“Scarecrows scare. That’s what they do.”

One of my favorite movies ever made is “Doomsday”: a 2008 action/sci-fi flick that didn’t quite bomb but…have you heard of it? I saw it three times in theater, it was *terrible*, I loved it! “Doomsday” was like shoving “Resident Evil,” “Camelot,” and “Mad Max” all into one, (un)forgettable thrill ride. I’m saying all of this to explain that sometimes throwing spaghetti at the wall works in that “so bad it’s good” kind of way. Sometimes, it doesn’t. “The Nightmare Man” had everything that those good/bad/good again 70’s/80’s slashers depend on: cheesy character tropes, blood ‘n’ guts, really out of pocket dialogue that makes you pause and whisper “what the fuck?” Bursts of really fun/gross stuff that every horror fan can appreciate! I wish those scenes could hold up the book on their own.

Any credibility to the story was shot with inconsistencies and contradictions. Discordant, messy, and confusing plot lines did more damage to the narrative than good. There was SO MUCH happening all at once and at times the over-the-top, almost presumptive tone ruined the fun I was having. It’s hard to want to care about a narrative when one of the main protagonists is a self-fellating, insufferable twat. Also, no way around it: there’s some real dork-ass shit in here, Great Value brand Batman type stuff. Hard to get away from the initial “Scarecrow” word association but it just kept piling on. In reality, the weirdo cast of characters could have really worked in this novels’ favor and it did, at parts, but their impact was lost in the kerfuffle of plot.

And, lastly, it is so, so tiring treating perfectly common congenital disabilities as monstrous. Leave that shit in the past where it never belonged in the first place.

2/5 An aggressive plot and a mixed bag of character appeal can only get you so far.