apt to revisit scenarios so soon after he'd already done so the first time.
Instead, I propose a different idea: Out Are the Lights is an homage, but not to cinema. This is Laymon giving a nod and a wink to another mainstay of his youth: pre-code comics from the likes of EC, Ace, and Fawcett. Titles like Tomb of Terror, Weird Chills, Eerie, and Fantastic Fears thrilled and frightened the youth of Laymon's generation, and their plots, while simple and compact, were delivered with an artistic style where what you didn't see was just as important as what you did. Stories centered around revenge, whether of revenants returned from the grave or ordinary people of ordinary means paying back the dirty deeds done to them, were extremely popular. Often the stories in these comics 'ended' just as the terrible revenge was struck, leaving the reader to imagine for himself the full consequences as the hordes of zombies close in, the fire creeps closer, or the first spadeful of dirt dashes against the lid of the coffin.
Awful people doing awful things and receiving their comeuppance was the order of the day, and while many of Laymon's tales feature an innocent taking revenge on his (or more often, her) enemies, none of them takes such a great and perverse delight in the revelation and vengeance as Out Are the Lights does. If you've not read Out Are the Lights before, but you're familiar with the storytelling tropes and devices of the pre-code horror comics and keep them in mind while reading, I think you'll get much more out of the story than a straightforward reading may otherwise deliver.
But that's just one man's opinion, and you know what they say about opinions.
* * * * *
The Haunted Palace theater has an extra special treat for folks braving its weekend evening horror fares. Between the billed double features, audiences get the first look at some truly horrific pieces of underground auteur cinema. Running only ten to fifteen minutes, with obviously overdubbed dialogue and low-budget amateur production values, these grisly terrors all feature Otto Schreck, a cinematic beast who delights in dispatching his teenage protagonists in unique and horrible ways, with visual effects rivaling those of the best gore artists in the business. Whether he's playing a blood-drinking vampire, an out-of-control savage, or an ax-wielding madman, Schreck's antics both enthrall and discomfit audiences, prompting them to return, week after week, to witness the next work of depravity and hypothesize how he makes decapitations, surgeries, amputations, and other grotesque visuals so life-like.
The truth is, Schreck has no need of an effects budget because it's far easier to scalp, stab, disembowel and mutilate his young victims for real while the director catches it all on tape. With the help of his friends, the director lures in victims who are far from home and who won't be missed. Since each of his masterpieces only screens once at one independent movie house in California, all his victims' lines are overdubbed, and no one in the audience has any reason to suspect they're seeing real life captured on tape, Schreck and his director have little concern of getting caught.
If only Connie hadn't crossed their path.
Connie, who was taught to defend herself by an ex-Marine. Connie, who's broken up with her boyfriend Dalton because he's been cheating on her. Connie, who's found herself a new man in Pete, the sexy private investigator who's in town looking for his old girlfriend who ran out on him after leaving some confusing messages on his answering machine begging for his help. Connie, who unknowingly holds the key to uncovering Schreck's horrible scheme.
All she has to do is go to the movies...
* * * * *
Out Are the Lights is early Laymon: characters aren't as developed, the story isn't as padded (Island this ain't), but the action still moves along at a brisk pace. Laymon's strengths in his earlier works are their breakneck pace: several weeks pass in the span of 238 pages, but it feels like mere days since Laymon never lets off the gas.
I enjoy Connie as a protagonist. While she's not the most level-headed of Laymon's main characters, she's certainly not the dumbest either and the fact she successfully navigates the world with a disadvantage any of us would hate to suffer (and does so with such an 'oh well, life sucks, get a helmet' attitude) is...I'm not going to say 'inspiring' necessarily, but it's very nice to see a character like her who isn't a victim. I'm being deliberately vague here because the reader doesn't discover this about Connie until well into the story, and Laymon is very good at not giving away the game. Revealing what's different about Connie isn't a spoiler, per se, but it does play a role in the plot, so I'm not going to blow it.
As for the other characters, they're kind of a mixed bag. Pete the P.I. is an OK guy, even if he takes Connie's ex- too seriously. He's right to, considering what Dal and his co-conspirator Elizabeth have in the works for them, but the guy flat-out breaks the law by impersonating a cop, and his actions cost Dal his job. This is a crime the guy could not only serve time for, but could very easily result in his being stripped of his P.I. license, yet his reaction when Connie points it out reminds me of a frat boy shrugging off the fact that, yeah, the house threw an alcohol-fueled bender yesterday, and one guy got arrested for public intox, but he probably won't blab to the Dean, so it's all good.
