The Bad Room

by Christopher Cook Gilmore

Looking for his missing son, Owen Vanderbes traces him to a state asylum for the criminally insane

Genres: Horror

217 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

Reviews

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun little romp from Cook Gilmore and oh so totally 80s horror. The Bad Room reads something like a dream, or rather, a nightmare, right from the get go. Our main protagonist Owen is driving his son back to his mom's place in Delaware via the Pine Barrens of NJ. Owen owns and runs a ship building company in NJ, but after a divorce, only has custody over little Robin their son on occasions. Owen and Robin just finished a week or so by the beach and Owen even bought his son a little puppy. When they stopped for break, the puppy ran off and they spend hours catching it; now they are late in getting back and Owen stops at a dismal little bar to use the phone to call his ex.

Things go rapidly downhill from there. While waiting for the phone company to fix the connection, Owen chats with the bartender; also the owner of the place, one Dusty, who seems more than a little crazy. Dusty tells Owen about the loonie farm up the road where she committed her only daughter. Anyway, after a nasty fight with his ex, Owen goes back to this VW bus and both the puppy and Robin are gone! It is also pouring down rain! Freaking out, Owen starts trying to find his kid and finds something really bad instead...

Cook Gilmore moves the story along nicely and this makes for a quick read. You know the asylum will feature in this, especially given the cover, but even so, the Bad Room in the basement of the place is really something else-- cringe worthy for sure! If you like 80s horror, you might want to give this a go if you can find it. 3.5 spooky stars!

[oddo · Rating 1 out of 5]

Playing around with a 1.5 in my head but who the hell knows what tomorrow will bring. Pages and pages of dialogue with nary a verb, just exposition dumps that no one asked for, that service nothing of the story other than to artificially lengthen the page count. The most interesting facet of this novel was the location where it's set, The Pine Barrens of New Jersey. Great cover art so I wouldn't blame anyone who chose to encase their copy in acrylic to ensure it doesn't get opened. Easy enough to get through, I suppose.

[Anthony · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick and easy read. Father and son are driving thru the NJ Pine Barrens. Son wanders off chasing his puppy, and ends up being snatched by a psychotic doctor residing in a hidden psychiatric hospital for the criminaly insane. A short read at 217 pages and its pretty much non stop fun. If you like crazy characters and old school 80s pulp reads, you will enjoy this.

[Wayne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This starts out well enough, but about halfway through, it goes downhill fast. There is not much here to work with. The plot is razor thin. The characters are weak. The dialogue is bland. This would have worked much better as a short story.

The first half has a man returning his son to his ex-wife. He gets held up and stops at a remote bar to contact her by phone. While he's in the bar meeting some crazy people, his son disappears. That half is o.k. It's the second half that puts this in the crapper.

He breaks into the local asylum looking for his boy. He gets caught. Put in the Bad Room. Next there is page after boring page of talk, just talk of shock therapy and other psychoanalyzing babble. Very boring. Not much here.

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

Giving this four stars for how much fun I had reading it. It was just what I needed at the moment; a quick, easy and fun vintage horror-read.