Movies

[Book Review] Grisly ‘NightWhere’ Not for the Squeamish

Published

12 years ago

July 30, 2012

With six successful horror novels notched into his belt, Bram Stoker Award-winner John Everson is no stranger to sex and violence, but the BDSM-addled NightWhere is easily his most graphic book to date. In Everson’s dark, harrowing tale, a bondage enthusiast gets herself deeply involved with a cultish S&M nightclub, compelling her crazily devoted boyfriend to endure tests of torture and humiliation in an attempt to rescue her. It’s a “love story” for pain freaks, and Everson handles the subject matter with a deft touch, but be warned, this is some very strong stuff. Readers who dig gross-out horror will love the hell out of this one. Samhain Publishing isn’t releasing the trade paperback until October 2, but the e-book is currently available from Amazon. Read on for the full review.

In 1981’s Danse Macabre, Stephen King wrote, “I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I’ll go for the gross-out. I‘m not proud.” Although NightWhere has some undeniably horrifying moments, it’s obvious that author John Everson has decided to go for the gross-out. His narrative starts out tawdry and dirty, as young couple Mark and Rae receive a personal invitation to NightWhere, a pain-and-bondage-themed nightclub, and things only get worse from there. While Rae is totally into the whips, chains, and hooks, Mark isn’t nearly as enthusiastic about the whole pain aspect of S&M, and eventually Rae is visiting NightWhere alone.

Everson depicts Rae’s journey through NightWhere––from The Red, to The Black, to the mysterious Night Mother––with escalating details of orgiastic sex, rampant beatings, and gut-wrenching violence. And yet, considering the actions taking place, Everson handles the material with considerable restraint. If he wanted to, he could certainly push even harder toward the gross-out. As a result of this restraint, there’s a forbidden appeal to NightWhere, a guilty desire to find out what happens next. And yet….I still found a couple of scenes actively unpleasant.

That’s not Everson’s fault. In fact, it may have been his intention. Aggressively violent horror fiction like The Summer I Died ore The Girl Next Door has never really been my bag. But while reading NightWhere I nevertheless felt a strange sort of admiration for Everson. He knows exactly what he’s doing here, knows exactly what buttons he’s pushing. The dialogue is crisp, the plotting is fast-paced––it’s a very confident piece of work, regardless of the subject matter. And is it scary? Yes, at times NightWhere is very scary…because this is a novel that can go anywhere. And it does.

Official Rating: 4 out of 5 Skulls

Ryan Daley

Click to comment

Movies

‘The Invisible Man 2’ – Elisabeth Moss Says the Sequel Is Closer Than Ever to Happening

Published

3 hours ago

April 25, 2024

John Squires

Universal has been having a hell of a time getting their Universal Monsters brand back on a better path in the wake of the Dark Universe collapsing, with four movies thus far released in the years since The Mummy attempted to get that interconnected universe off the ground.

First was Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, to date the only post-Mummy hit for the Universal Monsters, followed by The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Renfield, and now Abigail. The latter three films have attempted to bring Dracula back to the screen in fresh ways, but both Demeter and Renfield severely underperformed at the box office. And while Abigail is a far better vampire movie than those two, it’s unfortunately also struggling to turn a profit.

Where does the Universal Monsters brand go from here? The good news is that Universal and Blumhouse have once again enlisted the help of Leigh Whannell for their upcoming Wolf Man reboot, which is howling its way into theaters in January 2025. This is good news, of course, because Whannell’s Invisible Man was the best – and certainly most profitable – of the post-Dark Universe movies that Universal has been able to conjure up. The film ended its worldwide run with $144 million back in 2020, a massive win considering the $7 million budget.

Given the film was such a success, you may wondering why The Invisible Man 2 hasn’t come along in these past four years. But the wait for that sequel may be coming to an end.

Speaking with the Happy Sad Confused podcast this week, The Invisible Man star Elisabeth Moss notes that she feels “very good” about the sequel’s development at this point in time.

“Blumhouse and my production company [Love & Squalor Pictures]… we are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” Moss updates this week. “And I feel very good about it.”

She adds, “We are very much intent on continuing that story.”

At the end of the 2020 movie, Elisabeth Moss’s heroine Cecilia Kass uses her stalker’s high-tech invisibility suit to kill him, now in possession of the technology that ruined her life.

Stay tuned for more on The Invisible Man 2 as we learn it.