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Toy Cemetery
There they were, just as he remembered. Rooms and rooms of them. Dolls. Toy soldiers. Clowns. When he was a kid, his Aunt Cary's toy collection should have been a child's paradise. But instead he had been terrified by their staring eyes and limp arms.
Twenty years had passed since Jay Clute set foot in Victory, Missouri. Twenty years of trying to forget that night--that hellish night of unimaginable horror. Now, his Aunt Cary was dead, and it's all been left to him--the house, the furniture, every last piece of her collection. And nothing had changed. Not the painted-on dolly smiles or the garish clown colors--or the tiny hands that were dripping with bright red blood...
Twenty years had passed since Jay Clute set foot in Victory, Missouri. Twenty years of trying to forget that night--that hellish night of unimaginable horror. Now, his Aunt Cary was dead, and it's all been left to him--the house, the furniture, every last piece of her collection. And nothing had changed. Not the painted-on dolly smiles or the garish clown colors--or the tiny hands that were dripping with bright red blood...
412 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published December 1, 1987
54 people are currently reading
1134 people want to read
About the author
William W. Johnstone
1,041 books1,392 followersWilliam W. Johnstone is the #1 bestselling Western writer in America and the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of hundreds of books, with over 50 million copies sold. Born in southern Missouri, he was raised with strong moral and family values by his minister father, and tutored by his schoolteacher mother. He left school at fifteen to work in a carnival and then as a deputy sheriff before serving in the army. He went on to become known as "the Greatest Western writer of the 21st Century." Visit him online at WilliamJohnstone.net.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews
September 28, 2025
Do you like crazy cemeteries? The kind that are infested with invisible ghost werewolves that can only be killed with a stake through the heart? The kind that conceal toy factories where Satanists shoot kiddie porn? Then William W. Johnstone has your flavor of crazy on tap right here in what might be his most bonkers book.
July 26, 2021
Unhauling this book party people!! This book is on crack!!
Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾
Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾
September 29, 2019
What a great, big pile of shit!
Let's be clear, I fully expected a great, big pile of shit. I read it for that specific experience.
The first third or so was pretty amazing. Then...it almost felt like Johnstone submitted the first third, then got an advance, used it for cocaine, forgot about the whole thing, and the night before it was due, put it all together, shipped it off, and whoever was proofing it was like, "Fuck it, this is my last day, let's just put the apostrophes mostly in the right places and I'm outta this hellhole!"
I'm now going to attempt to summarize the plot. Spoilers? I put a question mark because I'm not sure that I'll be able to reassemble what I read, and because I don't know if telling anyone what happens in this book spoils it, per se.
Jay's aunt dies. So he goes back to Victory, MO to claim an inheritance. His aunt sucked, but I guess Jay was the closest thing she had to an heir.
Victory is apparently not a real city, BUT Missouri has a Liberty AND a Freedom. Just putting it out there.
Victory is real fucked-up. We immediately see a fat guy who is doing something fucked up to a doll that's also sort of alive, and Johnstone tosses in that the guy is basically a child rapist. This is like page 2.
Here's what happens in Victory: When the sun goes down, the fog rolls in, and everyone starts acting insane. A teen boy just starts jerking off on his front porch. People have sex even though they probably shouldn't. For example, Jay, our hero, has sex with this young woman (17? 18?) who is the daughter of one of his old townie buddies. I lost track, but I think this character gets raped somewhere between 2 and 8,000 times in the course of the book.
Okay. There's also a haunted house. Filled with living dolls. There are also dolls roaming around the woods. There are THREE kinds of living dolls in this book, near as I can figure:
1. Porcelain Mannequins
These are porcelain, human-sized dolls that can walk and talk and shit, but when they're attacked, they shatter. Also, they're killed with fire, which seems less efficient than the shotguns and pistols everyone is toting. If I've got to destroy a plate, and I can use a gun or fire? C'mon. These dolls are all bad guys and kill people, mostly while their arms are detached from their bodies. These people seem to be sometimes people who used to be real humans, sometimes not, and how they become this way isn't explained.
2. Little Evil Dolls
All kinds of dolls, evil, stabbing people with needles and tiny swords. These are apparently the new bodies of people who lived in Liberty. This process isn't really explained.
3. Little Not Evil Dolls
These seem to be identical to the Little Evil Dolls, except they're not evil and they want to fight the evil dolls. I'm not entirely sure what the difference is between them and the evil dolls, what makes them not evil, or how the characters would know which dolls are evil and which aren't other than the not evil dolls being gruesomely mutilated by the evil dolls now and then. They also fly planes and drop firecrackers on the bad guys.
Okay, so Jay comes to town. Evil shit starts happening, especially around roaming packs of teens. Which, how can you tell the difference!? (dad joke)
A blind priest, his former surgeon/thug assistant, a retired general, a news team, a cop (who is named Jim, which was REALLY confusing because we've got a Jim and a Jay, and these characters are not exactly well-rendered and I lost track of the differences), an archery expert doctor, and some other randos fight against the evil in Victory. They can't seem to get police help from outside the city because...reasons. They can't leave the town because...reasons.
Jay almost has sex with his daughter while they're both in the fog, but then their cross necklaces click together, yanking Jay out of his fogged-in stupor. But then, the next morning, it turns out Jay's lady friend and her daughter had sex at their house. Which...I guess part of the problem here is that there's a SHITLOAD of incest going down in Victory, which results in weird monsters somehow, but that doesn't really explain a mother/daughter evil fog tryst.
There's a part where Jay gets captured and put in a hospital. Where he sort of puts together there's an ancient evil of some kind that does...something. Somehow. It's involved in making the dolls (maybe all three types) in addition to some mutants, plus spreading the evil around. He escapes via clever ruse (and also punching a guy super hard in the balls), and then gets back to running around with his cronies, shooting stuff, burning stuff, and then sometimes being easily cowed by a group of teens.
Can we talk about lost subplots?
TOY FACTORY: There's a toymaker shipping toys all over the world. Which I think was supposed to serve as a last-minute, pre-credits sort of wink that things aren't really over, but it doesn't go anywhere.
CHILD PORN: Apparently the evil one is making child pornography, which is a financial endeavor(?) This is very unclear, although I guess it's here because it's one of the evil-est things you can do? It doesn't really play into the plot so much.
THE AUNT: I don't know. She's like a ghost? They burn her house down? A bunch of dolls live there, but some are evil and some aren't? Super confusing.
THE NEWS: A news team shows up at some point to sort of help with things and show the world what's going on. Doesn't really go anywhere.
THE DOLLMAKER: I could be wrong, I read this kind of fast, but I don't know if the evil, fat dollmaker ever gets his, escapes, or what. He seemed like the sub-villain, the one we're supposed to think is the villain, but then he isn't. But...I think he just kind of vanishes from the book.
SATANISTS: These guys meet in a church and talk cryptically about "the dark one" or "the evil one" or whatever. They turn the cross upside-down while they meet. I'm not really sure why they're meeting in secret (having an orgy at one point) when everyone in the entire city is part of the craziness. Why the cloak and dagger shit? EVERYONE YOU KNOW is in on it.
TIME: Jay figures out that something is happening regarding time. And that by disrupting this, he can accomplish something. So he blasts a clock to pieces, which solves the problem, whatever it is, briefly catapults our characters back in time to the 20's or so, then that just sort of resolves itself and the time distortion is over. Although everything seems exactly the same following the resolution of this problem.
TEENS: There is a group of evil teens. Which it turns out, Jay's daughter is one of them. He tries to kill her a couple times, which you would think would be kind of a big deal, but it's not.
There's a bunch of mayhem (which is the best shit) and then a twist when it turns out some of the good guys are actually bad guys, and the whole anticlimax ends with Jay stabbing an old man at the dump, which apparently ends the curse.
I have, I think, three criteria for enjoying shitty shit:
1. I have to be able to follow it, generally. It doesn't have to be an amazing plot, but I like to know what's going on from moment to moment.
2. It can't be intentionally shitty. Sharknado is my prime example. When someone makes something shitty on purpose, feh.
3. It's got to have some real crazy nonsense that takes things too far in one aspect or another.
This one has two of three. It's got some real crazy, and I think it's sincere. But it was just so damn hard to follow, and it was like Johnstone had a chance to write one book, so he threw in EVERYTHING. Which is insane as he wrote 25 horror novels in like 10 years.
I'm torn on it. If you, like me, sometimes enjoy getting loaded and reading at a bar, this is perfect. If you, like me, also kind of hate working really hard to follow something you shouldn't give a wet fart about, this is very much imperfect.
Mixed bag? Yeah. Hopefully I won't be thinking of the time I spent reading this when I'm looking back on my life.
Let's be clear, I fully expected a great, big pile of shit. I read it for that specific experience.
