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The Beast House cover

The Beast House is a novel by Richard Laymon first published in 1986. It is the sequel to his writing debut The Cellar as well as the predecessor to The Midnight Tour.

Summary[]

The waxworks were so realistic. Bodies torn and chewed. Blood blackly-encrusting open wounds. Flaps of skin hanging loose, clawed from the stripped, ripped corpses. Men, women, children, slaughtered, mangled...

The old woman who showed them round was well-practised in her grim, money-spinning take of the mysterious beast that has killed and killed again. Of course it was all in the past and all nonsense. Anyone would agree to that.

Until, trapped, they heard, then smelled and felt the white, night-time creature that had come, grunting and spittle-slicked, for their bodies, their blood.

Plot[]

Shortly after escaping from her rapist, Janice Crogan discovers Lilly's diary, who was the previous owner of the Beast House. Upon reading its horrific contents, she decides to capitalise on this information and contacts horror author Gorman Hardy. Unbeknownst to Janice, Hardy, along with his accomplice Brian Blake, are scheming to steal the diary and swindle Janice out of the royalties.

Tyler and her friend Nora are travelling to Malcasa Point in the hopes of reconnecting with Tyler's old boyfriend Dan Jenson. Along the way, they are accosted by a sinister man who obviously intends to attack them. Fortunately this man is driven away by two ex-Marines by the names of Jack and Abe. Tyler is obviously attracted to Abe, but the two restrain themselves until they can find out what happened to Dan. The four then take the Beast House tour, where Tyler discovers to her horror that Dan was one of the victims of the beasts. Grieving, Tyler gives in to her feelings for Abe and the two make love.

Janice gets in contact with Gorman Hardy and Brian Blake. Hardy suggests that Blake and Janice go to the Beast House to retrieve more information. Meanwhile Hardy gets his hands on the diary. Blake seduces Janice, but the two are knocked unconscious by one of the beasts. Blake is killed and Janice is taken into the Beast House to be raped. Janice's parents are concerned with their daughter's absence. They suspect Hardy and Blake of foul play and force him to come with them while they search for her. Hardy manages to kill both of them.

Janice wakes up and finds herself in bandages after being raped. Sandy, one of the characters from The Cellar, enters her room to bring her food, but Janice wrestles her down. She then demands that Sandy explain what's going on. Sandy tell Janice that they and Sandy's mother are the prisoners of the Kutch family, who own and operate Beast House. Sandy is allowed to go outside and run personal errands, but only because she's developed a Stockholm syndrome-type attraction to the beasts that rape them. Janice decides to make her escape before she turns out like Sandy.


Hardy first goes to Captain Frank, the local eccentric whose grandfather brought the original beast to America after discovering it as a baby in an obscure island in Oceania. Hardy then gets in contact with Jack and Abe. He offers the two men a thousand dollars to break into the Beast House and take some photographs. Tyler and Hardy follow closely behind, while Nora waits outside for the police. The search party finds a tunnel leading to the Kutch House, which Janice is using at that time. Jack and Abe encounter and kill Maggie Kutch before rescuing Sandy's mother Donna, who now has a baby named after his father: Judge. Tyler is forced down and stripped naked by a beast but is rescued by Abe before she can be raped. Hardy runs into Janice and tries to kill her, but is killed himself by a beast that has come looking for Janice. Abe and Jack kill this last beast before escaping with Tyler, Janice, Donna and Judge Jr.

Sometime later, Tyler and Abe have become a couple and are currently residing at a hotel owned by Abe's father. Janice has managed to get Lilly's diary--along with all the notes Captain Frank had loaned Hardy--published and becomes an overnight sensation. It's mentioned that the Beast House tours have now been updated to accommodate the new information that has been released. Sandy is one of the tour guides and it is revealed that she is pregnant.

Trivia[]

  • This story is set a year after the events of The Cellar
  • This is the first time the audience gets a clear description of what the beasts look like.
  • Brian Blake is left impaled on the spiked fence surrounding the Beast House. This has been used as an alternate cover art, although in the book he was face-up and on the cover he was face-down.
  • This is the only Beast House story that doesn't end with a woman being consciously raped and brought to orgasm.
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