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Mr Bad Face
Four children set fire to the house of the neighbourhood "bogeyman". Twenty years on, a series of mysterious events take place, and the former friends think it may be a practical joke. It is only when their lives are shattered by murder that they realize Mr Bad Face is back - and he wants revenge.
- GenresHorror
432 pages, Paperback
First published June 5, 1997
60 people want to read
About the author
Mark Morris
133 books239 followersLibrarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Mark Morris became a full-time writer in 1988 on the Enterprise Allowance Scheme, and a year later saw the release of his first novel, Toady. He has since published a further sixteen novels, among which are Stitch, The Immaculate, The Secret of Anatomy, Fiddleback, The Deluge and four books in the popular Doctor Who range.
His short stories, novellas, articles and reviews have appeared in a wide variety of anthologies and magazines, and he is editor of the highly-acclaimed Cinema Macabre, a book of fifty horror movie essays by genre luminaries, for which he won the 2007 British Fantasy Award.
His most recently published or forthcoming work includes a novella entitled It Sustains for Earthling Publications, a Torchwood novel entitled Bay of the Dead, several Doctor Who audios for Big Finish Productions, a follow-up volume to Cinema Macabre entitled Cinema Futura and a new short story collection, Long Shadows, Nightmare Light.
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Mark Morris became a full-time writer in 1988 on the Enterprise Allowance Scheme, and a year later saw the release of his first novel, Toady. He has since published a further sixteen novels, among which are Stitch, The Immaculate, The Secret of Anatomy, Fiddleback, The Deluge and four books in the popular Doctor Who range.
His short stories, novellas, articles and reviews have appeared in a wide variety of anthologies and magazines, and he is editor of the highly-acclaimed Cinema Macabre, a book of fifty horror movie essays by genre luminaries, for which he won the 2007 British Fantasy Award.
His most recently published or forthcoming work includes a novella entitled It Sustains for Earthling Publications, a Torchwood novel entitled Bay of the Dead, several Doctor Who audios for Big Finish Productions, a follow-up volume to Cinema Macabre entitled Cinema Futura and a new short story collection, Long Shadows, Nightmare Light.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
February 7, 2019
Starts with a Boys Own style account of John Straker during WW2 - the titular Mr Bad Face - and his mutilation following a failed bombing raid, before moving on to all sorts of seemingly supernatural shenanigans. The back story is eked out nicely, and there are a few rug pulling moments and some gory set pieces to keep you entertained before the final reveal. My only quibble with the book is the enormous red herring Morris sticks in regarding James Keeve - I enjoy a good misdirect, but this one seemed rather unfair, even contrived. Having said that, I loved this - Morris has a great, readable prose style with some lovely turns of phrase - it's exactly the kind of novel that made me fall in love with reading, and with this genre, in the first place.
October 2, 2013
I was initially drawn to the strange, childish title of the book. It sounds really bizarre. I was intrigued.
The novel is well enough executed. The writing isn't bad and the characters and dialogue are believable, but it isn't without flaws. There are some odd side-plots that never go anywhere and some things that seem like they're be important later that are never touched on again. Some of the background could have been fleshed out a little bit and some aspects of the main plot really don't make a great deal of sense.
Halfway through my impression was that the story was strongly influenced by Stephen King's IT. You have your band of childhood archetypes (tomboy, wimp, bully, nice guy) who face down a "monster" as children and then have to live with that secret until the monster's revival forces them to reunite as adults. Exact same plot as IT.
Mr Bad Face starts out great, but I would say that by the time you get to around the 80% mark the story takes a serious downward turn and never recovers. The ending was a serious disappointment for me. It seemed almost as if the author just lost interest in the book and wanted to move on to another project. It just abruptly runs out of gas and becomes as cliched and predictable as a soap opera.
I'm giving it four stars instead of two or three, because the first 80% is so strong that I decided the poor ending could almost be over-looked.
The novel is well enough executed. The writing isn't bad and the characters and dialogue are believable, but it isn't without flaws. There are some odd side-plots that never go anywhere and some things that seem like they're be important later that are never touched on again. Some of the background could have been fleshed out a little bit and some aspects of the main plot really don't make a great deal of sense.
Halfway through my impression was that the story was strongly influenced by Stephen King's IT. You have your band of childhood archetypes (tomboy, wimp, bully, nice guy) who face down a "monster" as children and then have to live with that secret until the monster's revival forces them to reunite as adults. Exact same plot as IT.
Mr Bad Face starts out great, but I would say that by the time you get to around the 80% mark the story takes a serious downward turn and never recovers. The ending was a serious disappointment for me. It seemed almost as if the author just lost interest in the book and wanted to move on to another project. It just abruptly runs out of gas and becomes as cliched and predictable as a soap opera.
I'm giving it four stars instead of two or three, because the first 80% is so strong that I decided the poor ending could almost be over-looked.
April 7, 2015
More of a 3.75 than a 4, this would have been a solid 4 if it had remained a horror instead of veering off into murder mystery territory.
March 7, 2025
Well Mr. Morris can certainly write very well, but this book suffers from bloating. It could have definitely benefitted from a better editor for sure.
1. The prologue goes on way too long. For example, several pages in I was thinking, is this going to be a war/adventure novel?? Ok the plane crashes and the villian? suffers terrible burns and disfiguration (Mr Bad Face). Do we need almost 20 pages about plane and pilot lingo?
2.The flashback to when the kids had that awful "accident" that haunts them years later doesnt come up in the story until about 200 pages in. I mean it did have its moments of creepiness, but its seems Mr. Morris was not going for a horror novel here.
3. I would classify this as a Dark Crime Thriller/Mystery. We get great character development and plot, but that's where it suffers. When it starts to get good and tense, we go back to family relationships and police procedures. It seems like Mr. Morris was trying to write something tamer here compared to his other books like The Horror Club(Toady) and Stitch.
1. The prologue goes on way too long. For example, several pages in I was thinking, is this going to be a war/adventure novel?? Ok the plane crashes and the villian? suffers terrible burns and disfiguration (Mr Bad Face). Do we need almost 20 pages about plane and pilot lingo?
2.The flashback to when the kids had that awful "accident" that haunts them years later doesnt come up in the story until about 200 pages in. I mean it did have its moments of creepiness, but its seems Mr. Morris was not going for a horror novel here.
3. I would classify this as a Dark Crime Thriller/Mystery. We get great character development and plot, but that's where it suffers. When it starts to get good and tense, we go back to family relationships and police procedures. It seems like Mr. Morris was trying to write something tamer here compared to his other books like The Horror Club(Toady) and Stitch.
February 17, 2025
As a kid watching Scooby Doo, I was always disappointed when the ghost/monster turned out to be a man in a mask and that's exactly how I feel about this novel which ends the same way. Which is a real shame as the scenes in which the monster's face appears in posters are genuinely creepy, hinting at a supernatural explanation. To be fair, the author quotes the "if it hadn't been for you pesky kids..." line in acknowledgement of what he's done but I'm still a little bit disappointed at how things turned out.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 29, 2024
This was a 4 star read all the way through until the ridiculous ending.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews