By RICK HAUTALA (Zebra; 1980)
The first novel by the late Rick Hautala, MOONDEATH was apparently a hot seller for the late Zebra horror imprint. The cover features a laudatory blurb by Hautala’s longtime pal Stephen King, who proclaims this “One of the Best Horror Novels I’ve Read in the Last Two years” (and who, according to the acknowledgements page, had a hand in the writing of the book). In his posthumously published autobiography Hautala claims the King blurb was the main reason the novel was successful. I’d say that success was due to other factors, most notably the fact that, quite simply, MOONDEATH is a good read.
This novel is a rarity in the horror field (or any field) due to the fact that its debuting author’s good and bad points arrived fully formed. As with Hautala’s subsequent novels (which number in the thirties), MOONDEATH is immensely readable, with solid characterizations and evocative descriptions that don’t interrupt the narrative flow. Also like Hautala’s later books, MOONDEATH suffers from cliché-ridden passages (“He didn’t even have time to scream”) that periodically undercut the descriptions, and dialogue to match (“I don’t know about you…but I could sure use a stiff drink right about now”).
Involved is a werewolf loose in the small New Hampshire town of Cooper Falls. Hautala spent his life in New England (he was often termed “Maine’s other horror writer”), and clearly knows the region well (enough so to offer that other Maine-based scribe serious competition). He offers up a rich and layered portrayal of the band of intellectuals and rednecks populating Copper Falls, albeit with the requisite scares given prominence in a novel whose 448 pages (of very large printing) go by quickly.
The wolf man is Ned, a teen outcast. He acquires his lycanthropic tendencies from Julie Sikes, a local woman with a yen for performing black magic incantations that inadvertently ensnare Ned. His initial reaction to his condition is horror, but he grows increasingly power mad, committing murder after murder in his animal state with the following mission statement: “I am the shadow, the black shadow that is formed by the light of the full moon! In the light of the full moon, I am the wolf!”
Offsetting Ned’s evil is Bob Wentworth, a high school English teacher who’s newly arrived in Cooper Falls. Having recently separated from his wife, Bob initiates an affair with Lisa Carter, a librarian trapped in an abusive marriage. This provides the romance that seemingly every 1980s horror novel had to have while introducing a non-supernatural conflict, with the townspeople growing quite suspicious of the affair and imperiling Bob’s job. It’s Bob who deduces that a werewolf is responsible for the killings (with the authorities settling on a rabid dog as the culprit), and who comes up with a remedy in the form of that age-old anti-werewolf standby silver bullets—because “if it’s good enough for Hollywood, it’s good enough for me.”
Hautala satisfies on all, or at least most, fronts. The novel contains generous helpings of gore, perversion (necrophilia included), atmospheric detail and mushy stuff presented discreetly enough that it doesn’t negate the book’s main intent: to scare.