The first third or so was pretty amazing. Then...it almost felt like Johnstone submitted the first third, then got an advance, used it for cocaine, forgot about the whole thing, and the night before it was due, put it all together, shipped it off, and whoever was proofing it was like, "Fuck it, this is my last day, let's just put the apostrophes mostly in the right places and I'm outta this hellhole!"
I'm now going to attempt to summarize the plot. Spoilers? I put a question mark because I'm not sure that I'll be able to reassemble what I read, and because I don't know if telling anyone what happens in this book spoils it, per se.
Jay's aunt dies. So he goes back to Victory, MO to claim an inheritance. His aunt sucked, but I guess Jay was the closest thing she had to an heir.
Victory is apparently not a real city, BUT Missouri has a Liberty AND a Freedom. Just putting it out there.
Victory is real fucked-up. We immediately see a fat guy who is doing something fucked up to a doll that's also sort of alive, and Johnstone tosses in that the guy is basically a child rapist. This is like page 2.
Here's what happens in Victory: When the sun goes down, the fog rolls in, and everyone starts acting insane. A teen boy just starts jerking off on his front porch. People have sex even though they probably shouldn't. For example, Jay, our hero, has sex with this young woman (17? 18?) who is the daughter of one of his old townie buddies. I lost track, but I think this character gets raped somewhere between 2 and 8,000 times in the course of the book.
Okay. There's also a haunted house. Filled with living dolls. There are also dolls roaming around the woods. There are THREE kinds of living dolls in this book, near as I can figure:
1. Porcelain Mannequins
These are porcelain, human-sized dolls that can walk and talk and shit, but when they're attacked, they shatter. Also, they're killed with fire, which seems less efficient than the shotguns and pistols everyone is toting. If I've got to destroy a plate, and I can use a gun or fire? C'mon. These dolls are all bad guys and kill people, mostly while their arms are detached from their bodies. These people seem to be sometimes people who used to be real humans, sometimes not, and how they become this way isn't explained.
2. Little Evil Dolls
All kinds of dolls, evil, stabbing people with needles and tiny swords. These are apparently the new bodies of people who lived in Liberty. This process isn't really explained.
3. Little Not Evil Dolls
These seem to be identical to the Little Evil Dolls, except they're not evil and they want to fight the evil dolls. I'm not entirely sure what the difference is between them and the evil dolls, what makes them not evil, or how the characters would know which dolls are evil and which aren't other than the not evil dolls being gruesomely mutilated by the evil dolls now and then. They also fly planes and drop firecrackers on the bad guys.
Okay, so Jay comes to town. Evil shit starts happening, especially around roaming packs of teens. Which, how can you tell the difference!? (dad joke)
A blind priest, his former surgeon/thug assistant, a retired general, a news team, a cop (who is named Jim, which was REALLY confusing because we've got a Jim and a Jay, and these characters are not exactly well-rendered and I lost track of the differences), an archery expert doctor, and some other randos fight against the evil in Victory. They can't seem to get police help from outside the city because...reasons. They can't leave the town because...reasons.
Jay almost has sex with his daughter while they're both in the fog, but then their cross necklaces click together, yanking Jay out of his fogged-in stupor. But then, the next morning, it turns out Jay's lady friend and her daughter had sex at their house. Which...I guess part of the problem here is that there's a SHITLOAD of incest going down in Victory, which results in weird monsters somehow, but that doesn't really explain a mother/daughter evil fog tryst.
There's a part where Jay gets captured and put in a hospital. Where he sort of puts together there's an ancient evil of some kind that does...something. Somehow. It's involved in making the dolls (maybe all three types) in addition to some mutants, plus spreading the evil around. He escapes via clever ruse (and also punching a guy super hard in the balls), and then gets back to running around with his cronies, shooting stuff, burning stuff, and then sometimes being easily cowed by a group of teens.
Can we talk about lost subplots?
TOY FACTORY: There's a toymaker shipping toys all over the world. Which I think was supposed to serve as a last-minute, pre-credits sort of wink that things aren't really over, but it doesn't go anywhere.
CHILD PORN: Apparently the evil one is making child pornography, which is a financial endeavor(?) This is very unclear, although I guess it's here because it's one of the evil-est things you can do? It doesn't really play into the plot so much.
THE AUNT: I don't know. She's like a ghost? They burn her house down? A bunch of dolls live there, but some are evil and some aren't? Super confusing.
THE NEWS: A news team shows up at some point to sort of help with things and show the world what's going on. Doesn't really go anywhere.
THE DOLLMAKER: I could be wrong, I read this kind of fast, but I don't know if the evil, fat dollmaker ever gets his, escapes, or what. He seemed like the sub-villain, the one we're supposed to think is the villain, but then he isn't. But...I think he just kind of vanishes from the book.
SATANISTS: These guys meet in a church and talk cryptically about "the dark one" or "the evil one" or whatever. They turn the cross upside-down while they meet. I'm not really sure why they're meeting in secret (having an orgy at one point) when everyone in the entire city is part of the craziness. Why the cloak and dagger shit? EVERYONE YOU KNOW is in on it.
TIME: Jay figures out that something is happening regarding time. And that by disrupting this, he can accomplish something. So he blasts a clock to pieces, which solves the problem, whatever it is, briefly catapults our characters back in time to the 20's or so, then that just sort of resolves itself and the time distortion is over. Although everything seems exactly the same following the resolution of this problem.
TEENS: There is a group of evil teens. Which it turns out, Jay's daughter is one of them. He tries to kill her a couple times, which you would think would be kind of a big deal, but it's not.
There's a bunch of mayhem (which is the best shit) and then a twist when it turns out some of the good guys are actually bad guys, and the whole anticlimax ends with Jay stabbing an old man at the dump, which apparently ends the curse.
I have, I think, three criteria for enjoying shitty shit:
1. I have to be able to follow it, generally. It doesn't have to be an amazing plot, but I like to know what's going on from moment to moment.
2. It can't be intentionally shitty. Sharknado is my prime example. When someone makes something shitty on purpose, feh.
3. It's got to have some real crazy nonsense that takes things too far in one aspect or another.
This one has two of three. It's got some real crazy, and I think it's sincere. But it was just so damn hard to follow, and it was like Johnstone had a chance to write one book, so he threw in EVERYTHING. Which is insane as he wrote 25 horror novels in like 10 years.
I'm torn on it. If you, like me, sometimes enjoy getting loaded and reading at a bar, this is perfect. If you, like me, also kind of hate working really hard to follow something you shouldn't give a wet fart about, this is very much imperfect.
Mixed bag? Yeah. Hopefully I won't be thinking of the time I spent reading this when I'm looking back on my life.
February 1, 2017
Typical William W. Johnstone. Quick read, like a movie, liked the idea of the toy army and the fight against an evil city. Even zombies have a new interpretation in this 80s horror as porcelain humans. Often exaggerated, an interesting oldschool horror novel in the end. You won't regret it.
December 9, 2017
If horror were a neighborhood, Thomas Harris would be the rich gated communities, Stephen King would be the two-story suburbs, and this book would be the trailer park on a dirt road with the county's highest levels of arrests for meth. Lots of fun, but know what you're getting into.
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September 20, 2025I have very mixed feelings about author William Johnstone. Here is another example of what almost seems like completely unreadable incompetence that I couldn't bring myself to put down.
Single dad Jay and his 9-year-old daughter take a trip to his hometown of Victory, Missouri, where his aunt just passed away and left him a huge inheritance, which includes a brand new Cadillac and a house full of spooky toys. No sooner does he arrive when he is welcomed by some extremely odd behavior by the townfolk. For example, his neighbor, Old Man Milton, keeps calling out from his rocking chair on his front porch, "You asshole!" And his daughter is attacked by a little Viking action figure. Something odd is happening in the town of Victory, so will this mean Defeat for our hero?
The least of this book's problems is the fact that it is full of sloppy mistakes, like when Johnstone has the priest "look at" something even though he is blind. The pacing is completely wonky. When I say weird stuff starts happening as soon as Jay enters the town, I mean it. No slow burn here. But that creates a problem, because now Johnstone has to do contortions to justify why Jay doesn't just get the hell out of Victory like any normal person would. And if Jay stays to play the role of our chief protagonist, then he keeps his daughter in danger, which doesn't make him very endearing in the eyes of the reader. The more contortions the author makes to just keep the story going, the more needlessly bloated it becomes.
As Johnstone stretches things out, he tries to prolong the mystery of what is happening in the town as long as possible. To do this, he must avoid an exposition dump too early on. But he should have not made it so obvious from the second chapter that something supernatural was happening in the town, because of course Jay wants to immediately know what is going on. So in order to prolong the mystery, the other characters with whom he interacts all have to be obnoxiously and artificially cagey. Even the good guys! As a result, you end up with half the book sounding like this:
"What's going on here?!" demands Jay to Father Blind-Guy.
"Say, Eric, do you think that this is the pattern of our old nemesis?" Father Blind-Guy asks his beefy friend Eric.
"Sure seems like his doing," answers his beefy friend.
