Book Review: Johnny Gruesome – Author Gregory Lamberson

Written by Gregory Lamberson
Published by Medallion Press

Publication Date: 2008
Format: B&W – 400 pages
Price: $15.95

Remember the good old days of popping your favorite 80’s splatter VHS into your VCR? Remember hanging out with your friends and watching really good 80’s horror films and having a good time? When I read Gregory Lamberson’s Johnny Gruesome, I felt a sense of nostalgia as I read each page of this revenge beyond the grave tale. Here’s the thing, I was wandering the aisle of Barnes and Noble and discovered this horrific book cover stare at me with an illustration of a decomposing face of a zombie and the book’s title displayed over that image. I must admit I was surprised to see a cover like that.

I haven’t seen a cover like that at all, maybe from a horror comic but on an actual novel, never. I read the synopsis on the back of the book and fell in love with it. This is the kind of story that I’ve been dying to read. The book’s antagonist is very bad ass, he’s the type of kid you should never f*ck with.

The story is straight out of a horror movie, it’s got the blood, guts and babes. I grew even more curious about the man who wrote this book and found out he was responsible for the film SlimeCity. Gregory Lamberson has accomplished a lot over the course of years. In the about the author paragraph, he was born as a horror story teller.

He’s dead on when he said that. Johnny Gruesome was so successful that they made a CD and a mini movie about the antagonist. I felt myself cheering him on as he sought his bloody revenge against the town of Red Hill who in his eyes it has done him wrong. The violence is done just right in this novel. It has everything you would expect from a B-Movie, well the only difference is, this isn’t a B-Movie, in my twisted senses, and this is a B-Novel, something we rarely see in horror literature. Now if they could only make this into a feature length movie, I would be either in Heaven or Hell.

I applaud Gregory for delivering us one hell of a character in Johnny Gruesome, just as the title suggests, this book is gruesome. If you have a love for head banging rockers returning from the dead, then this novel’s for you. It reads just like a slasher film. It’s very well written and very entertaining. The author managed to deliver the chills in this book. I’m glad I had the honor and privilege of reading this novel. I would rate this ten severed bloody heads. I’m looking forward to the author’s next novel, Personal Demons.

Available from Medallion Press