Dal's an interesting antagonist. I don't call him a villain because he's not really evil, just easily waylaid and manipulated by others, especially Elizabeth, who ensnares him in her web early on. Elizabeth's the definition of the femme fatale black widow: unaffected by conscience or morals, and willing to go to truly tremendous lengths to get back at those who wrong her, as her husband discovered to his chagrin. Holy hell, do not cross this woman! :D
These characters all interact in what would be a comedy of errors if we weren't reading a horror novel, and it's only by sheerest chance that Connie gets caught up in Schreck's business. A part of me likes this, since it's often coincidence in real life that leads to the most interesting encounters, that 'wrong place, wrong time' deal. But there's not much of a collision course plotted by Laymon in this one, at least not with the Schreck side-plot, and I've never been a fan of coincidence resulting in resolution. There are steps taken to establish Connie's abilities, so the final chapter doesn't hit you out of nowhere, but without these two plotlines overlapping we have a relatively mundane game of brinksmanship between four people driving the novel forward and it's just not as high-stakes as the amateur filmmaker sub-plot...and yet, when viewed as a pre-code comics narrative, it all makes sense. Especially Elizabeth's vendetta against her husband.
In case you really missed the ball, the Epilogue drives it home: this is all in good (awful) fun, the bad guys all get what was coming to them, and the good guys live happily ever after. Close the cover, call 'cut', put it in the can, and that's a wrap, people.
* * * * *
Only it's not the end, is it? We have five other short tales of depravity to fill out the rest of the page count.
Mess Hall I had encountered before in the horror anthology Book of the Dead edited by John Skipp and Craig Spector. It was an OK zombie tale then, and not much has changed today. Perhaps the most notable thing about it is that Laymon never bows to the traditional or conventional wisdom when it comes to his use of any of your typical supernatural horrors. His zombies are nothing like your Romero-inspired shambling corpses, and it's actually not clear this is a zombie story until its climax. It plays like your traditional serial killer tale until the dead start walking, and given that it starts with the protagonist mostly naked and humping away at her boyfriend, it's about the most Laymon-esque zombie story you'll ever read. It's also EC as hell.
Dinker's Pond is a short tale-within-a-tale about a woman who comes between two would-be gold prospectors, and her fate when she chances to take a dip in the titular body of water. Another very simple narrative related in that pre-code style that stitches together this anthology like the Y-incision of an autopsy.
Madman Stan is, in my opinion, not only the gem of the anthology, but one of the best short pieces Laymon ever produced. This one wouldn't have been out of place in one of those classic "Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark" anthologies that kids my age grew up reading. It's the story of an easily-scared child and his mean old babysitter, who regales him with the worst bedtime story/urban legend imaginable. It takes place right there in town where they live, of course, and it involves 'Madman Stan', a maniac who just can't resist going out at night, walking up and down the streets, looking for doors that have been left unlocked. I'm not going to lie, I was double- and triple-checking the deadbolts on the doors before I went to bed for weeks after I read this one the first time. It's both creepy and creative, with the best final line twist to any Laymon piece since Island. It's worth picking up the book for this one alone.
Bad News is one of those monster stories where everything starts out normal then events rapidly swirl down the drain. If you've read Laymon's novel Flesh, then you know what to expect here, as the creature that shows up in the morning newspaper to harass Paul and his family is one of the invulnerable tooth-mouth slug critters featured in that book. Reminded me of King in a way, not for Laymon's way with words, but because the ending is one of those non-endings King is famous for: the initial danger is over, but safety is far from guaranteed. If you're OK with that, you'll like Bad News. Otherwise you can skip this one as its the weakest of the bunch.
Finally, we reach The Tub. This one's another EC-style fare all the way, with a cheating wife who calls her boyfriend over for a game of 'hide the meat popsicle' while her cuckold husband's out of town, only to get trapped in the bathtub under the weight of her steroid-popping side when he suffers a heart attack and dies. With an entire weekend before dear Harold gets back in town, Joyce is on her own with only the dead body of her lover as company. Question is, what's her husband going to do when he arrives home to find her cheating on him with a corpse if she can't get herself extricated? There are two twists to the ending with this one, and I'd have honestly found it more satisfying without the second. Not quite as weak as Bad News, but I find this one of the rare times Laymon totally missed the mark. Interestingly enough, this story was adapted to the screen as a short film of the same name in 2003.
I'm honestly not sure what would possess someone to want to adapt this particular Laymon story, and I'm even less sure why, upon securing the rights, Carter Doyle (the director and screenwriter ) would run it off on a completely unrelated tangent. Laymon's piece is a mundane, straightforward thriller, and Doyle turns it into a bizarre paranormal affair involving curses and other mystical crap completely absent from the story. Note to film writers everywhere: this is why novelists cringe at the thought of other people adapting their work, and sometimes disavow the results. That's not to say the author's always right (Kubrick's The Shining is a phenomenal film, no matter what King thought of it at the time), but let's just say there's a reason so few of the films based on King's body of work are considered major successes.
All told, Out Are the Lights is a mixed bag. I'm of the opinion that Laymon's longform writings are superior to his short stories with very few exceptions, and Madman Stan's presence here doesn't hurt the presentation at all. Buy the book for it and the titular novella, and consider yourself lucky if you derive any enjoyment out of the other four stories as they aren't all that memorable. Three scalped victims out of five.
* * * * *
Best Scene:
Mess Hall, Dinker's Pond, The Tub, and Bad News don't stay around long enough to leave us with anything worth retaining aside from their endings. Madman Stan's best scene is one I won't talk about, because you deserve to go into it with no idea of what's about to happen.
For Out Are the Lights though, the book's most memorable scene for me is when Connie sits down to enjoy the horror double feature and not only realizes there's something off about the film, but also that she's the only one in the entire packed theater who recognizes what she's actually watching. That dawning horror is the pivotal point of the story, and the one thing you'll remember long after you've put the book back on your shelf.
If you're expecting to see that scene depicted on the cover though, don't hold your breath. I've no idea why the artist was told to illustrate this, because neither the tied-down hand nor the creepy spider crawling over it have any relevance to the plots of any of the stories within. I mean, it's cool artwork and all, but it's got nothing to do with the contents. It's not the first horror novel to suffer this fate, and it won't be the last, but I expected more of Headline than this considering some of the other covers they've done for Laymon's books.
November 4, 2021
3.5
No es Alta Literatura, pero es entretenida, sino fuera por un detalle del final hasta hubiera sido bastante buena.
No es Alta Literatura, pero es entretenida, sino fuera por un detalle del final hasta hubiera sido bastante buena.
September 18, 2022
3.5⭐
Un libro que entretiene desde el principio, y tengo que decir que si da miedo, aunque mas que todo ese miedo que da esta historia se lo atribuyo a las escenas fuertes que tiene.
La trama se puede decir que se divide en dos subtramas:
La primera es que en un cine del pueblo llamado el palacio encantado cada dia se proyectan películas de terror, y entre una y otra película, se muestran cortos con un personaje llamado Schreck, dichos cortos muestran asesinatos y demas escenas fuertes que se consideran algo asi como películas gore. Sin embargo una de los personajes del libro cree reconocer a una amiga suya en uno de estos cortos y se pone a investigar sobre esto.
Y la otra subtrama es sobre una especie de historia de desamor y venganza en la que un hombre llamado Dal engaña a su mujer Connie con otra mujer adinerada llamada elizabeth. Connie se da cuenta de esto despues de que ella también empieza a salir con otro hombre. Estas dos subtramas terminan entrelazandose al final del libro.
Como mencioné antes, esta novela tiene escenas muy fuertes, desde apuñalamientos hasta una escena en la que una mujer come sopa con carne de humano, y las escenas sexuales no se quedan atras ya que este autor creo que disfruta mucho de escribir este tipo de escenas y en esta novela hay como unas cuatro. También tengo que mencionar que este libro es muy corto, no llega ni a las 200 páginas y en su mayoría esta escrito con diálogos por lo que es un libro muy fácil y rápido de leer. Y en cuanto a la historia en si pues tengo que aceptar que el concepto es bueno pero no es para todo el mundo ya que como repito es una novela con alto contenido explicito.
De hecho considero que esta es de esas novelas que no aportan nada ni son buenas para que las leamos pero terminan entretenidonos igual y nos hacen pasar un buen rato.
Y en cuanto al final pues en mi opinión fue algo bastante rápido, de hecho creo que falto explicar algunas cosas y se siente como si el autor lo terminara de golpe pero dentro de lo que cabe es bueno y se los recomiendo solo si quieren pasar un buen rato y si les gustan las cosas fuertes.
Un libro que entretiene desde el principio, y tengo que decir que si da miedo, aunque mas que todo ese miedo que da esta historia se lo atribuyo a las escenas fuertes que tiene.
La trama se puede decir que se divide en dos subtramas:
La primera es que en un cine del pueblo llamado el palacio encantado cada dia se proyectan películas de terror, y entre una y otra película, se muestran cortos con un personaje llamado Schreck, dichos cortos muestran asesinatos y demas escenas fuertes que se consideran algo asi como películas gore. Sin embargo una de los personajes del libro cree reconocer a una amiga suya en uno de estos cortos y se pone a investigar sobre esto.
Y la otra subtrama es sobre una especie de historia de desamor y venganza en la que un hombre llamado Dal engaña a su mujer Connie con otra mujer adinerada llamada elizabeth. Connie se da cuenta de esto despues de que ella también empieza a salir con otro hombre. Estas dos subtramas terminan entrelazandose al final del libro.
Como mencioné antes, esta novela tiene escenas muy fuertes, desde apuñalamientos hasta una escena en la que una mujer come sopa con carne de humano, y las escenas sexuales no se quedan atras ya que este autor creo que disfruta mucho de escribir este tipo de escenas y en esta novela hay como unas cuatro. También tengo que mencionar que este libro es muy corto, no llega ni a las 200 páginas y en su mayoría esta escrito con diálogos por lo que es un libro muy fácil y rápido de leer. Y en cuanto a la historia en si pues tengo que aceptar que el concepto es bueno pero no es para todo el mundo ya que como repito es una novela con alto contenido explicito.
De hecho considero que esta es de esas novelas que no aportan nada ni son buenas para que las leamos pero terminan entretenidonos igual y nos hacen pasar un buen rato.