"Who is this 'old nemesis' you're talking about, Father?" asks the mysterious patrol cop.
"Young man, there seems to be something about you that is mysterious," says Father Blind-Guy to the mysterious patrol cop.
"You didn't answer my question," reminds the mysterious patrol cop.
"I have a question, too!" interrupts Jay. "What's going on here?!"
"Anybody feel like coffee?" asks Father Blind-Guy.
"You assholes!" shouts Old Man Milton.
It's infuriating--like reading a live stream chat of 100 ADHD gamers.
Yet, I kept pushing on, because somehow I wanted to know what would happen next. That's the weird power of William Johnstone. He seems to be making stuff up as he's going along, upping the ante with each chapter even if it doesn't make a lick of sense, or if it destroys an interesting character arc, or contradicts a direction he has been taking earlier. The result is an unpredictable novel full of Satan worshipers, cute talking toys, porcelain androids, incest, sexual assault, evil hoodlum children, monsters, mind control, a spooky psychiatric asylum, a haunted house, action, gore, dark comedy, and... Whew. You get the picture. If this were a film, it would be like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" mixed with "Toy Story", all scripted and directed by John Carpenter. Johnstone just flings everything at the wall to see what sticks. And most of it does stick, as surprising as that seems.
So I do recommend this to Eighties horror fans, and those familiar with Johnstone's work will want to read this just to see what bat shit, over-the-top shenanigans he pulls this time. And believe me, this story delivers with the worst possible taste you could expect from an Eighties paperback from hell!
SCORE: 3 assholes out of 5
Single dad Jay and his 9-year-old daughter take a trip to his hometown of Victory, Missouri, where his aunt just passed away and left him a huge inheritance, which includes a brand new Cadillac and a house full of spooky toys. No sooner does he arrive when he is welcomed by some extremely odd behavior by the townfolk. For example, his neighbor, Old Man Milton, keeps calling out from his rocking chair on his front porch, "You asshole!" And his daughter is attacked by a little Viking action figure. Something odd is happening in the town of Victory, so will this mean Defeat for our hero?
The least of this book's problems is the fact that it is full of sloppy mistakes, like when Johnstone has the priest "look at" something even though he is blind. The pacing is completely wonky. When I say weird stuff starts happening as soon as Jay enters the town, I mean it. No slow burn here. But that creates a problem, because now Johnstone has to do contortions to justify why Jay doesn't just get the hell out of Victory like any normal person would. And if Jay stays to play the role of our chief protagonist, then he keeps his daughter in danger, which doesn't make him very endearing in the eyes of the reader. The more contortions the author makes to just keep the story going, the more needlessly bloated it becomes.
As Johnstone stretches things out, he tries to prolong the mystery of what is happening in the town as long as possible. To do this, he must avoid an exposition dump too early on. But he should have not made it so obvious from the second chapter that something supernatural was happening in the town, because of course Jay wants to immediately know what is going on. So in order to prolong the mystery, the other characters with whom he interacts all have to be obnoxiously and artificially cagey. Even the good guys! As a result, you end up with half the book sounding like this:
"What's going on here?!" demands Jay to Father Blind-Guy.
"Say, Eric, do you think that this is the pattern of our old nemesis?" Father Blind-Guy asks his beefy friend Eric.
"Sure seems like his doing," answers his beefy friend.
"Who is this 'old nemesis' you're talking about, Father?" asks the mysterious patrol cop.
"Young man, there seems to be something about you that is mysterious," says Father Blind-Guy to the mysterious patrol cop.
"You didn't answer my question," reminds the mysterious patrol cop.
"I have a question, too!" interrupts Jay. "What's going on here?!"
"Anybody feel like coffee?" asks Father Blind-Guy.
"You assholes!" shouts Old Man Milton.
It's infuriating--like reading a live stream chat of 100 ADHD gamers.
Yet, I kept pushing on, because somehow I wanted to know what would happen next. That's the weird power of William Johnstone. He seems to be making stuff up as he's going along, upping the ante with each chapter even if it doesn't make a lick of sense, or if it destroys an interesting character arc, or contradicts a direction he has been taking earlier. The result is an unpredictable novel full of Satan worshipers, cute talking toys, porcelain androids, incest, sexual assault, evil hoodlum children, monsters, mind control, a spooky psychiatric asylum, a haunted house, action, gore, dark comedy, and... Whew. You get the picture. If this were a film, it would be like "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" mixed with "Toy Story", all scripted and directed by John Carpenter. Johnstone just flings everything at the wall to see what sticks. And most of it does stick, as surprising as that seems.
So I do recommend this to Eighties horror fans, and those familiar with Johnstone's work will want to read this just to see what bat shit, over-the-top shenanigans he pulls this time. And believe me, this story delivers with the worst possible taste you could expect from an Eighties paperback from hell!
SCORE: 3 assholes out of 5
December 29, 2025
New favorite writer alert! This book is trashy as hell and I am here for it. Fans of Richard Laymon should find a lot to love.
November 4, 2018
One of the earliest reviews I posted on Goodreads concerned a Johnstone horror novel. I'm not ashamed of either reading it or reviewing it, but if you thought this guy hit the apex of crazy writing about a bunch of mutant satanic bats murder-flapping the shit out of Louisiana, then I've got some bad news. Comparatively speaking, Bats is a battleship of sanity and logic drifting through the ocean of intentional squick and unintentional hilarity comprising Toy Cemetery.
Johnstone has a few themes he likes to re-visit in his horror stories, but his favorite which crops up in all of them I've read so far is the kind of apocalyptic showdown I imagine every gun-toting, Bible-thumping redneck secretly prays for every night before bed. The Devil comes to the South, and it's only by the righteous fury of God channeled through a white, battle-hardened Vietnam veteran (and his staggering arsenal of weaponry), willing to put his life on the line for God and Country one more time, that Ol' Scratch is denied his chance at world domination. At least until he shows up in another small town in Good Old Boy, USA to try that shit anew, and a different Conservative-with-a-capital-C, pistol-packing, God-fearing, hippie-ridiculing, the-South-will-rise-again-type veteran has to reluctantly lead the battle to take him out in the next book. In Johnstone's ideology, Democrats and liberals are only good for target practice, and if the US of A could just put God back in the public school system, salute the flag more, and make warriors instead of pussies all concerned about women's lib and gay rights out of the new generation of menfolk, Satan could have the rest of the country and they'd keep the South for themselves with the help of Jesus, thank you very much.
There's jingoism, and then there's Johnstone-ism, and holy cow does Johnstone know how to heap on the sinful depravity when everyone's immortal souls are on the line. He does such a good job there's little to say beyond that, because if you can think it, he's probably written about it somewhere, and if not in your current read than it'll show up in the next one. Just know what you're getting into before you start reading, and you'll have a blast. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear Johnstone was a dyed-in-the-wool liberal trying to write the most insulting, hilarious, and pandering right-wing literature he could imagine, but no, this guy believed every word he put to paper concerning guns, government, and god, and that just makes it better. He South Parks himself in every book harder than Trey Parker and Matt Stone ever could. He's not a great writer, but he's good enough that it's clear his books didn't happen by accident. Somehow that makes them both better and worse at the same time.
Naturally he was a Zebra headliner, and one day, I will wade through every one of his horror novels, because whether he'd like it or not (I can't ask him, since he passed away in 2004), despite not sharing one iota of his political opinions, I am 100% the target audience for the schlock he's peddling.
Johnstone's reluctant badass this time around is Jay Clute. The former Vietnam vet, recently separated from his supermodel wife and still nursing the demons of his parents' disappearance when he was just a kid, is driving from his New York apartment back to his old hometown of Victory, Missouri to settle the estate of his departed aunt. With him is Kelly, his whip-smart, wise-cracking nine-year old daughter who's excited to be taking a vacation with her Daddy. Clute's intention is to take care of business as fast as possible and leave--he has no idea why his aunt, who hated his guts, would leave him executor of her estate, but he hasn't stepped foot in Victory since he got on the bus to join the Army, and wasn't expecting to return again.
Kelly, on the other hand, is positively entranced by Victory's small-town, lackadaisical atmosphere, which is the complete opposite of what she's used to living in the middle of New York's hustle and bustle. Couldn't they stay for a while? A mysterious voice whispers in Jay's mind that it might not be a bad idea, and after dismissing it as just road fatigue, Jay agrees: they'll spend a nice little vacation in Missouri.
In the matter of just a few chapters though, Jay's learning all sorts of stuff about his old town. Most of his high school buddies remember him. In fact, one of them's the lawyer helping him with the estate and his inheritance, which comes to an insane sum of money. Jay knew his aunt was well off, but had no idea her controlling interests in Victory went so deep. Kelly's managed to make a new group of friends as well among the locals, though they've got some strange questions for her about who she is and why she's there.
