Ancient Horror History Unearthed: Late at Night by William Schoell REVIEWED

My first read of 2018! My first read of age 32! Ohhh, AND it's a William Schoell book!

Not only that, but it's probably his most adored, most highly revered title, Late at Night.

This makes it sound like there is some sort of system to the order in which I read and review these, and one of these days there may be. But honestly, I generally just pick a book that interests me, and if it's any good, I put a pile of the author's other work in my to-be-read and go from there.

Then I read something else and my interest goes somewhere else, and other things trump it in the pile...it's really quite a mess. I wish there was a science to the whole thing. I need a secretary.

In any event, given that this is the third Schoell book I've read in the short life of this blog, and I keep coming back to him time and time again...it means I like his books, quite a bit.

Late at Night demonstrates exactly why. It's classic, pitch perfect 80s horror fiction.

This is the kind of book that is the very reason that Paperbacks from Hell came into fruition. It's why there's a cult buzz around all these long forgotten library dust collectors.

80s horror paperbacks at their best, most palatable to the 'mass market' they were aimed at, perhaps with a little more zest than some of the others...it's Schoell.

But it's that zest that brings me back every time versus any of the countless other prolific authors of the ilk. He tells familiar stories, especially in 2018, but spins them on their heads, adds a healthy heaping of juicy violence and heavy 80s-flair paired with very good writing...he's just better than most-of-em.

And Late At Night, may be the best I've read of his yet.

Interesting enough, Schoell himself said, either on the comments section here or on Facebook or some interview...who knows...his work gets better as it goes along. He's right.

He's got his whole formula down to a science on this one. Trimming away the fat of the the first two novels, boiling down the melodrama to the very necessary, and making the plot much more linear than either Shivers or Spawn of Hell... it's easy to see the author's exponential growth here in his third novel.

I am wondering of Leisure Books, the original publisher was grooming Schoell to be their star on this one. It's very well edited, packaged, and it's a story that just about anyone can get into, especially in 1986, upon it's original release.

Late At Night is Ten Little Indians with Lucio Fulci's gore set pieces, splashes of Clive Barker's hellish atmosphere and mysticism, and Schoell's very own flair for depicting the stereotypes of the day, often with dark humor.

We get a motley crew of 14, a ragtag bunch of cutesy teen housekeepers, psychically gifted women, unbearable assholes complete with "rather tiny penis"...sent to an island to be dispatched in awesomely disgusting ways.

To spice things up, there's a book within a book thing going on here, with the posse finding a prophetic paperback on the island, also titled "Late at Night", that spells out the nasty outcomes of everything before they occur. We also get a quite fun guessing whodunit...or rather whos-the-necromancer making insects eat eyelids and smash skulls with tree trunks.

Lots of fun, nasty moments here...I highly recommend this one.

Of note, it was recently re-released by Cemetery Dance in e-book format. Grab it today and start your 2018 with some fun, stomach churning 80s hyperviolence meshed with soap opera doorslamming. 

4/5.