Y en cuanto al final pues en mi opinión fue algo bastante rápido, de hecho creo que falto explicar algunas cosas y se siente como si el autor lo terminara de golpe pero dentro de lo que cabe es bueno y se los recomiendo solo si quieren pasar un buen rato y si les gustan las cosas fuertes.
December 26, 2025
A fun, scuzzy, and sleazy slasher from Laymon! His best work? No. It's a bit too short, honestly, and I wish we had more time to hang out with all the characters. But there's lots of brutal, bloody kills and plenty of slimeballs! Also, I really liked the cuck scene. Genuinely surprised me lol.
May 9, 2020
Una novela que retoma una temática polémica: las películas snuff. Se publicó en una época (1983) en qué las cintas slasher tenían una gran demanda comercial, películas como Viernes 13, Halloween, Noche de graduación, entre otras. Pero también fueron duramente criticadas especialmente por escritores.
Creo que el punto de esta novela es una crítica hacia este mercado de películas: la gente demanda ver sangre, asesinatos y tortura, pierde la sensibilidad por el otro y disfruta ver morir al otro motivados por el morbo, lo cual estos criminales aprovechan para hacer mercado y videograbar asesinatos reales.
Por el otro lado la novela se centra más en la problemática de las parejas: tú me haces daño, yo te la regreso. En si centra más en esto la trama y la atención se dirige en como estás dos historias se enlazarán.
En cuestión de Terror, es cierto es algo flojo y se debe a las escasas escenas y la historia se centra más en el conflicto de pareja, produciendo un drama telenovelezco.
Hay escenas rescatables que por supuesto nos brinda gore como "la cirugía ilegal" que fue de las más explícitas. Lo demás lo dejo a su criterio.
Creo que el punto de esta novela es una crítica hacia este mercado de películas: la gente demanda ver sangre, asesinatos y tortura, pierde la sensibilidad por el otro y disfruta ver morir al otro motivados por el morbo, lo cual estos criminales aprovechan para hacer mercado y videograbar asesinatos reales.
Por el otro lado la novela se centra más en la problemática de las parejas: tú me haces daño, yo te la regreso. En si centra más en esto la trama y la atención se dirige en como estás dos historias se enlazarán.
En cuestión de Terror, es cierto es algo flojo y se debe a las escasas escenas y la historia se centra más en el conflicto de pareja, produciendo un drama telenovelezco.
Hay escenas rescatables que por supuesto nos brinda gore como "la cirugía ilegal" que fue de las más explícitas. Lo demás lo dejo a su criterio.
January 1, 2024
The main story here could really have been a Laymon classic, but it’s too damn short. Just when things really start getting going, Laymon wraps things up rather suddenly (not as suddenly as in Allhallows Eve, but still). With another 150-200 pages, this could have been great instead of merely ok.
July 29, 2016
Als Brit sich einen Horrorstreifen im Kino ansieht, wundert sie sich: Ist das nicht ihre Freundin Tina, die da die Hauptrolle spielt? Aber Tina ist doch keine Schauspielerin!
Brit ahnt noch nicht, dass auch sie bald in einem Film mitspielen wird... Und einige andere ja vielleicht auch.
Ich bin ein Laymon Fan, doch stelle ich leider immer wieder fest, dass die Erstlingswerke von ihm, die mittlerweile der Festa Verlag veröffentlicht, leider nicht ganz meinem Geschmack entsprechen und auch kaum meinen Erwartungen.
Man merkt zwar, dass Laymon drin ist, aber in seiner Laufbahn als Schriftsteller wurde er im späteren Verlauf immer besser.
Trotz allem war dieser Horrorroman kein schlechter. Er war interessant, die Personen, die man in dem Buch kennenlernte mehr oder weniger sympathisch und mit der einen davon konnte ich mich sogar ein klein wenig identifizieren.
Das Buch hat interessante Geschichten der einzelnen Personen auf Lager, spannende Verstrickungen und die Länge des Buches war auch angemessen.
Ein kurzweiliger, recht spannender Trip in düstere Gefilde.
Ich habe die Geschichte als Hörbuch gehört und muss sagen, dass Uve Teschner das wirklich gut macht. Ein wenig hat er mich an den allseits beliebten David Nathan erinnert. Die Stimme von Teschner ist ebenfalls sehr angenehm, recht düster und gut geeignet für solche Romane. Eine Alternative. Eine gute.
Aufmachung: 3,5/5
Idee der Geschichte: 4/5
Umsetzung: 3/5
Sprache: 3/5
Unterhaltungswert: 3/5
Ideenreichtum: 4/5
Tiefgründigkeit: 2/5
Bildungswert: 2/5
Lesetempo: 3,5/5
Punktzahl insgesamt: 28/50
Brit ahnt noch nicht, dass auch sie bald in einem Film mitspielen wird... Und einige andere ja vielleicht auch.
Ich bin ein Laymon Fan, doch stelle ich leider immer wieder fest, dass die Erstlingswerke von ihm, die mittlerweile der Festa Verlag veröffentlicht, leider nicht ganz meinem Geschmack entsprechen und auch kaum meinen Erwartungen.