The first hint something's "off" in Victory comes after Jay reaches his Aunt's house. The teenage daughter of his lawyer drops by to check up on him and show him some good old fashioned Southern hospitality by helping him unpack, and then helping him unwind with a sexually-charged rub-down that swiftly turns into a hook-up in the "wham, bam, thank you ma'am" sense. Afterwards, neither one of them is entirely sure what happened or why, and she awkwardly departs, leaving Jay feeling strangely unsatisfied in his satisfaction.
Jay's not sure what could be going on in Victory, but it may have something to do with the town's gigantic toy manufacturing and distribution plant, which, as Jay learns, is run by an overweight purveyor of child pornography. As one should expect from a Johnstone book. Trouble may also stem from the giant asylum turned prison, which houses the colossal, muscled, and deformed products of incest among the townsfolk (see: prior expectations).
There's no act of moral depravity too repulsive or wretched to contemplate when it comes to Johnstone's stories, but if there's one thing he's got a malingering hate-boner for, it's incest, and in Victory, they've taken 'keeping it in the family' to a whole new level. Kin knock boots there more frequently than they make trips to the local grocery store to stock up on produce. The feelings of desire even take up roots in Kelly, who strips naked that evening and attempts to seduce her daddy. The girl (who, I reiterate, is nine years old) almost succeeds in her mission, but the magic of the moment is ruined when the gold crosses they each wear around their necks clink together. The sound is enough to shake Jay out of his desire to re-enact a V.C. Andrews sub-plot, whereupon he chucks his daughter into a cold shower to get her head back on straight. A talk with his high school sweetheart Deva reveals that Deva's own daughter (who isn't much older than Kelly) tried put the moves on her the same night. And, of course, I already mentioned the sexual proclivities of the other townsfolk which is how the asylum got so fully-stocked with these deformed giants in the first place.
Look, I'm not out to judge anybody for their kinks, and horror writers are supposed to take it to the extreme, but given the frequency with which incest gets its chocolate into the underage peanut butter in Johnstone's Zebra output, one cannot help but wonder if the author doth protest too much. This alone is insanity enough, but I haven't even touched on the toys.
See, there are myriad forces at work in Victory, but the battle isn't waged purely by humans. The titular "Toy Cemetery" is a real thing, and the discarded dolls and abandoned automatons left there come to life with a strange, hideous power.
There are good toys, and there are bad toys, constantly at war with one another, and unafraid to go after the humans of the town if it suits their needs. It takes Jay and his companions (including his ex-wife Piper, who shows up midway through the narrative to pick up Kelly and winds up staying because she never really stopped loving Jay and wants to be with him again and oh my god does every woman in the book want to ride this guy's pole like a fireman!) a hilariously long time to come to grips with these things despite damning evidence and direct encounters. Jay nearly runs one over with his car, only to have the little toy throw him a double-bird as it walks away. Jay's group is attacked by some of the doll collection at his Aunt Cary's place, stabbed with pins and small bayonets, and Jay tries to write it off as some sort of hallucination.
Look, I get it: logic states this shouldn't be happening, but when you've got a miniature french legionnaire hacking at your ankle with a cavalry saber and a tiny barbarian swinging his ax at your hand, and a police officer not just witnessing but experiencing the attack and needing a bandage for his finger afterwards, it's probably safe to assume that, yeah, the toys are alive and no, you didn't imagine it. Clute doesn't come to terms with this until hundreds of pages have gone by and he's dismissed more than enough evidence to convince even the most doggedly-ignorant fool. How this guy got out of 'Nam alive, I'll never know.
One thing I will say though: unlike Johnny MacBride in Bats, Jay Clute is far from the gun-toting, Bible-quoting protagonist Johnstone normally writes. Instead of a deeply God-fearing man, Clute's the sort who lost his faith a long time ago and takes no solace in the idea of a god. He's also not fired a gun since his military days, and has no interest in open-carrying even a pistol when the book starts. This actually lasts for a good part of the story, until Jay has no choice but to believe there's demonic activity in the town and it's come to spiritual warfare (with shotguns), and is a nice change from the typical guns-a-blazin' sort Johnstone tends to write.
Toy Cemetery may be aping a certain Stephen King novel with its title, but trust me, King never published anything as bug-nut crazy as this story of inbred incest monsters, demon-controlled children, and animated action figures. Its characters are dense enough, at times, to shame black holes, and there are enough cringe-worthy moments both in terms of plot and writing to make this one of interest to dedicated Zebra junkies alone. Instead of working in one solid A-line and a secondary B-line of story, Johnstone has threads zigging and zagging all over the place, crossing, tangling, and doubling back so often you need a map and compass to follow them. By the time the FBI show up to cordon off the town and either arrest or assist Clute (they can't decide which), the burly genetic-recessives are roaming the streets and all bets are off. The last quarter of the book is a non-stop action set piece where secondary characters get shredded like files subpoenaed by a special prosecutor, while Clute and Co. wage war on Satan with everything from pistols and shotguns to knives, arrows, and explosives. Even after the story concludes, I felt like Johnstone himself wasn't sure he'd covered everything so he went back and added a few more scenes of ritual murder and toy-mageddon.
The ending, naturally, has a sinister twist making it clear the evil hasn't been defeated, but before you get there you witness the clash of toy armies fighting against possessed townsfolk, a madcap escape from an asylum, the interruption of a Satanic mass at the town church, and more incest-spawned demons than you can wave a rifle at. If you can't enjoy a book this crazy, maybe try Nicholas Sparks or Danielle Steel?
Best Part:
Every Johnstone novel needs some a wacky secondary character who's only purpose is to make the protagonist uncomfortable and the reader howl with laughter, and Jay's next-door neighbor, Old Man Milton, is Toy Cemetery's. Milton's the aging, doddering sort who spends all day in his porch rocker hollering at the world passing him by. His first words to Jay upon seeing him back in Victory? "Welcome home, asshole!" Milton continues to verbally abuse everyone around him--man or woman, adult or child, lawman or layman, you're nothing but a big ol' asshole. By the halfway mark, Milton's laid eyes on more assholes than your average proctologist. The most hilarious moment of the book comes when Clute and his group need to do something with a body for a little while, so they drag it over to Milton's porch and plop it down in a chair right by the old geezer. Milton's pleased as punch to have someone who listens to his ramblings without interruption, but a few chapters later, he's deriding the corpse for being a shitty conversationalist.
Yup...Johnstone certainly was his own special breed of man, and he left dozens of books behind to remind us.
That asshole... :-D
Johnstone has a few themes he likes to re-visit in his horror stories, but his favorite which crops up in all of them I've read so far is the kind of apocalyptic showdown I imagine every gun-toting, Bible-thumping redneck secretly prays for every night before bed. The Devil comes to the South, and it's only by the righteous fury of God channeled through a white, battle-hardened Vietnam veteran (and his staggering arsenal of weaponry), willing to put his life on the line for God and Country one more time, that Ol' Scratch is denied his chance at world domination. At least until he shows up in another small town in Good Old Boy, USA to try that shit anew, and a different Conservative-with-a-capital-C, pistol-packing, God-fearing, hippie-ridiculing, the-South-will-rise-again-type veteran has to reluctantly lead the battle to take him out in the next book. In Johnstone's ideology, Democrats and liberals are only good for target practice, and if the US of A could just put God back in the public school system, salute the flag more, and make warriors instead of pussies all concerned about women's lib and gay rights out of the new generation of menfolk, Satan could have the rest of the country and they'd keep the South for themselves with the help of Jesus, thank you very much.
There's jingoism, and then there's Johnstone-ism, and holy cow does Johnstone know how to heap on the sinful depravity when everyone's immortal souls are on the line. He does such a good job there's little to say beyond that, because if you can think it, he's probably written about it somewhere, and if not in your current read than it'll show up in the next one. Just know what you're getting into before you start reading, and you'll have a blast. If I didn't know any better, I'd swear Johnstone was a dyed-in-the-wool liberal trying to write the most insulting, hilarious, and pandering right-wing literature he could imagine, but no, this guy believed every word he put to paper concerning guns, government, and god, and that just makes it better. He South Parks himself in every book harder than Trey Parker and Matt Stone ever could. He's not a great writer, but he's good enough that it's clear his books didn't happen by accident. Somehow that makes them both better and worse at the same time.
Naturally he was a Zebra headliner, and one day, I will wade through every one of his horror novels, because whether he'd like it or not (I can't ask him, since he passed away in 2004), despite not sharing one iota of his political opinions, I am 100% the target audience for the schlock he's peddling.
Johnstone's reluctant badass this time around is Jay Clute. The former Vietnam vet, recently separated from his supermodel wife and still nursing the demons of his parents' disappearance when he was just a kid, is driving from his New York apartment back to his old hometown of Victory, Missouri to settle the estate of his departed aunt. With him is Kelly, his whip-smart, wise-cracking nine-year old daughter who's excited to be taking a vacation with her Daddy. Clute's intention is to take care of business as fast as possible and leave--he has no idea why his aunt, who hated his guts, would leave him executor of her estate, but he hasn't stepped foot in Victory since he got on the bus to join the Army, and wasn't expecting to return again.
