The style is edgy AF, yet feels like Classic Horror all the same.
In the aftermath, Sawyer seems to be the only one with a plan to limit the destruction.įirst, let me just chat a bit about how much I love SGJ's writing. What starts off as a fairly innocent prank, however, turns more deadly than this group of teens could have ever imagined. The same one who happened to recently punish the friend group for sneaking into a movie unpaid. Night of the Mannequins follows Sawyer, and his group of friends, when a prank goes horribly wrong.ĭisguising a discarded mall mannequin as a patron at the local movie theater seemed like the perfect way to get back at the stuffy assistant manager. I see the name, Stephen Graham Jones, on the cover and immediately pick it up. Jumping into this novella, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. It has everything he does so well: compelling characters, evocative descriptions and settings, a narrative style that hooks you in immediately, and a plot that will leave you on edge and trembling.Night of the Mannequins is a BRUTAL work of Psychological Horror, straight from the mind of one of my favorite Horror writers, Stephen Graham Jones.
If you’ve never read Stephen Graham Jones before, this is a really good place to start. His voice is familiar yet unique we’ve all known a kid like Sawyer, and Jones does a good job tugging on that recognition and then twisting it into something awful. Jones crafts the main character, Sawyer, with messy precision.
It’s also about a young man losing his tether on reality. This isn’t just a story about a mannequin that comes to life and starts killing people. The trap has sprung, the knife has cut, and the blood is flowing. By that point, however, it’s much too late. The further you get into the story, the more you realize those little moments earlier on that felt off or odd or jarring were actually big clues as to what is about to happen. The book begins innocently enough – with a teenage prank – but quickly spirals into bloody chaos. While the latter is much shorter than the former, it’s just as creepy and chilling as everything else Jones writes. He has two books out this year, The Only Good Indians (which was so unsettling I had to stop listening to the audiobook at work and wait for my hold to come through at the library for the print copy) and Night of the Mannequins. And on top of that, he’s incredibly prolific. Who doesn’t love Stephen Graham Jones? The man writes horror like no one else.
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