Man merkt zwar, dass Laymon drin ist, aber in seiner Laufbahn als Schriftsteller wurde er im späteren Verlauf immer besser.
Trotz allem war dieser Horrorroman kein schlechter. Er war interessant, die Personen, die man in dem Buch kennenlernte mehr oder weniger sympathisch und mit der einen davon konnte ich mich sogar ein klein wenig identifizieren.
Das Buch hat interessante Geschichten der einzelnen Personen auf Lager, spannende Verstrickungen und die Länge des Buches war auch angemessen.
Ein kurzweiliger, recht spannender Trip in düstere Gefilde.
Ich habe die Geschichte als Hörbuch gehört und muss sagen, dass Uve Teschner das wirklich gut macht. Ein wenig hat er mich an den allseits beliebten David Nathan erinnert. Die Stimme von Teschner ist ebenfalls sehr angenehm, recht düster und gut geeignet für solche Romane. Eine Alternative. Eine gute.
Aufmachung: 3,5/5
Idee der Geschichte: 4/5
Umsetzung: 3/5
Sprache: 3/5
Unterhaltungswert: 3/5
Ideenreichtum: 4/5
Tiefgründigkeit: 2/5
Bildungswert: 2/5
Lesetempo: 3,5/5
Punktzahl insgesamt: 28/50
October 20, 2015
This book came from my mother’s 80’s throwback pile – a collection of her old horror books that she has given me for pleasure reading. It seems to be a disjointed collection with some being really good reads whereas others seem to fall short.
Sadly, ‘Out Are The Lights’ falls into the latter section. I’d put it aside for a while, expecting a really good read on a rainy day, yet it was nowhere near what I had expected.
It was fun, yes. It had a great idea behind it, without a doubt. It was executed… not so well. It almost seems as though the author failed to combine the stories lines accurately, with things going… well, everywhere but where they probably should have headed. Then there is the ending. Oh, gosh, the ending. Was that even an ending at all? It is almost as though I’m missing a couple of chapters of the book.
Then there is the short stories at the end of the edition I was reading. Again, they failed to blow my mind.
Sadly, Laymon failed to make it into my loveable 80’s horror writers.
Sadly, ‘Out Are The Lights’ falls into the latter section. I’d put it aside for a while, expecting a really good read on a rainy day, yet it was nowhere near what I had expected.
It was fun, yes. It had a great idea behind it, without a doubt. It was executed… not so well. It almost seems as though the author failed to combine the stories lines accurately, with things going… well, everywhere but where they probably should have headed. Then there is the ending. Oh, gosh, the ending. Was that even an ending at all? It is almost as though I’m missing a couple of chapters of the book.
Then there is the short stories at the end of the edition I was reading. Again, they failed to blow my mind.
Sadly, Laymon failed to make it into my loveable 80’s horror writers.
May 7, 2014
I loved this book. I had previously read Beware by Laymon and didn't love it and this one bears that book by a mile. My copy of Out Are The Lights included bonus stories at the end. I'm not sure if every version does, but definitely read this version if u can because some of the bonus stories are great. The main story here reads at about 250 pages. That's the biggest flaw with this book. Out Are The Lights should've either been cut down to a short story or lengthened to be a more fuller novel. Laymon rushes the ending of this story leaving you wanting more and leaving you wondering why he even wasted your time with some if the aspects of the story that he doesn't really follow thru on. But the great thing about Laymon is he knows how to hook you and you can throw the writer's rule book out the window cuz you're gonna be entertained regardless.
December 18, 2015
A novella and a handful of stories--some good, some bad. Overall, entertaining enough for those who appreciate mayhem for mayhem's sake. Laymon's pervy writing style gets old after awhile, and the endings to some of these stories are incredibly stupid, but there's a certain maniacal energy to Laymon's work that commands your attention and keeps you coming back for more.
June 10, 2019
Fun twisted story. Not as perverse as other Richard Laymon books (still dirty though). Good times. Short stories at the end were eh.
January 30, 2018
Esperaba algo mas que un simple libro diluido en los clichés de una película de serie B. Había leído que era un libro de terror y recomendado. Sinceramente no veo mas que Gore barato(para hacer Gore necesitas cierta maestría en narrativa para que sea interesante),simplemente era sencillo y hasta ridiculo. la trama daba para ser una historia policiaca con tintes oscuros pero como dije es tan ridiculo en diálogos e incluyen un triángulo amoroso innecesario, que no entiendo las decisiones de los protagonistas, a veces se olvida que es una novela de horror y parece trama de película erotica del canal Golden a medianoche. Lo termine de leer por compromiso.
No lo recomiendo, si quieren algo mas sangriento busquen otra vertiente. Si les gusta las películas de bajo presupuesto malas, pueden darle una oportunidad.
No lo recomiendo, si quieren algo mas sangriento busquen otra vertiente. Si les gusta las películas de bajo presupuesto malas, pueden darle una oportunidad.
September 10, 2020
3 estrellas y media.