Kelly, on the other hand, is positively entranced by Victory's small-town, lackadaisical atmosphere, which is the complete opposite of what she's used to living in the middle of New York's hustle and bustle. Couldn't they stay for a while? A mysterious voice whispers in Jay's mind that it might not be a bad idea, and after dismissing it as just road fatigue, Jay agrees: they'll spend a nice little vacation in Missouri.
In the matter of just a few chapters though, Jay's learning all sorts of stuff about his old town. Most of his high school buddies remember him. In fact, one of them's the lawyer helping him with the estate and his inheritance, which comes to an insane sum of money. Jay knew his aunt was well off, but had no idea her controlling interests in Victory went so deep. Kelly's managed to make a new group of friends as well among the locals, though they've got some strange questions for her about who she is and why she's there.
The first hint something's "off" in Victory comes after Jay reaches his Aunt's house. The teenage daughter of his lawyer drops by to check up on him and show him some good old fashioned Southern hospitality by helping him unpack, and then helping him unwind with a sexually-charged rub-down that swiftly turns into a hook-up in the "wham, bam, thank you ma'am" sense. Afterwards, neither one of them is entirely sure what happened or why, and she awkwardly departs, leaving Jay feeling strangely unsatisfied in his satisfaction.
Jay's not sure what could be going on in Victory, but it may have something to do with the town's gigantic toy manufacturing and distribution plant, which, as Jay learns, is run by an overweight purveyor of child pornography. As one should expect from a Johnstone book. Trouble may also stem from the giant asylum turned prison, which houses the colossal, muscled, and deformed products of incest among the townsfolk (see: prior expectations).
There's no act of moral depravity too repulsive or wretched to contemplate when it comes to Johnstone's stories, but if there's one thing he's got a malingering hate-boner for, it's incest, and in Victory, they've taken 'keeping it in the family' to a whole new level. Kin knock boots there more frequently than they make trips to the local grocery store to stock up on produce. The feelings of desire even take up roots in Kelly, who strips naked that evening and attempts to seduce her daddy. The girl (who, I reiterate, is nine years old) almost succeeds in her mission, but the magic of the moment is ruined when the gold crosses they each wear around their necks clink together. The sound is enough to shake Jay out of his desire to re-enact a V.C. Andrews sub-plot, whereupon he chucks his daughter into a cold shower to get her head back on straight. A talk with his high school sweetheart Deva reveals that Deva's own daughter (who isn't much older than Kelly) tried put the moves on her the same night. And, of course, I already mentioned the sexual proclivities of the other townsfolk which is how the asylum got so fully-stocked with these deformed giants in the first place.
Look, I'm not out to judge anybody for their kinks, and horror writers are supposed to take it to the extreme, but given the frequency with which incest gets its chocolate into the underage peanut butter in Johnstone's Zebra output, one cannot help but wonder if the author doth protest too much. This alone is insanity enough, but I haven't even touched on the toys.
See, there are myriad forces at work in Victory, but the battle isn't waged purely by humans. The titular "Toy Cemetery" is a real thing, and the discarded dolls and abandoned automatons left there come to life with a strange, hideous power.
There are good toys, and there are bad toys, constantly at war with one another, and unafraid to go after the humans of the town if it suits their needs. It takes Jay and his companions (including his ex-wife Piper, who shows up midway through the narrative to pick up Kelly and winds up staying because she never really stopped loving Jay and wants to be with him again and oh my god does every woman in the book want to ride this guy's pole like a fireman!) a hilariously long time to come to grips with these things despite damning evidence and direct encounters. Jay nearly runs one over with his car, only to have the little toy throw him a double-bird as it walks away. Jay's group is attacked by some of the doll collection at his Aunt Cary's place, stabbed with pins and small bayonets, and Jay tries to write it off as some sort of hallucination.
Look, I get it: logic states this shouldn't be happening, but when you've got a miniature french legionnaire hacking at your ankle with a cavalry saber and a tiny barbarian swinging his ax at your hand, and a police officer not just witnessing but experiencing the attack and needing a bandage for his finger afterwards, it's probably safe to assume that, yeah, the toys are alive and no, you didn't imagine it. Clute doesn't come to terms with this until hundreds of pages have gone by and he's dismissed more than enough evidence to convince even the most doggedly-ignorant fool. How this guy got out of 'Nam alive, I'll never know.
One thing I will say though: unlike Johnny MacBride in Bats, Jay Clute is far from the gun-toting, Bible-quoting protagonist Johnstone normally writes. Instead of a deeply God-fearing man, Clute's the sort who lost his faith a long time ago and takes no solace in the idea of a god. He's also not fired a gun since his military days, and has no interest in open-carrying even a pistol when the book starts. This actually lasts for a good part of the story, until Jay has no choice but to believe there's demonic activity in the town and it's come to spiritual warfare (with shotguns), and is a nice change from the typical guns-a-blazin' sort Johnstone tends to write.
Toy Cemetery may be aping a certain Stephen King novel with its title, but trust me, King never published anything as bug-nut crazy as this story of inbred incest monsters, demon-controlled children, and animated action figures. Its characters are dense enough, at times, to shame black holes, and there are enough cringe-worthy moments both in terms of plot and writing to make this one of interest to dedicated Zebra junkies alone. Instead of working in one solid A-line and a secondary B-line of story, Johnstone has threads zigging and zagging all over the place, crossing, tangling, and doubling back so often you need a map and compass to follow them. By the time the FBI show up to cordon off the town and either arrest or assist Clute (they can't decide which), the burly genetic-recessives are roaming the streets and all bets are off. The last quarter of the book is a non-stop action set piece where secondary characters get shredded like files subpoenaed by a special prosecutor, while Clute and Co. wage war on Satan with everything from pistols and shotguns to knives, arrows, and explosives. Even after the story concludes, I felt like Johnstone himself wasn't sure he'd covered everything so he went back and added a few more scenes of ritual murder and toy-mageddon.
The ending, naturally, has a sinister twist making it clear the evil hasn't been defeated, but before you get there you witness the clash of toy armies fighting against possessed townsfolk, a madcap escape from an asylum, the interruption of a Satanic mass at the town church, and more incest-spawned demons than you can wave a rifle at. If you can't enjoy a book this crazy, maybe try Nicholas Sparks or Danielle Steel?
Best Part:
Every Johnstone novel needs some a wacky secondary character who's only purpose is to make the protagonist uncomfortable and the reader howl with laughter, and Jay's next-door neighbor, Old Man Milton, is Toy Cemetery's. Milton's the aging, doddering sort who spends all day in his porch rocker hollering at the world passing him by. His first words to Jay upon seeing him back in Victory? "Welcome home, asshole!" Milton continues to verbally abuse everyone around him--man or woman, adult or child, lawman or layman, you're nothing but a big ol' asshole. By the halfway mark, Milton's laid eyes on more assholes than your average proctologist. The most hilarious moment of the book comes when Clute and his group need to do something with a body for a little while, so they drag it over to Milton's porch and plop it down in a chair right by the old geezer. Milton's pleased as punch to have someone who listens to his ramblings without interruption, but a few chapters later, he's deriding the corpse for being a shitty conversationalist.
Yup...Johnstone certainly was his own special breed of man, and he left dozens of books behind to remind us.
That asshole... :-D
May 21, 2021
3.75 stars rounded up for Goodreads. THIS WAS A DIFFICULT BOOK TO RATE!
I actually did an entire reading vlog of my experience with Toy Cemetery! Here's the link if you'd like to check it out: https://youtu.be/r5jWJwYG8Pg
So, as I said, it's extremely tough to rate and review this book...but one thing I can easily say is that it wasn't boring in the least. It was wild, crazy, weird, wacky, and bonkers...NOT BORING!
However, I must admit that I am not a big fan of William W. Johnstone's writing style. The flow of the story was very choppy and jumped around quite a bit. There were plenty of story developments as well as characterization elements that just didn't make much sense at all.
But logic and sense isn't what this story is about at all. It's pulpy, trashy goodness. And if you go in knowing that, then you may have a good time. Be warned, though, the book may not live up to the hype for some readers. It really just depends on the reader. Of course, enjoyment is subjective and readers' expectations may affect that.
Another warning: there are plenty of triggers in the story. Readers who do not like reading about incest, child molestation, rape, animals getting hurt, etc., should avoid this book. These types of elements aren't unusual for many "Paperbacks from Hell" reads. Personally, that didn't bother me.
The biggest criticism I have: NOT ENOUGH TOYS! I wish the toys were an even larger part of the narrative, and I think that so much more could have been done with those characters, especially because it's titled Toy Cemetery. I was really hoping to see an "evil Toy Story" type of story. Alas, that was not the case.
However, I must admit, I did have a fun time reading this engaging pulpy "trash." Overall, Toy Cemetery was VERY '80s (in the best way), and reading it was a mindless good time despite the problems I had with it.
