Darksong

by Jean Simon

From the moment she saw it, Dallas Munroe wanted the radio. Little did she know that behind its facade of stylish nostalgia lurked a hideous nightmare of horror. But it was not until after she brought it home that Dallas heard it play the nerve-shattering scream of utter evil!

Genres: Horror

347 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1990

Reviews

[Shane · Rating 2 out of 5]

First off let me just say that it's not often these days that I see a fully embossed cover on a novel, and I'm not just referring to the Title and/or Author here either but the entire image and everything. Nice. The story itself could have been handled better, and given that the main idea of a possessed object, in this case a beautiful old radio, isn't the most original then it really needed something a little bit special to pull it off. Unfortunately the author missed a trick with the lack of suspense, probably due to the lack of use of the radio itself, to the extent that there were times where I actually forgot that the radio was the demonic force behind all the horror.

I liked the main characters. Dallas and her two children, a son and her high school age daughter are put through the ringer with their luck going from bad to worse after she brings the old radio home. Among other things the children's aunt dies, then Dallas's friend follows quite soon after only to be followed in relatively quick succession by the cleaner, and that isn't all either. Her new man, Joe who has just moved to the town and buys the local newspaper ends up arming himself to the teeth and hunting through the house attempting to 'off' Dallas and her daughter Chloe(her son having left to live with his Father when things really started to kick off).

There are a number of other pieces of really, really bad luck-, in fact being honest, everything basically goes to hell the minute the radio arrives.

It's not a bad story really, but it does take a good while to get into it's stride and then when it finally does, it kind of feels a little like a race to the end. I really thought the radio needed to play a greater part too. The few instances of ghostly music being heard, or old painful memories rising to the surface were quite good but it was left to us to link these fleeting moments to the radio, and since we knew quite clearly from the start that it was all due to the radio, I think the only way to have really made it work would have been to include a few dramatic descriptions of the radio and here and there. I missed not being reminded of it's demonic presence and the evil emanating from it in a more direct manner.

So, a bit slow, definitely not the most original premise, and missed a bit of the suspense and dramatic stuff that the radio could, in fact, should have provided. Not at all bad for all that though. Nothing to make me particularly recommend it, but equally nothing to bad-mouth it too much either.

[Egghead · Rating 3 out of 5]

Evil radio
menaces small town family-
without drive time crews.

[Phileo Truth · Rating 1 out of 5]

A dark tale from a dark soul. Avoid.