The Funhouse Summary

The Funhouse

Published: 1980

Author: Dean Koontz (written as Owen West)

Genre: American, Contemporary, Fiction, Ghost, Horror, Literature, Mystery, Psychological, Supernatural, Suspense, Thriller

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The Funhouse

Summary

Ellen, a young woman fed up with being dominated by her meek father and psychotically pious mother, falls in love with Conrad, a traveling carnival barker, in 1955. 

Despite her mother's protests, she joins the carnival and marries him. However, it rapidly becomes evident that Conrad is using Ellen to conceive the Antichrist, as she discovers he worships Satan. 

She finally gives birth to a horribly disfigured baby while stuck at the fair since she cannot return to her parents.

The demonic baby assaults Ellen one stormy night. She smashes it just as Conrad returns home. Enraged, he beats but does not kill her, threatening to track her down and murder her own children one day. Ellen bolts into the darkness.

Amy becomes pregnant by her boyfriend in 1980. He refuses to raise or pay for the child's abortion. She hurries home, crying, to her pious, alcoholic mother, who is subsequently revealed to be Ellen. 

Amy ultimately informs her mother she is pregnant, prompting her mother to hit her. She does, however, agree to pay for an abortion and accompany Amy to the doctor, but only to prevent Amy from "giving birth to the Antichrist."

Meanwhile, Amy's younger brother, Joey, is privately terrified of Ellen since she regularly enters his room late at night, drunkenly raving about how he may be a demon in disguise. He chooses to flee with a traveling fair that will be in town the following week.

Conrad's circus is discovered to be his. The other carnies try to convince the barker that he would never locate Ellen after years of looking, but he refuses to give up. 

That night, a young couple is enticed to the carnival's funhouse, where they are disemboweled and half-devoured by Gunther, Conrad's demonic, monstrous kid from his affair with Madame Zena, the carnival's fortune teller. Conrad intends to murder Ellen's children with the help of Gunther.

Amy goes to Liz's Diner, where her promiscuous best friend works. Liz declares her intention to flee to Las Vegas and work as a call lady. She invites Amy to join her the morning after they return from the carnival. 

During the day, Joey enters the fair and Conrad recognizes him as Ellen's child. Joey is terrified and lies when asked what his mother's name is. Conrad is upset, but he accepts his fate.

Conrad discovers Amy and Joey are Ellen's children after doing background checks on the town's people with the help of a private investigator. 

Madame Zena is terrified when he explains his intention to lure them to the funhouse and murder them. He strangles her to death when she refuses to aid him with his plot. 

Amy, Liz, and their dates, Buzz and Ritchie, visit the carnival that night. Joey flees home and goes to the carnival with the intention of escaping with it. 

He tracks down Conrad and expresses his attraction to him. Before tying him up, the barker brings him to the funhouse and admits that he knows he lied about his mother.

The party arrives and boards at the funhouse. Conrad cuts the power midway through the journey, leaving the four teenagers stranded. 

Gunther drags Richie away through a trap door before severing his head. The three others look for a way out. 

Amy equips herself with a knife she found in a showcase. Liz continues alone inside the funhouse before being discovered by Gunther and dismembered in the basement. Conrad comes and shoots Buzz to death with a handgun. He has Joey with him, who is restrained by a rope leash. Amy manages to conceal the knife. She dupes Conrad into thinking she's going to console Joey before stabbing him in the throat and stealing his revolver.

Amy and Joey discover the cellar and descend, where Gunther attacks. Amy shoots him, and he falls into the funhouse's machines and is ripped apart. Amy drags Joey out of the funhouse and into the early light once they discover the exit.

Useful Search Related Words & Keywords

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Odd Is on Our Side Summary

Odd Is on Our Side

Published: October 2010

Author: Dean Koontz, Fred Van Lente, Queenie Chan

Genre: Comics, Fiction, Ghost, Graphic Novel, Manga, Mystery

Odd Thomas Graphic Novels Book 2

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Odd Is on Our Side

Summary

It's Halloween in Pico Mundo, California, and there's a fragrance of something sinister in the air. While the town prepares for its yearly celebrations, Odd Thomas, a teenage fry cook, can't escape the sensation that make-believe goblins and ghouls aren't the only creatures on the hunt. 

And he should know since he can see what others cannot: the souls of the restless dead. Even Odd's frequent visitor, the ghost of Elvis Presley, can't seem to send him in the proper way. 

Odd is on a mission to discover the horrific truth with the aid of his gun-toting lover, Stormy. 

Is there something terrible going on in the secluded barn guarded by demonic masked men? Has Halloween mischief become malevolent? Is the pleading ghost of a trick-or-treater a terrible sign of doom?