Es el primer libro que leo del autor y del género Gore, me gustó muchísimo la sangre y las cosas bizzaras que encontré aquí realmente hasta el final es bastante bizarro, una lectura lineal y sin tanta extensión o nudos, la lectura es fácil va pasando de tiempo en tiempo entre los distintos protagonistas como si de verdad se tratará de una película de horror de lo que hoy llamaríamos found footage, apagadas estan las luces posee una trama original en donde las películas de terror son protagonizadas por muertes verdaderas y proyectadas en el cine de manera Gore y sangrienta. Seguiré leyendo a Laymon sin dudas.
Es el primer libro que leo del autor y del género Gore, me gustó muchísimo la sangre y las cosas bizzaras que encontré aquí realmente hasta el final es bastante bizarro, una lectura lineal y sin tanta extensión o nudos, la lectura es fácil va pasando de tiempo en tiempo entre los distintos protagonistas como si de verdad se tratará de una película de horror de lo que hoy llamaríamos found footage, apagadas estan las luces posee una trama original en donde las películas de terror son protagonizadas por muertes verdaderas y proyectadas en el cine de manera Gore y sangrienta. Seguiré leyendo a Laymon sin dudas.
November 24, 2022
Riktigt underhållande i sann Laymon-anda. Titelhistorien på 240 sidor är en höjdare snuff-filmstema och de andra fem korthistorierna håller hög nivå där Bad News och The Tub är favoriterna. Korthistorier är ett bra Laymon-format!
September 3, 2020
Me gustaba el desarrollo, pero el final me resultó muy abrupto.
January 18, 2022
wtf??? i ha denkt es goht um öpis anders?? wieso sind männer so lol
May 15, 2022
Galna berättelser som är svåra att lägga ifrån sig!
September 9, 2023
Sub-par Laymon
An unremarkable main novella and a handful of short stories you'll forget about as soon as you're done.
Skip it, or read many other Laymon books before picking this up.
An unremarkable main novella and a handful of short stories you'll forget about as soon as you're done.
Skip it, or read many other Laymon books before picking this up.
December 1, 2022
I think it's safe to say at this point despite the very pulpy style of writing Richard Laymon's work possesses, he's definitely become one of my favorite horror writers, his work is very flawed a lot of the time but what he has compared to some of the best writers in the genre is an impeccable sense of pace, urgency, and thrills to his stories. Even when his books are bad they are never lacking in the thrills department. So, I decided to see what his shorter work was like but since I also wanted to read another novel of his, I decided to pick up this one, luckily for me, this has both in abundance!
Out are The Lights:
The title of this collection and novel is a very depraved and sleazy story that honestly works so well with a mix of two storylines that come together in a very effective way, on one hand, you've got a very complicated boyfriend cheating on his ex-girlfriend storyline and on the other hand you have a movie theatre producing snuff films in order to bring to life their demented and violent lust whilst bringing something for the masses to enjoy.
It's a dark, sinister, and occasionally jaw-dropping story of horror. It's early Laymon so the characters aren't necessarily the most developed, but they are still enjoyable and likable enough with a very twisted ending that ties everything together beautifully and in a shocking manner that will leave you satisfied! 9/10
Mess Hall:
The first short story of this collection is an exciting, brutal, grotesque story of a serial killer by the name of The Reaper kidnapping a young woman after murdering her boyfriend to have his way with her, but his previous victims refuse to stay dead and soon enough it looks like he'll have to pay the price and for the poor woman, it's not going to be a pretty sight.
This was a really gruesome short story with zombies that's honestly one of the most disturbing and goriest stories in Laymon's catalog, the sheer descriptions are wonderfully nauseating and the overall situation laid out here while a lot of fun to read is also bloody terrifying! 10/10
Dinker's Pond:
When a lady comes across a prospector she finds herself being told a wild story about a toxic woman who was murdered in a pond by a disembodied head, he's a man with many crazy stories under his belt, but can they really be true as he claims them to be?
I wasn't terribly keen on this one if I'm being honest, it's not bad by any means but this story definitely felt somewhat lacking compared to the first two in this collection which is a shame because Laymon's sense of dark humor is usually something to be excited about. 5/10
Madman Stan:
Billy and Richie having an awful night with their temporary babysitter are sent off to bed early, but before doing so she decides to tell them a story of a madman who wanders the night and kidnaps people from their households if they dare to leave their door unlocked. The two boys find themselves scared awake late at night, but when one of them finally falls asleep, the other decides to play a nasty trick.
This was an enjoyable story, not gory or terrifying in the slightest but good creepy fun that's a really interesting alternative to the typical boogeyman behind the closet tale. 8/10
Bad News:
Paul was excited to be picking up his morning paper glad that nobody had stolen his news, but he soon regrets it when a strange abnormal animal slivers out from the folds of the paper, soon a gory nightmare ensues, will he and his family get out alive?