I actually did an entire reading vlog of my experience with Toy Cemetery! Here's the link if you'd like to check it out: https://youtu.be/r5jWJwYG8Pg
So, as I said, it's extremely tough to rate and review this book...but one thing I can easily say is that it wasn't boring in the least. It was wild, crazy, weird, wacky, and bonkers...NOT BORING!
However, I must admit that I am not a big fan of William W. Johnstone's writing style. The flow of the story was very choppy and jumped around quite a bit. There were plenty of story developments as well as characterization elements that just didn't make much sense at all.
But logic and sense isn't what this story is about at all. It's pulpy, trashy goodness. And if you go in knowing that, then you may have a good time. Be warned, though, the book may not live up to the hype for some readers. It really just depends on the reader. Of course, enjoyment is subjective and readers' expectations may affect that.
Another warning: there are plenty of triggers in the story. Readers who do not like reading about incest, child molestation, rape, animals getting hurt, etc., should avoid this book. These types of elements aren't unusual for many "Paperbacks from Hell" reads. Personally, that didn't bother me.
The biggest criticism I have: NOT ENOUGH TOYS! I wish the toys were an even larger part of the narrative, and I think that so much more could have been done with those characters, especially because it's titled Toy Cemetery. I was really hoping to see an "evil Toy Story" type of story. Alas, that was not the case.
However, I must admit, I did have a fun time reading this engaging pulpy "trash." Overall, Toy Cemetery was VERY '80s (in the best way), and reading it was a mindless good time despite the problems I had with it.
September 1, 2020
I felt absolutely cheated on this book!
If I had to mix movies like Puppet Master, Wicker Man and the Goonies. Then add a splash of heavy Christianity, another splash of pedophilia and finally a pinch of Satanism with a lovecraftian tease. This book was complete trash 🗑️ in fact my one and only favorite character was old man Milton, and that's not saying much.. William W. Johnstone dropped the ball on this one! 1/5 stars for me. If possible I would have given it 0/5.
If I had to mix movies like Puppet Master, Wicker Man and the Goonies. Then add a splash of heavy Christianity, another splash of pedophilia and finally a pinch of Satanism with a lovecraftian tease. This book was complete trash 🗑️ in fact my one and only favorite character was old man Milton, and that's not saying much.. William W. Johnstone dropped the ball on this one! 1/5 stars for me. If possible I would have given it 0/5.
November 30, 2019
Toy Cemetery provides an insane mixture of storylines which include an abundance of miscellaneous living playthings, a town populated by porcelain wanna be humans and a deviant satanic sexual addicted cult. William W. Johnstone unveils a writing style that begins with a no holds barred beginning, and ends his twisted tale by throwing in the kitchen sink for good measure. Having no idea what actions a character may have at any given time, or what freaky plot may begin during any moment, makes this a peculiar page turner.
May 24, 2019
It probably isn't fair to give one star to a book I couldn't finish but it was absolutely painful to read. This is the second book by this author that I couldn't even get through the first couple of chapters before returning it for a refund. The synopsis sounded good but the story itself was just awful and more than a little silly. The characters weren't believable and to me it just read like someone telling you about a low budget horror film. Very disappointing.
April 11, 2021
1.5 stars, rounding down.
Well this was a huge let down. It was awful. Like a bad B horror movie that was so stupid and ridiculous that it was funny..... except it wasn't actually funny.
Unfortunately I have 2 more of this authors books. I'd been sucked in by the whole fact that it's Zebra horror. Won't make that mistake again. I hope his other two are somewhat ok. I'd even settle for 2 stars at this point.
But this book is in the pile for charity.
Well this was a huge let down. It was awful. Like a bad B horror movie that was so stupid and ridiculous that it was funny..... except it wasn't actually funny.
Unfortunately I have 2 more of this authors books. I'd been sucked in by the whole fact that it's Zebra horror. Won't make that mistake again. I hope his other two are somewhat ok. I'd even settle for 2 stars at this point.
But this book is in the pile for charity.
May 3, 2015
i don't wanna be buried in a toy cemetery
June 14, 2025
It reaches a point where it’s just full chaos and goes on and on and on. Two stars instead of one for the pure insanity and the doll horror. Too many characters, too many unfocused elements - it’s a real mess. Disgusting and ridiculous! Recommended for no one. Except maybe fans of Brian Yuzna’s Dolls (1987) - a movie that is far more enjoyable than this terrible book.
June 24, 2023
I read this when I was about 10! My Dad used to take me to the used bookstore and let me choose a couple books. He never really paid attention to what I was reading, although he probably should have, lol! I have always been drawn to horror. I read a bunch of these type of books before R.L. Stine even got published! It was really disturbing and has stuck with me all these years. I need to re-read it.
Updated review:
I actually looked for this book for about 23 years! I couldn't remember much about it except evil dolls and something to do with perverted sex acts. It scared me when I was a kid, enough that it stuck with me all these years. Now that I'm an adult and a voracious reader it was more like reading a short story than a novel. The story and writing style have the feel of a pure B grade 1980's horror movie. Although this book scared me pretty bad as a child, having read Bentley Little, I'd say it's a little tame by comparison.
The story takes off immediately. Jay finds out that his Aunt Cary died, left him everything, and he has to go home to Victory, Missouri to deal with her affairs. He brings his 10 year old daughter with him. Her Mom is a model and he is raising her pretty much on his own. As soon as they get near town they see a little man run across the road, I mean like a doll sized person. Jay vaguely remembers that there is something wrong with the town and he had a family tragedy happen while living there.
From this point on the book takes off and doesn't really slow down. It had a lot of scenes that would have been scary and or disturbing, but everything sort of runs together. The author put way too many elements into the story and did not flesh them out much. He doesn't really explain the way the town looks in much detail or the characters. That is with the exception of the women and the little girls. Every single one of them, down to the most insignificant person to the story, has blonde hair and dark eyes. It's really pretty annoying and lazy writing in my opinion. I guess maybe he just has a thing for blondes with dark eyes?
There are some pretty glaring plot holes in the story. Spoilers ahead! How is it that Father Pat did not know that the children were all evil and the driving force behind most of it? He seemed to know all about dealing with Satanism and how to root it out but somehow he missed that his flock of Christian children were all secretly satanists. Why does Deva go through all the trouble of taking Jay out of town and bringing him back so he can "smell the evil" in the town if she is also in on the plot? She really plays her part of innocent single mother caught up in a town of evil satanist pretty well. Then there is his ex-wife Piper. She has never been to Victory and spends very little time with their daughter Kelly. Yet, somehow she and Kelly secretly have been satanists and plotting with the his Aunt Cary and the rest of the town to turn him so they can keep the evil going. It's hastily explained away by the fact that Piper had a huge doll collection that were all actually Aunt Cary's evil dolls. Why did some of the toys choose to not be evil while most of them were happy to give up their lives as humans to forever live in doll form and torment people. A lot of them explain they had no choice, but obviously even after being turned into dolls/toys they still had the choice of being evil or good.
The ending was quick and bloody. Most everyone dies and the town having been completely overrun by satanists and chaos, is blockaded by the state police and being wiped out. The author doesn't explain what happens to the Hospital of horrors or a few other loose ends, but I'll just assume the state police raze the place.
This was a quick little read that brought back some nostalgia for me, so I gave it 3 stars instead of the 2 it probably deserved. I'll give the author another shot along with Zebra books. I know I must have read more of their publishings when I was a kid and just can't remember them.
Updated review:
I actually looked for this book for about 23 years! I couldn't remember much about it except evil dolls and something to do with perverted sex acts. It scared me when I was a kid, enough that it stuck with me all these years. Now that I'm an adult and a voracious reader it was more like reading a short story than a novel. The story and writing style have the feel of a pure B grade 1980's horror movie. Although this book scared me pretty bad as a child, having read Bentley Little, I'd say it's a little tame by comparison.
The story takes off immediately. Jay finds out that his Aunt Cary died, left him everything, and he has to go home to Victory, Missouri to deal with her affairs. He brings his 10 year old daughter with him. Her Mom is a model and he is raising her pretty much on his own. As soon as they get near town they see a little man run across the road, I mean like a doll sized person. Jay vaguely remembers that there is something wrong with the town and he had a family tragedy happen while living there.
From this point on the book takes off and doesn't really slow down. It had a lot of scenes that would have been scary and or disturbing, but everything sort of runs together. The author put way too many elements into the story and did not flesh them out much. He doesn't really explain the way the town looks in much detail or the characters. That is with the exception of the women and the little girls. Every single one of them, down to the most insignificant person to the story, has blonde hair and dark eyes. It's really pretty annoying and lazy writing in my opinion. I guess maybe he just has a thing for blondes with dark eyes?
There are some pretty glaring plot holes in the story. Spoilers ahead! How is it that Father Pat did not know that the children were all evil and the driving force behind most of it? He seemed to know all about dealing with Satanism and how to root it out but somehow he missed that his flock of Christian children were all secretly satanists. Why does Deva go through all the trouble of taking Jay out of town and bringing him back so he can "smell the evil" in the town if she is also in on the plot? She really plays her part of innocent single mother caught up in a town of evil satanist pretty well. Then there is his ex-wife Piper. She has never been to Victory and spends very little time with their daughter Kelly. Yet, somehow she and Kelly secretly have been satanists and plotting with the his Aunt Cary and the rest of the town to turn him so they can keep the evil going. It's hastily explained away by the fact that Piper had a huge doll collection that were all actually Aunt Cary's evil dolls. Why did some of the toys choose to not be evil while most of them were happy to give up their lives as humans to forever live in doll form and torment people. A lot of them explain they had no choice, but obviously even after being turned into dolls/toys they still had the choice of being evil or good.
The ending was quick and bloody. Most everyone dies and the town having been completely overrun by satanists and chaos, is blockaded by the state police and being wiped out. The author doesn't explain what happens to the Hospital of horrors or a few other loose ends, but I'll just assume the state police raze the place.
This was a quick little read that brought back some nostalgia for me, so I gave it 3 stars instead of the 2 it probably deserved. I'll give the author another shot along with Zebra books. I know I must have read more of their publishings when I was a kid and just can't remember them.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 27, 2020
Spooktober 2020 Book 23
For the second time in as many days I gotta ask myself, what the hell was that?
Toy Cemetery is seriously one of the shittiest novels I’ve had the misfortune to read, this month or otherwise.
There are so many problems with this book that it could take ages to describe. Hell, I’m sure someone, somewhere, will read Toy Cemetery, determine it’s absolute garbage and them go on to write a Pulitzer Prize winning essay on all its crap moments and issues, but I am not that person. I have neither the talent (though I did write a 25 page thesis for my MA in education) nor the time to get involved in doing that. And, There are also far more succinct and thorough reviews here on goodreads. So, I’ll simplify my own review by once again saying that Toy Cemetery is terrible in these ways.
First of all, it makes no sense. Well, it makes sense in that Johnston’s tries to explain things but it’s so convoluted and so...stupid that it’s basically a complete waste of time. Dolls that come to life, satan, kiddie porn, incest, rape. Somehow Johnstone tries to weave this all together and he fails, miserably. You’ll have to read through (if you’re really a glutton for punishment) to see how.
Secondly, it’s terribly written. Johnstone’s prose is shit. He can string 2 sentences together fine enough but that’s about as far as his talents go. There’s little to no creativity in his prose. It’s simple and lazy. While this is par the coarse for these kind of horror books, it’s not an excuse for such boring writing. Had there been giant scorpions or ghosts or, hell...a rampaging Godzilla, things could have been overlooked, but nope. Just 416 pages of Johnstone’s garbage writing.
I could go on but I’ve wasted enough time. Toy Cemetery is awful for all the wrong reasons. Read at your own risk, but don’t come crying to me when you hate it.
For the second time in as many days I gotta ask myself, what the hell was that?
Toy Cemetery is seriously one of the shittiest novels I’ve had the misfortune to read, this month or otherwise.
There are so many problems with this book that it could take ages to describe. Hell, I’m sure someone, somewhere, will read Toy Cemetery, determine it’s absolute garbage and them go on to write a Pulitzer Prize winning essay on all its crap moments and issues, but I am not that person. I have neither the talent (though I did write a 25 page thesis for my MA in education) nor the time to get involved in doing that. And, There are also far more succinct and thorough reviews here on goodreads. So, I’ll simplify my own review by once again saying that Toy Cemetery is terrible in these ways.
First of all, it makes no sense. Well, it makes sense in that Johnston’s tries to explain things but it’s so convoluted and so...stupid that it’s basically a complete waste of time. Dolls that come to life, satan, kiddie porn, incest, rape. Somehow Johnstone tries to weave this all together and he fails, miserably. You’ll have to read through (if you’re really a glutton for punishment) to see how.
Secondly, it’s terribly written. Johnstone’s prose is shit. He can string 2 sentences together fine enough but that’s about as far as his talents go. There’s little to no creativity in his prose. It’s simple and lazy. While this is par the coarse for these kind of horror books, it’s not an excuse for such boring writing. Had there been giant scorpions or ghosts or, hell...a rampaging Godzilla, things could have been overlooked, but nope. Just 416 pages of Johnstone’s garbage writing.
I could go on but I’ve wasted enough time. Toy Cemetery is awful for all the wrong reasons. Read at your own risk, but don’t come crying to me when you hate it.
July 13, 2018
An Interesting Failure
Really interesting premise, but for a book about sentient dolls, the dolls in question were more of a sideline than a main focus. What ruined it for me was several characters (and *all* of the female characters) doing a complete one eighty halfway through the book, and suddenly they were evil and always had been. The problem with this is that we see internal dialogue from some of these characters earlier in the book, and they were fighting the evil they supposedly had always been a part of. It was like two stories got cut in half, and the wrong halves were paired together. It was interesting, and not boring, but ultimately it failed for me as a reader.
Also there was a loooooot of incest for a book about dolls.
Really interesting premise, but for a book about sentient dolls, the dolls in question were more of a sideline than a main focus. What ruined it for me was several characters (and *all* of the female characters) doing a complete one eighty halfway through the book, and suddenly they were evil and always had been. The problem with this is that we see internal dialogue from some of these characters earlier in the book, and they were fighting the evil they supposedly had always been a part of. It was like two stories got cut in half, and the wrong halves were paired together. It was interesting, and not boring, but ultimately it failed for me as a reader.
Also there was a loooooot of incest for a book about dolls.
November 22, 2017
This was a wonderful book to read on the trip home from Bizarro Con! I'd never heard of it before but was introduced to this and many other seemingly obscure horror novels through the amazing and exhaustively comprehensive Paperbacks From Hell. As the hype had promised, this book is insane. Some of the plot lines don't seem to fit, the dialog is weird, events seem to occur for no reason, and all of this works in the book's favor. This seems to be almost proto-bizarro, to me. Even though there were some parts that dragged, the pace continuously speeds up until by the end you are being blinded by a time warp of crazy. For the most part, a super fun read! :)
November 10, 2017
A hot mess. I did not even finish it. With only 50 or so pages left, I could care less how it ended. Dumb as shit characters, poor editing, bad writing. Did the people at Zebra books even read this stuff before publishing it??
April 6, 2020
This is seriously one of the most screwed up books I have ever read. The plot is a weird mess, and parts are completely unnecessarily horrible. Jesus, what the Hell was wrong with William W. Johnstone? This isn't normal.
I quite enjoyed it though.
I quite enjoyed it though.
April 12, 2008
Satanic and I did not like it and would not recommend it to anyone.
March 25, 2024
Well, this was an interesting read…Like other reviewers have said it’s really hard to rate. A lot happens in this novel and it’s all bat shit crazy stuff lol. All I can say, is that this book was strange and at times hard to follow. Between the evil toys, the human shells, and the good toys, it took me a minute to figure out what the heck was going on. Some people say they wanted more toys but I wanted more incest monsters. More black masses and satan worshiping. More Bruno Dixon! More of The Old One/Satan’s minion! But, overall I enjoyed it. Not as much as his other books in the Devils series though. 3.5 stars but I’ll round up to 4.
December 15, 2025
This was a "no" for me. I appreciate the batshit craziness, but I found it to be convoluted and padded beyond all reason. Sometimes it felt as though the author was improvising the story as it went along, dropping plot lines and putting them back in at will, as if he remembered suddenly what the book was about. The titular toys disappear for a good chunk of the book, and even though their actions are described in detail, they somehow manage to come off as vague, confusing and underdeveloped.
The same goes for the story's hero, Jay, who is a Vietnam vet and an average joe, but turns into a no bullshit tough guy who mows down everyone in his path (and I mean *everyone*) with guns. When even his own kid daughter becomes influenced and corrupted by evil forces, he has no qualms or moral dilemmas about what has to be done.
I also had to laugh at the decision of making every single female character evil, treacherous and easily influenced by the devil.
This feels like a very Christian book (they keep praying to keep the evil forces at bay), which wouldn't be too big of a problem if the story was handled with a more deft touch. I was amused up until the halfway point, after that it became a slog.
The same goes for the story's hero, Jay, who is a Vietnam vet and an average joe, but turns into a no bullshit tough guy who mows down everyone in his path (and I mean *everyone*) with guns. When even his own kid daughter becomes influenced and corrupted by evil forces, he has no qualms or moral dilemmas about what has to be done.
I also had to laugh at the decision of making every single female character evil, treacherous and easily influenced by the devil.
This feels like a very Christian book (they keep praying to keep the evil forces at bay), which wouldn't be too big of a problem if the story was handled with a more deft touch. I was amused up until the halfway point, after that it became a slog.
