Tree House

by Victor Mullen

Joshua was more than a bad little kid; he was evil. But nobody knew about the big oak tree in the woods or the hideous creatures that bid Joshua to kill, or about the changes in Joshua that brought him closer to being one of them.

Genres: Horror

304 pages, Paperback

First published July 27, 1989

Reviews

[James Oxyer · Rating 2 out of 5]

The idea of an 8-year-old shithead slowly becoming possessed by an evil oak tree and transforming into a murder-crazy little demon operating out of a sinister treehouse in a bizarre puberty metaphor objectively sounds amazing.

But as much as the reader begs...as much as the reader pleads...Victor Mullen is absolutely steadfast in his refusal to take the concept and run with it.

Joshua, the little demon shithead, is maybe present for 50-75 pages of the 304-page novel. Maybe. The bulk of the story is the adults being complete assholes to each other and arguing over the most inane topics. An example:

"Steve averted his eyes to avoid Swanson's accusing stare. 'I'm doing the best I can! I'm busting my ass trying to run a home and work at the same time! It's not easy!'
'Of course it's not easy!' Swanson said. 'Life isn't easy! Nobody's life is easy! What are there, eight, nine billion people in the world? I'll bet there aren't half a dozen who could honestly say life is easy. People with nothing have problems...people with everything have problems...and people in between have problems. Life is a goddamned problem, Steve, but most people manage to scrape through.'"

Keep in mind this random motivational speech is occurring in the final pages of the book, when Joshua is supposed to be terrorizing the community and, as the build-up might lead you to believe, slaughtering victims en masse (spoiler: this doesn't happen).

It's not all bad, though. I enjoyed the quirky characters, like Father O'Rourke, the very VERY Irish priest who makes an appearance near the beginning (throwing out "wee lamb"s and "me young feller"s like they're going out of style), and Running Horse, the Shawnee medicine man who shows up because...what the hell, let's just throw a medicine man in here, why the fuck not.

But it's late-eighties Zebra horror literature, so there's a charm to it that pushed me to the finish line. The characters are dumb as hell (even by paperback horror standards), the men are all smarmy assholes and their poor wives are constantly put down by them, and the puberty metaphor is delightfully cringey, with descriptions of Joshua's arousal at his "transformation" (constantly caressing himself and moaning) and the hair sprouting across his chest. It's deeply uncomfortable, but heavy-handed in a very fun way.

Apparently this is the sequel to Mullen's previous novel, The Toy Tree, and the ending to Tree House leaves room for a potential third book in the series. Despite everything, I must give Mullen credit for his tireless efforts to make evil trees the next big thing. I salute you, man.

[Jayme · Rating 4 out of 5]

I went into this book not expecting much. I've decided that my summer reading list would consist mostly of the old 80's, early 90's horror novels I spent reading during the summers when I was a kid. The book itself was well-written and was a nice change of pace from the poorly edited, self-published e-book rut I seemed to find myself. We are introduced to what becomes pretty much the main character of the book, the large oak tree. It sprouted up over the spot where Satanic sacrifices had been committed ages ago and absorbed the evil, or something along those lines. It seems that anyone that comes into contact with that tree becomes possessed or otherwise affected by the evil. After this brief introduction, we are then introduced to Steve and Stacy who consummate their love under the dreaded tree. Lo and behold, Stacy becomes pregnant. We are told that it was not just a child planted in her womb, but also something unholy. Poor Stacy's pregnancy is a miserable one, and one she does not survive. Fast forward eight years to the anniversary of Stacy's death and little Joshua's eighth birthday. We discover that Joshua was born with a medical condition that causes deformation and will eventually lead to his death...the rest of the book follows little Joshua's misadventures and how it affects the adults in his life. If we weren't told from the get-go that there was a supernatural explanation, we would think we were seeing a serial killer in the making with the animal mutilations and severe anti-social behaviors. The author doesn't seem to even try to get any reader sympathy for Joshua, he is definitely written as a little demon and by the end you are rooting for his demise.
The book starts a bit slow, but begins to pick up speed about a third of the way through. Not the best horror book I've ever read, but entertaining enough that I felt it deserved four stars.

[Ken Saunders · Rating 1 out of 5]

"  Steve Berenger and his girlfriend, Stacy, had shared the ultimate act of love beneath that oak tree. Unknown to them at the time, of course, Stacy conceived Steve's child under that very tree.
  How could they know that their tender lovemaking was witnessed by the evil powers within the tree? How could they know that those powers of evil had become enraged by the tenderness of their love and had punished them by planting within Stacy's womb the seeds of their fury?"

[[on hiatus, probably forever] The rockabilly werewolf from Mars · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great cover, forgettable book.

Apart from one genuinely creepy sequence (a weird, hallucinatory scene inside of the tree), this is pretty much just your typical evil child novel, without much to distinguish itself from any number of other books from around the same time. The plot is probably familiar to anyone who reads old horror novels: the kid goes from throwing tantrums to playing cruel practical jokes to killing animals to killing people, all while the father refuses to acknowledge that his child is responsible. It's also a sequel, so the author recaps the previous book throughout it, although these parts often feel shoehorned in and interrupt the flow of the plot. As far as 80s horror novels go, it's not the worst I've read, but it doesn't really have anything particular to recommend about it.