This was another really fun yet bizarre and gory little story about a family's survival against a strange mutated Rat like creature, it's a simple story with some very gruesome descriptions and a twist at the end that highlights how bad the situation really is. 8.5/10
The Tub:
Joyce a traitorous wife is cheating on her husband with another man, but when she decides to spice things up in the bathtub with her lover, she soon finds herself in more than she bargained for and now with a body lying on top of her, the only way out is a descent into madness.
This was a brilliant yet terrifying story with realistic consequences and a haunting ending to leave you quiet for a long time after. 10/10
Overall: 50/60
Out are The Lights:
The title of this collection and novel is a very depraved and sleazy story that honestly works so well with a mix of two storylines that come together in a very effective way, on one hand, you've got a very complicated boyfriend cheating on his ex-girlfriend storyline and on the other hand you have a movie theatre producing snuff films in order to bring to life their demented and violent lust whilst bringing something for the masses to enjoy.
It's a dark, sinister, and occasionally jaw-dropping story of horror. It's early Laymon so the characters aren't necessarily the most developed, but they are still enjoyable and likable enough with a very twisted ending that ties everything together beautifully and in a shocking manner that will leave you satisfied! 9/10
Mess Hall:
The first short story of this collection is an exciting, brutal, grotesque story of a serial killer by the name of The Reaper kidnapping a young woman after murdering her boyfriend to have his way with her, but his previous victims refuse to stay dead and soon enough it looks like he'll have to pay the price and for the poor woman, it's not going to be a pretty sight.
This was a really gruesome short story with zombies that's honestly one of the most disturbing and goriest stories in Laymon's catalog, the sheer descriptions are wonderfully nauseating and the overall situation laid out here while a lot of fun to read is also bloody terrifying! 10/10
Dinker's Pond:
When a lady comes across a prospector she finds herself being told a wild story about a toxic woman who was murdered in a pond by a disembodied head, he's a man with many crazy stories under his belt, but can they really be true as he claims them to be?
I wasn't terribly keen on this one if I'm being honest, it's not bad by any means but this story definitely felt somewhat lacking compared to the first two in this collection which is a shame because Laymon's sense of dark humor is usually something to be excited about. 5/10
Madman Stan:
Billy and Richie having an awful night with their temporary babysitter are sent off to bed early, but before doing so she decides to tell them a story of a madman who wanders the night and kidnaps people from their households if they dare to leave their door unlocked. The two boys find themselves scared awake late at night, but when one of them finally falls asleep, the other decides to play a nasty trick.
This was an enjoyable story, not gory or terrifying in the slightest but good creepy fun that's a really interesting alternative to the typical boogeyman behind the closet tale. 8/10
Bad News:
Paul was excited to be picking up his morning paper glad that nobody had stolen his news, but he soon regrets it when a strange abnormal animal slivers out from the folds of the paper, soon a gory nightmare ensues, will he and his family get out alive?
This was another really fun yet bizarre and gory little story about a family's survival against a strange mutated Rat like creature, it's a simple story with some very gruesome descriptions and a twist at the end that highlights how bad the situation really is. 8.5/10
The Tub:
Joyce a traitorous wife is cheating on her husband with another man, but when she decides to spice things up in the bathtub with her lover, she soon finds herself in more than she bargained for and now with a body lying on top of her, the only way out is a descent into madness.
This was a brilliant yet terrifying story with realistic consequences and a haunting ending to leave you quiet for a long time after. 10/10
Overall: 50/60
July 22, 2015
Out Are The Lights is an early Laymon novel and it shows Laymon trying to find his balance and stay original. With later books we know what to expect, and he already has found his comfort zone, but here we find a writer exploring his surroundings and getting a feel for the area. The strength of Lights is his pacing and storytelling. You have a twisted plot that seems to have no connection at all and sometimes it feels a bit disjointed, but Laymon knows exactly what he's doing and has no problem guiding us there. This may be a short novel but it packs one hell of a punch. Laymon is laying the ground work for his style and while there is a bit of gore and sex it's also a novel that explores our love of horror and how far we would go to be entertained.
The Shreck films are cleverly disguised as snuff films, but the issue here is why Shreck is creating these films. It's an interesting plot line, but it doesn't really go anywhere. Laymon leaves this one wide open and there's never really any closure. These interludes are shocking and violent, but they serve no purpose. The real plot here is Caroline and Del, and Elizabeth who is married to a man she almost killed. This is the oddest and creepiest aspect of the novel. Once you get into this story line the Shreck portions of the book seem to be filler that Laymon could have left out of the book. That is the only weakness of Lights and it dragged the book down a bit.
For an early Laymon novel this isn't terrible. It's an entertaining and fast read that show glimpses of what would come. Laymon never really pushes the envelope he actually balls it up and throws it away. He doesn't follow any rules and that's what makes him so great. Lights has an element of realism to it and that's something you don't see enough of in horror novels. Each of Laymon's characters are flawed in some way, they're all a bit broken. The one thing that is glaringly obvious is that most of the book is implausible. None of this could really happen, but so what. That's the reason why Laymon's so entertaining. This is a novel that will have you groaning at the cheesy dialogue while frantically flipping pages trying to figure out what happens next.
