By Guy N. Smith
1987 Arrow
Paperback, 207 pages
A crumbling castle in the
Scottish Highlands becomes the site of a horror lovers’ attraction, including
the horror-themed Lochside Hotel and the castle’s dungeons filled with
animatronic monsters. It sounds like the kind of place that my wife and I would
love to visit. Mike and Kim Armstrong chose it for their honeymoon. What could
possibly go wrong? Well, the long-dead, real-life Laird of Benahee’s evil
spirit might still be around, looking to take out his ire on unsuspecting tourists,
so there’s that.
The Armstrongs meet very few
people while there; it is the off-season. Oddly enough, the reporter and author
that they do connect with both wind up dead, killed in grisly fashion. News of
the deaths, of course, attracts macabre thrill-seekers as guests. Kim, for her
part, doesn’t seem like much of a horror fan, easily scared and timid as she
is. As reality and vivid visions blend under the Laird’s spell, she just wants
to leave. Too bad a major hurricane is moving in, battering the hotel and
castle, taking out electricity and phones and stranding the guests.
It’s not as claustrophobic as it
sounds but GNS does put the small cast through their paces. The Armstrongs face
a never-ending line-up of horrors. The figures from the cheesy castle sets
become all too real: the vampire, the werewolf, the cannibal and more. Kim
faces the worst, not knowing if she has actually attempted suicide while in a
dream and did she really give birth to that gruesome, toothy slug thing?
The Laird’s mind-tricks are varied, gruesome, and always dangerous. A woman
capable of exorcism and astral projection is present among the guests. Can she
save the day?
This one plows along at a very
good pace. It is full of chilling set-pieces, and the gore level is respectably
high. The second half of the book is non-stop build-up and gripping action as
the reader barrels towards the climax. There is a surprising abundance of religious
faith and God stuff in this book; far more than GNS usually offers, but I still
score this one high on my Guy N. Smith scale of greatness. Despite a few potential
misfires (the mostly neglected skeleton crew of the hotel and the kitschy monster
figures on display) this one has everything I need for a few days of happy
reading. The cover by Terry Oakes is both wonderfully lurid and kind of cheesy
in its own right. Nothing wrong with that. Recommended reading.
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