Useful Search Related Words & Keywords

Comic Books, Dead People, Fred Van, Like A Comic, Pico Mundo, Story Line, Van Lente, Waste Of Money

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Ghost Story Summary

Ghost Story

Published: 1979

Author: Peter Straub

Genre: American, Drama, Fiction, Ghost, Horror, Literary, Literature, Suspense, Thriller

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Ghost Story

Summary

The tale begins with a guy named Donald Wanderley traveling with a little girl whom he appears to have abducted. When Donald and the girl arrive in Panama City, Florida, the narrative travels back in time to the previous winter's events.

Four elderly men who are members of a clique called the Chowder Society live in the small upstate New York town of Milburn, which is indicated to be in Broome County east of Binghamton: John Jaffrey, a doctor; Lewis Benedikt, a retired entrepreneur; Sears James, an attorney; and Ricky Hawthorne, an attorney, and James' Partner. 

For the past 50 years, these closest friends have gathered, told each other tales, and been wonderful companions. 

However, their group used to be made up of five people. Jaffrey had hosted a party in honor of a visiting actress a year before, and their fifth member, Edward Wanderley, had perished in an upstairs bedroom amid the celebrations. He had a terrified expression on his face as if he had been scared to death.

Since that night, the friends have been troubled by dreadful dreams and have turned to recounting ghost stories to each other. 

Sears tells them a ghost story about when he was a young man during one of their gatherings. 

Before opting to go to law school, James worked as a teacher in a small town. He became obsessed with one of his students, Fenny Bate, a sluggish, mentally troubled young lad. 

Fenny and his sister were shunned by the town, and after some investigation, he discovers why. 

Gregory, the older brother of the two youngsters, was widely thought to have sexually abused his younger brother. 

Gregory was the guardian of his younger siblings because their mother had died and their father had abandoned the household. 

Gregory tumbled from the ladder and died one day while repairing the roof and someone thought they spotted the two young Bate children fleeing the scene. 

Sears tells his friends that over time, he began to see a scary young guy lingering around the school, and he finally came to believe it was Gregory Bate's ghost. 

Sears endeavored but failed, to free Fenny from the clutches of his deceased brother. Fenny died, and Sears departed the tiny town after finishing the school year.

After relaying his story, Sears and Ricky are summoned to the property of one of their clients, who has discovered some mangled sheep in his field. 

Later in the ride, Sears tells Ricky that the previous night's event was not made up, but had truly occurred to him when he was younger. 

Sears, like the rest of the Chowder Society, admits to being terrified. They decide to write to Edward's nephew, Donald Wanderley because Donald has authored an esoteric novel and they believe his research skills may be useful to them. However, before Donald arrives, Jaffrey commits suicide by jumping off a bridge.

Donald enters just as the funeral is wrapping up. The Society's three remaining members inform him that they want him to look into any conceivable options that he may find acceptable. 

Donald's brother David had died under unexplained circumstances some years before, prompting him to pen his horror thriller. 

Donald tells them the tale of what he believes happened. He'd gotten a teaching job at Berkeley because of the positive response to his first novel, and he'd started dating a lovely graduate student called Alma Mobley. 

He was inseparable from her at first, and there was a discussion of marriage. But, as time passed, he began to notice odd things about her and thought that there was something peculiar about Alma. 

She had a sinister drug-dealing acquaintance named Greg Benton who was the guardian of a mentally disabled younger brother, as well as even more sinister acquaintances who belonged to a cult associated with the Manson Family and claimed to be in regular contact with the spirit of a dead man named Tasker Martin who "approved" their relationship. 

Donald ceased seeing her as frequently, because his business faltered, and Alma suddenly disappeared one day. 

Upon further investigation, he learned that many of Alma's claims about her family history were false; for example, she claimed to be the daughter of a prominent New Orleans artist called Robert Mobley, who had two boys but no daughter. 

In fact, Robert Mobley had a bizarre experience similar to Donald's in which his son Shelby committed suicide after an affair with a mysterious younger girl named Amy Monckton while under the guardianship of a woman named Florence de Peyser, who employed a sinister man named Gregorio as her chauffeur. 

A few months later, David phoned to tell him that he and Alma had gotten engaged and that he wanted everything to be okay between Donald and his girlfriend. 

Donald tried to warn David about Alma, but it was too late, and David died shortly after.

Soon after, Lewis Benedikt is murdered in the forest, and Sears and Ricky decide it is time to tell Donald the most horrifying story the Chowder Society has ever heard—and it, too, is real. 

Eva Galli, a young woman, had migrated to the village fifty years before. She was in her early twenties, and all five of the young guys were head over heels in love with her, although completely platonic love. 

Eva came to see them one night in 1929, not long after Black Tuesday, but she wasn't herself. 

She made sexual approaches and made fun of them. Eva collapsed and injured her head as a result of the struggle. 

They planned to hide her body by placing it in a car and driving it into a deep pond, believing she was dead. 

But, at the last second, Eva's body vanished from the inside of the car, and a lynx watched them from the opposite bank.