April 28, 2018
Toy Cemetery
I knew this was going to be wild going in, but it was like ten times wilder than I ever expected? And I knew it was ridiculously wild!!!! Anyways wow, a whole lot going on in this. Pulp horror is wild. Might start reading it more, because that was truly a journey.
I knew this was going to be wild going in, but it was like ten times wilder than I ever expected? And I knew it was ridiculously wild!!!! Anyways wow, a whole lot going on in this. Pulp horror is wild. Might start reading it more, because that was truly a journey.
September 17, 2023
Absolutely nutbar batshit bonkers. Completely unhinged and out of control. Highly recommend.
Read
December 30, 2022I don’t even know where to start with this book so rather than attempting to make sense of the half boiled spaghetti that is this books plot I’m simply going to rattle off a list of things that happen in this book
- protag bangs the local secretary about 400 words after meeting her for the first time
- there’s a guy that makes toys and also child porn but it turns out the town is actually worshipping satan and the child porn somehow furthers his agenda, but also there’s a separate deity in the town simply called The Old One, who is a literal old man
- people become giant living mannequins
- there are also little doll sized versions of everyone in town running around stabbing at the protag with needles
- there are good dolls who do at one point have a funeral for another good doll in a toy cemetery, technically justifying the books title. This cemetery is never brought up again
- there are incest monsters that are never actually described living in the towns hospital
- an unseen curse encourages children to try and get it on with their parents regardless of whether they can reproduce or not (like a daughter going after her mother)
- sometimes time is manipulated so the protagonist shoots a grand father clock to stop time being manipulated. This is not a plot point later on
- zombies pop up at one point separate from the living mannequins
- a war veteran uses a bible to explode the front of a haunted house but is killed in the process
- the protagonist encourages the national guard to burn a house full of possessed children alive
- the nature of the evil in town is never actually explained just sort of gestures at but it’s not satan
- the doll maker I mentioned earlier is shot point blank in the sick by a shotgun and disappears from the rest of the book despite being the character who has a passage in the front, presumably to encourage readers to buy this book
Is it good? No. Is it bad? Yes. Is it memorable? Yes. It’s just a hodgepodge of ideas all thrown together in a way that tells me William johnstone gave up very very early on trying to make sense of any of it. Would I recommend it? Eh I don’t know. Tough to say. It’s batshit but that’s pretty much all it has going for it
- protag bangs the local secretary about 400 words after meeting her for the first time
- there’s a guy that makes toys and also child porn but it turns out the town is actually worshipping satan and the child porn somehow furthers his agenda, but also there’s a separate deity in the town simply called The Old One, who is a literal old man
- people become giant living mannequins
- there are also little doll sized versions of everyone in town running around stabbing at the protag with needles
- there are good dolls who do at one point have a funeral for another good doll in a toy cemetery, technically justifying the books title. This cemetery is never brought up again
- there are incest monsters that are never actually described living in the towns hospital
- an unseen curse encourages children to try and get it on with their parents regardless of whether they can reproduce or not (like a daughter going after her mother)
- sometimes time is manipulated so the protagonist shoots a grand father clock to stop time being manipulated. This is not a plot point later on
- zombies pop up at one point separate from the living mannequins
- a war veteran uses a bible to explode the front of a haunted house but is killed in the process
- the protagonist encourages the national guard to burn a house full of possessed children alive
- the nature of the evil in town is never actually explained just sort of gestures at but it’s not satan
- the doll maker I mentioned earlier is shot point blank in the sick by a shotgun and disappears from the rest of the book despite being the character who has a passage in the front, presumably to encourage readers to buy this book
Is it good? No. Is it bad? Yes. Is it memorable? Yes. It’s just a hodgepodge of ideas all thrown together in a way that tells me William johnstone gave up very very early on trying to make sense of any of it. Would I recommend it? Eh I don’t know. Tough to say. It’s batshit but that’s pretty much all it has going for it
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 20, 2019
1.5 stars out of 5.
Evil toys, what's not to love? This book is a mess, but eventually it becomes a fun mess. Halfway through I wanted to give up on it, because up until then most of the "horror" was weird perverted sex. To say that the evil toys took a backseat in the story is inaccurate, more like they'd been following in a separate car and got lost. There's violent incest mutants, Satanists, zombies, evil teenagers, ghosts, human doll doppelgangers, miniature toy doppelgangers, a comic horror like being known as "The Old One", all bubbling together in a bloody stew. I really don't like when books use "a mysterious evil force" as a cover for weird sex stuff. I've read some books like this that use the aforementioned excuse to exploit rape or objectify women, in the case of this book it was an excuse for incest and pedophilia. It's done in a way that's supposed to shock the reader but at the same time comes off as weirdly glorifying it? Especially in the dumb way that it ended The book also sucks for women because every single female character is sexually exploited and ends up being evil- this isn't really a spoiler the book just tells you they are evil and they are. There are parts that are too expositional, and it reads like an overcomplicated plot's thinly veiled need to overexplain or justify itself. The second half explodes into a gory wild ride.
Evil toys, what's not to love? This book is a mess, but eventually it becomes a fun mess. Halfway through I wanted to give up on it, because up until then most of the "horror" was weird perverted sex. To say that the evil toys took a backseat in the story is inaccurate, more like they'd been following in a separate car and got lost. There's violent incest mutants, Satanists, zombies, evil teenagers, ghosts, human doll doppelgangers, miniature toy doppelgangers, a comic horror like being known as "The Old One", all bubbling together in a bloody stew. I really don't like when books use "a mysterious evil force" as a cover for weird sex stuff. I've read some books like this that use the aforementioned excuse to exploit rape or objectify women, in the case of this book it was an excuse for incest and pedophilia. It's done in a way that's supposed to shock the reader but at the same time comes off as weirdly glorifying it? Especially in the dumb way that it ended The book also sucks for women because every single female character is sexually exploited and ends up being evil- this isn't really a spoiler the book just tells you they are evil and they are. There are parts that are too expositional, and it reads like an overcomplicated plot's thinly veiled need to overexplain or justify itself. The second half explodes into a gory wild ride.
October 22, 2019
3.5/5
“Mr. Clute, evil cannot exist by itself. It must be fed. Nurtured. But the evil in this town is running out of fuel.” Father Pat, TOY CEMETERY.
One of the many unfathomable answers Jay receives when he and his daughter Kelly move back to his hometown of Victory, Missouri after a recent inheritance. The town has turned ass backwards, not only because it’s residents have transformed into what one might describe as humanoid like mannequins, but because of the sinister toy factory and the evil it holds over the town.
The book, for the most part, reads like a Troma movie with its hysterical passages regarding viking toy battles, exploding heads, and misshapen creatures. What’s even more hilarious is some of the climactic points of the novel involving the protagonist-there are many times when Jay has to choose between saving himself or saving his loved ones...he chooses to save himself. These are just some of the various antics that readers can expect from a WJW horror novel, and I enjoyed them.
The darker subjects of the novel weren’t as amusing: pedophilia, dead animals, and the erotic behavior of some of the children. These moments are scarce, so that merits a marginal recommendation.
“Mr. Clute, evil cannot exist by itself. It must be fed. Nurtured. But the evil in this town is running out of fuel.” Father Pat, TOY CEMETERY.
One of the many unfathomable answers Jay receives when he and his daughter Kelly move back to his hometown of Victory, Missouri after a recent inheritance. The town has turned ass backwards, not only because it’s residents have transformed into what one might describe as humanoid like mannequins, but because of the sinister toy factory and the evil it holds over the town.
The book, for the most part, reads like a Troma movie with its hysterical passages regarding viking toy battles, exploding heads, and misshapen creatures. What’s even more hilarious is some of the climactic points of the novel involving the protagonist-there are many times when Jay has to choose between saving himself or saving his loved ones...he chooses to save himself. These are just some of the various antics that readers can expect from a WJW horror novel, and I enjoyed them.
The darker subjects of the novel weren’t as amusing: pedophilia, dead animals, and the erotic behavior of some of the children. These moments are scarce, so that merits a marginal recommendation.
September 13, 2023
You know I finished this a while ago and didn't leave a review. So here goes nothing. This book is probably Johnstones best horror novel I have read so far. He does have a magic to his horror novels I've never seen before and it is charming in it's own way. It's very campy, and reads like a movie almost. Basic premise is man returns to his hometown with his daughter, something is wrong in the town and they uncover a mystery with the help of some locals. A few key scenes do stand out for me, and it has its moments where it slows down, and let's you breathe for maybe one or two pages. Overall it is a fun and ridiculous read about a town taken over by evil, animated toy soldiers on two sides of an unknown war(?), the humans caught in the crossfire and their plight to fix things. If you're in the mood for some silly fun and a cliche but ridiculous premise with some extreme bits (incest). You'd like this one I think. Now I went in head first with this being my first Johnstone and that was probably a mistake in a way. His devils books are where I should have started. Also don't read Night Mask it sucks.
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