Laymon is a great story teller that makes his characters parodies of ourselves. His villains are based on real people that you probably encounter at the grocery store, or maybe even work with. Lights is a fast paced horror novel that doesn't try to be anything other than a horror novel. You aren't going to get a nice reality based piece of literature. Our Are The Lights is well paced and shows glimpses of what Laymon would soon become. He takes a few risks and sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn't. This is horror that you become absorbed in, and there's nothing cooler than that. Laymon was a master of giving his fans what they wanted, He wrote novels that defined the splatterpunk genre.
Out Are The Lights has its flaws, but in the end it's a novel worth reading. This may not be one of his greatest novels but it's still pretty damned good. Laymon has a cult following for a reason and Lights isn't like other Laymon novels. It's an experiment of sorts. You have the exploration of Shreck and his crew creating these short horror films and the story of Del, Connie, Pete, and Elizabeth, All of the plots line up and the ending does leave a bit up to the reader to figure out. Is it one of my favorite Laymon novels? No, but it does remind me that with Laymon you just never knew what to expect. I miss the hell out of Laymon, He was true master of horror and his passing left a huge hole in the horror genre.
The Shreck films are cleverly disguised as snuff films, but the issue here is why Shreck is creating these films. It's an interesting plot line, but it doesn't really go anywhere. Laymon leaves this one wide open and there's never really any closure. These interludes are shocking and violent, but they serve no purpose. The real plot here is Caroline and Del, and Elizabeth who is married to a man she almost killed. This is the oddest and creepiest aspect of the novel. Once you get into this story line the Shreck portions of the book seem to be filler that Laymon could have left out of the book. That is the only weakness of Lights and it dragged the book down a bit.
For an early Laymon novel this isn't terrible. It's an entertaining and fast read that show glimpses of what would come. Laymon never really pushes the envelope he actually balls it up and throws it away. He doesn't follow any rules and that's what makes him so great. Lights has an element of realism to it and that's something you don't see enough of in horror novels. Each of Laymon's characters are flawed in some way, they're all a bit broken. The one thing that is glaringly obvious is that most of the book is implausible. None of this could really happen, but so what. That's the reason why Laymon's so entertaining. This is a novel that will have you groaning at the cheesy dialogue while frantically flipping pages trying to figure out what happens next.
Laymon is a great story teller that makes his characters parodies of ourselves. His villains are based on real people that you probably encounter at the grocery store, or maybe even work with. Lights is a fast paced horror novel that doesn't try to be anything other than a horror novel. You aren't going to get a nice reality based piece of literature. Our Are The Lights is well paced and shows glimpses of what Laymon would soon become. He takes a few risks and sometimes it pays off and sometimes it doesn't. This is horror that you become absorbed in, and there's nothing cooler than that. Laymon was a master of giving his fans what they wanted, He wrote novels that defined the splatterpunk genre.
Out Are The Lights has its flaws, but in the end it's a novel worth reading. This may not be one of his greatest novels but it's still pretty damned good. Laymon has a cult following for a reason and Lights isn't like other Laymon novels. It's an experiment of sorts. You have the exploration of Shreck and his crew creating these short horror films and the story of Del, Connie, Pete, and Elizabeth, All of the plots line up and the ending does leave a bit up to the reader to figure out. Is it one of my favorite Laymon novels? No, but it does remind me that with Laymon you just never knew what to expect. I miss the hell out of Laymon, He was true master of horror and his passing left a huge hole in the horror genre.
September 17, 2021
More like 2.768.
This is an early Laymon book, I only read this and the woods are dark. It's not good, it's bad. Laymon is a pervert in his writing, female characters aren't written that well, the story it self isn't even written that well.
But My God, you just can't stop reading, I have never read anything this fast, it's not even long or elaborate enough to get attached to any of the characters but somehow you do.
Anyways this book is made up of two parts, the first is snuff films ( I know, WTH?), The second is about a deaf woman and cheating boyfriend and somehow the two stories come together and the book ends in mere 4-6 pages.
I say this again, Laymon is indeed a guilty pleasure and have been called so by many people and they were right, reading him is similar to the need to quit smoking, you think about for a while but just can't, you keep falling off the wagon no matter how hard you try. This is coming from someone who never even held a cigarette in her life.
This is an early Laymon book, I only read this and the woods are dark. It's not good, it's bad. Laymon is a pervert in his writing, female characters aren't written that well, the story it self isn't even written that well.
But My God, you just can't stop reading, I have never read anything this fast, it's not even long or elaborate enough to get attached to any of the characters but somehow you do.
Anyways this book is made up of two parts, the first is snuff films ( I know, WTH?), The second is about a deaf woman and cheating boyfriend and somehow the two stories come together and the book ends in mere 4-6 pages.
I say this again, Laymon is indeed a guilty pleasure and have been called so by many people and they were right, reading him is similar to the need to quit smoking, you think about for a while but just can't, you keep falling off the wagon no matter how hard you try. This is coming from someone who never even held a cigarette in her life.
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