By EDMUND PLANTE (Leisure; 1989)

I maintain that the Edmund Plante authored 1987 horror-fest TRANSFORMATION is a rotgut classic.  TRAPPED, Plante’s similarly oriented 1989 follow-up, is not.

As in the former book, TRAPPED liberally partakes of science fiction themes in an otherwise staunchly horror-based narrative.  It has the Hunters, a suburban family led by the philandering Keith and his long-suffering wife Maggie, embarking on a summer sojourn in a secluded mountain cabin.  Along for the ride are Keith and Maggie’s children Brice and Toni, Maggie’s elderly ma Vivian and Toni’s slutty BFF Lisa.

Shortly after the Hunters’ arrival some strange activity occurs in the night sky, and the following morning an unearthly cylinder is found near the cabin.  There’s also an invisible dome surrounding the area, sealing it off from the rest of the world (did Stephen King read this book?).  Inside the cylinder are a brood of extraterrestrial bat-things–p-a family, to be exact, led by a very protective mother.  Plante may have been attempting an ironic reflection of his protagonists in this alien family (a la THE HILLS HAVE EYES), but if so it didn’t work, as none of the characters, human or otherwise, are sufficiently developed.

The aliens like to snatch their human subjects and shut them up inside the cylinder, where they’re subjected to epic mind reading sessions and an evisceration that leaves a bag-full of severed body parts.  The Hunters, meanwhile, fall prey to bad behavior, with Lisa seducing Keith and Vivian becoming increasingly disconnected from reality due to the aliens’ mind-reading skills, which convince the old woman that her long-deceased husband has returned to life.

A LORD OF THE FLIES-like social breakdown would appear to be imminent, but (again) Plante falls short, with life inside the cabin remaining on a more-or-less even keel throughout.  The Hunters eventually figure out how to fight back against their alien tormentors in a climactic showdown that seems far too easy, with the mother alien obsessed with keeping her children with her, even after they’re dead, thus giving the humans a definite edge in the fight.

As in TRANSFORMATION, the prose is obvious and perfunctory.  Readable TRAPPED is, but as a gross-out spectacle the novel fails, and it certainly doesn’t work as high (or low) art.