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Horrorshow
Remembering the Halloween that culminated in the massacre of an entire family and a local television host's death on the air, the citizens of Twainton are shocked when Druzeppa, the dead host, comes back to life twenty years later. By the author of Shade. Original.
- GenresHorror
352 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
October 6, 2020
3.5 stars
Are you looking for a Halloween read? Do you like plenty of sex and violence? Then look no further.
On Halloween night twenty-five years ago, TV horror host Druzeppa made his final appearance on screen the same night that a local family was brutally murdered in their home. The story picks up in the present day in the run up to Halloween and we are following twenty-something Jim who has reluctantly returned home after a failed attempt at making it big in Hollywood. Jim isn't a particularly nice guy. He treats his best friend, Greg, like shit and is constantly pressuring his seventeen-year-old virgin girlfriend, Laurie, into having sex. But he's our protagonist so let's go with it.
Basically Jim and Greg are working for the local TV station and convince the boss to let them host a horror show on Halloween. The legend of Druzeppa is murky but still prevalent and there are rumours that there is a recording of his last show. Jim and Greg vow to track it down and play it as part of their show.
Alongside this we learn that something strange is going on in this town and people are seeing things in the static on their television sets. I guess this is a good time to talk about the sexual content in this book. There's a lot of it. In fact, multiple characters are introduced purely for them having sex scenes. As the story goes on everyone gets super horny and there's all manner of lurid goings on including wife-swapping, incest, and some rather questionable underage sex.
There is also some violence and gore but it felt secondary to the sex which is a bit of a shame. It is a horror novel after all. It felt like some more interesting elements were underused in favour of others that ended up being overused. Saying that, this was a fun, trashy and entertaining read. And the Halloween setting makes it perfect for the season.
Are you looking for a Halloween read? Do you like plenty of sex and violence? Then look no further.
On Halloween night twenty-five years ago, TV horror host Druzeppa made his final appearance on screen the same night that a local family was brutally murdered in their home. The story picks up in the present day in the run up to Halloween and we are following twenty-something Jim who has reluctantly returned home after a failed attempt at making it big in Hollywood. Jim isn't a particularly nice guy. He treats his best friend, Greg, like shit and is constantly pressuring his seventeen-year-old virgin girlfriend, Laurie, into having sex. But he's our protagonist so let's go with it.
Basically Jim and Greg are working for the local TV station and convince the boss to let them host a horror show on Halloween. The legend of Druzeppa is murky but still prevalent and there are rumours that there is a recording of his last show. Jim and Greg vow to track it down and play it as part of their show.
Alongside this we learn that something strange is going on in this town and people are seeing things in the static on their television sets. I guess this is a good time to talk about the sexual content in this book. There's a lot of it. In fact, multiple characters are introduced purely for them having sex scenes. As the story goes on everyone gets super horny and there's all manner of lurid goings on including wife-swapping, incest, and some rather questionable underage sex.
There is also some violence and gore but it felt secondary to the sex which is a bit of a shame. It is a horror novel after all. It felt like some more interesting elements were underused in favour of others that ended up being overused. Saying that, this was a fun, trashy and entertaining read. And the Halloween setting makes it perfect for the season.
January 14, 2018
i had thought this was depraved when i first read it at 16, but revisiting it 20 years later just made me wonder how the hell darke managed to take a great concept and just absolutely ruin it.
basically, he is really obsessed with deviant sex (specifically, forcible sodomy) and taking a thin idea and stretching it beyond the tenuous -- although interesting -- possibilities it offers. there's too much being attempted, and none of it really lands, thanks to a complete lack of characters you're not rooting to die within 10 pages of meeting them.
basically, he is really obsessed with deviant sex (specifically, forcible sodomy) and taking a thin idea and stretching it beyond the tenuous -- although interesting -- possibilities it offers. there's too much being attempted, and none of it really lands, thanks to a complete lack of characters you're not rooting to die within 10 pages of meeting them.
December 15, 2018
It's a B movie in print. Teenage girls in panties decide whether to have sex with their boyfriends and meanwhile people are murdered.
November 29, 2018
I think 1 star is a little rough to give this book, I wish I could give it a 1&1/2 star because there are a (very) few things I liked about this book.
I have to say that the way the TV static and the spirit within the TV static were presented were often legit scary. I also really liked that the horrible lead character (if you can call anyone a lead character in this overstuffed book) gets his just desserts in the end.
......and that's about all I liked in this book
There are so many awful things about this book that I don't know what to list first. The "main" character (Jim) is an insufferable dickbag that you want to die the whole entire time. His main defining factor is that he can and will basically have sex with anything that moves except his new girlfriend because she won't let him or something. And then Darke tries to make the girlfriend, Laurie, the only sympathetic or respectable character (besides Gregg), but Laurie comes off just as annoying as Jim does.
Sex is a main theme in this book, and it get's old in the first 1/8 of the book. Everyone is having sex at all times in this book. The only semi-good parts of this book are when there is no sex and no one is talking about sex or thinking about sex. I'm in no way a prude, but I seriously bet that if you broke this book down into the parts where sex isn't involved you would have about 40 pages out of 348 pages of readable material.
Even worse is the overstuffing of characters that have no reason to be in the book. There came a point when I didn't even attempt to learn characters names because there were honestly about 15 to 20 characters aside from the main group interweaving between 5-7 separate stories that only lasted about 3 pages for each check-in on their stories
My favorite part of reading this book was me laughing out loud when Darke decided to make legitimately EVERY character in EVERY story have sex at the same time, leading to me reading names I was supposed to remember having sex with other names I was supposed to remember.
Not to mention, nothing actually happens in this book that could be considered "horror" except the first passage and then the last 30 pages of the book.
Give this book a chance if you like being confused while reading about sex with characters that serve no purpose.
I have to say that the way the TV static and the spirit within the TV static were presented were often legit scary. I also really liked that the horrible lead character (if you can call anyone a lead character in this overstuffed book) gets his just desserts in the end.
......and that's about all I liked in this book
There are so many awful things about this book that I don't know what to list first. The "main" character (Jim) is an insufferable dickbag that you want to die the whole entire time. His main defining factor is that he can and will basically have sex with anything that moves except his new girlfriend because she won't let him or something. And then Darke tries to make the girlfriend, Laurie, the only sympathetic or respectable character (besides Gregg), but Laurie comes off just as annoying as Jim does.
Sex is a main theme in this book, and it get's old in the first 1/8 of the book. Everyone is having sex at all times in this book. The only semi-good parts of this book are when there is no sex and no one is talking about sex or thinking about sex. I'm in no way a prude, but I seriously bet that if you broke this book down into the parts where sex isn't involved you would have about 40 pages out of 348 pages of readable material.
Even worse is the overstuffing of characters that have no reason to be in the book. There came a point when I didn't even attempt to learn characters names because there were honestly about 15 to 20 characters aside from the main group interweaving between 5-7 separate stories that only lasted about 3 pages for each check-in on their stories
My favorite part of reading this book was me laughing out loud when Darke decided to make legitimately EVERY character in EVERY story have sex at the same time, leading to me reading names I was supposed to remember having sex with other names I was supposed to remember.
Not to mention, nothing actually happens in this book that could be considered "horror" except the first passage and then the last 30 pages of the book.
Give this book a chance if you like being confused while reading about sex with characters that serve no purpose.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 27, 2016
This had a good idea, but the execution wasn't up to scratch! What is it with horror novels having so many characters? My focus was split in too many different directions. I like to feel a connection with characters, but far too many were introduced here!
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews