Books like Out Are the Lights

For some inexplicable reason I'm repeatedly drawn back to Laymon's work, every year or two, even though I'm batting way below the Mendoza line* as far as the hit/miss ratio. I think I like the idea of Laymon more than I enjoy reading him, much of the time. The idea of reading brainless, B slasher movies in novel form, filled with hopelessly stupid (and hopelessly horny) teens who get offed one by one seems fun as hell. But the actual reading of them can sometimes be a chore, as the characters are usually so moronic that you can't help but root for them to die, which is fine when watching a movie, but reading a novel requires -- at least for me -- some sort of connection with/sympathy for the characters, especially in a horror novel.This one's an early work of his, and you can tell because it's short and moves fast -- one of the only things I liked about it. There aren't nearly as many wasted pages compared with his 90s work, where he'd stretch out a 200-page story to near-epic length. I think his writing skills did improve over the years, but he also learned to pad the hell out of his novels, as became the norm in horror in general.The basic story is that there are new films being shown at the Haunted Palace movie theater, but these aren't your typical horror films -- they're quick little bursts of terror and violence, and very realistic. Almost like snuff films. These shorts are very popular among the younger crowd, until some of them become potential fodder for the next "movie." Brit thinks she recognizes an old friend in one of the films, a friend she suddenly can't get a hold of. Of course this friend was "killed" in the movie, and Brit wonders if maybe it was real, so she decides to investigate..This is definitely lower-tier Laymon -- not offensively bad, but not good either, imo. It's just sorta there, in the typical "making it up as he goes along" Laymon way, throwing anything and everything at the wall to see what sticks. The characterization is paper thin compared to his later novels, but I'd actually take that over 500 pages of the depraved thoughts of virtually every (male) Laymon character ever. It's also pretty light, not nearly as sadistic and gross as some of his other work. But I usually find that, compared with similar authors like Jack Ketchum or Bryan Smith, I'm never actually disturbed or unsettled when reading his work, as it's all so silly and over-the-top in its depiction of violence.** And there's nothing wrong with a light, fun horror read. Hell, I've read enough of them, so I must enjoy them at least some. But this one's a little too light, and even though I just read it, it's already fading from memory, just like my last few Laymon reads. So I think I'm officially done with him, finally.Until next time.2.0 Stars*That's a baseball reference that means a batting average that's very, very bad, named after a Pirates shortstop from the 70s who was very, very bad and should feel bad. In case any of you reading this are non baseball-loving heathens.**All this makes it sound as if I hate all of Laymon's work, which isn't the case. I especially enjoy his late 80s novels, before they became too bloated, such as his books under the name Richard Kelly -- Midnight's Lair and Tread Softly (i.e. Dark Mountain) -- as well as Flesh and The Stake (from 1990, which is about the time when his tendency to pad started to rear its ugly head). But those were all earlier reads in my Laymon past, and I sometimes wonder if I'd have liked them as much if I'd read them later on, once I had gotten used to his schtick.