Donald continues his investigation and swiftly concludes that they are dealing with a Manitou or some type of shape-shifting beast. 

He also believes Alma Mobley is Eva Galli, as well as Amy Monckton and the mystery young actress who was the guest of honor at his uncle's death party. 

He discovers some of his uncle's tape recordings and listens to bits that not even his uncle has heard yet, when she talks directly to him and the remaining Chowder Society, claiming to be a member of an ancient race of creatures and being old enough to recall the first humans in the nation.

Donald, Ricky, and Sears are joined in their fight by Peter Barnes, a young man whose mother was murdered by the servants of these creatures, formerly normal human people who have been given new life and powers. 

Sears is ambushed and killed in his car, and the survivors discover that the reanimated Gregory and Fenny are assisting Eva in her endeavors and that Gregory is identical to Greg Benton, the drug dealer Donald met in Berkeley, and Fenny was Greg Benton's disabled brother, and Gregory and Robert Mobley's New Orleans acquaintance Gregorio were also one and the same. 

Gregory informs them that Florence de Peyser assisted in his resurrection and that Eva is also obedient to the de Peyser lady. 

Gregory and Fenny assault Peter, Donald, and Ricky at a movie theater, but both are slain in the subsequent fight, causing Donald to learn that, despite their unearthly abilities, the monsters are not truly immortal. Eva is tracked down and defeated by the survivors, but she escapes in a new form.

Ricky, exhausted, departs Milburn for a lengthy vacation with his wife, as Peter prepares for college. Donald keeps an eye out for Eva's next appearance, which he believes will be the little girl from the beginning of the novel.

Eva appears in the shape of a small girl and seeks to manipulate Donald's psyche while in Florida. 

He is able to resist and kills her after she attempts to flee in the shape of a wasp. Donald then makes plans to travel to San Francisco in search of the de Peyser woman.

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The Mysteries of Udolpho Summary

The Mysteries of Udolpho

Published: 8, May 1794

Author: Ann Ward Radcliffe

Genres: 80/100, Adventure, Classic, Education, Fiction, Gothic, History, Horror, Literary, Literature, Mystery, Romance, Supernatural

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The Mysteries of Udolpho Review

Summary

The Mysteries of Udolpho is a classic Gothic tale, full of physical and psychological terrors such as lonely decaying castles, supposedly supernatural happenings, a brooding, plotting villain, and a persecuted heroine.

Radcliffe added extended descriptions of exotic landscapes in the Pyrenees and Apennines, as well as Venice, none of which she had visited, to which modern editors point out that only about a third of the novel takes place in the titular Gothic castle, and that the tone and style of the work vary significantly between sections. She depended on travel guides for specifics, which resulted in various inaccuracies.

The story, set in southern France and northern Italy in 1584, follows Emily St. Aubert, a young French woman orphaned by her father's death. Signor Montoni, an Italian brigand who has married her aunt and guardian Madame Cheron, has her imprisoned at Castle Udolpho. Emily's relationship with the dashing Valancourt is thwarted by him and others. Emily also looks into her father's relationship with the Marchioness de Villeroi and how it relates to Castle Udolpho.

Emily St. Aubert is the sole child of a wealthy rural family on the verge of bankruptcy. Emily and her father have a very strong relationship based on their common love of nature. Following her mother's death from sickness, they become further closer. She travels with him from their home Gascony to the Mediterranean coast of Roussillon, passing through several rugged regions. During their travels, they meet Valancourt, a dashing young man who has a mysterious connection with nature. Emily and Valancourt develop feelings for one another.

Emily's father passes away after a lengthy illness. Emily, who is now orphaned, is forced to live with her aunt, Madame Cheron, who has no interest in Emily's hobbies and displays no compassion for her. Her aunt marries Montoni, a shady Italian aristocrat. He wants to marry Emily's friend, Count Morano and attempts to force him on her. Montoni invites Emily and her aunt to his secluded castle of Udolpho after finding Morano is virtually demolished.

Emily is concerned that she has lost Valancourt for good. Morano looks for Emily and attempts to smuggle her away from Udolpho in the dark, but Emily's heart belongs to Valancourt, and she refuses. Montoni discovers Morano's attempted escape and wounds him before chasing him away. Montoni threatens his wife with violence in the months following, attempting to get her to sign up her possessions in Toulouse, which would otherwise pass to Emily upon his wife's death. Madame Cheron dies of a serious illness brought on by her husband's harshness without renouncing her inheritance.

In the castle, many terrifying yet fortuitous incidents occur, but Emily tries to leave with the assistance of a hidden lover, Du Pont, who is also a prisoner there, and the servants Annette and Ludovico. When Emily returns to her aunt's house, she discovers that Valancourt has fled to Paris and squandered his fortune. Despite this, she gains control of the land and is eventually reunited with Valancourt.

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Rating: 80/100

Recommended: 90/100 Yes.

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