The basic backstory of this novel is that a young Shaun Hutson was doing well in the horror paperback publishing world. He had four best-selling novels, Slugs, Spawn, Erebus and Shadows. He was approached by his publishers to write a novelization of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Unfortunately, the rights were more than the publishers wanted to shell out so they said, what the hell, just give us your own chainsaw horror novel. Shaun threw in some other grisly power tools and submitted Chainsaw Terror. The year was 1984. The stores refused it. This was the era in the UK of the video nasties so to have a book suggesting murderous chainsaw violence was a no-no. The publisher, Star took it and rebranded it with the generic title, Come the Night in 1985.
Not exactly as graphicly enticing as Chainsaw Terror. These days the novel, in either form, is rare but particularly in the case of the pulled version of Chainsaw Terror. So, once again to the benefit of vintage paperback horror lovers worldwide, Fathom Press got the rights and republished it under the original title, Chainsaw Terror in beautiful and nowhere near dead mass market paperback size. It also has new classic 80s horror movie homage artwork painted by Stephen Andrade. Justin says that it SHOULD be out by the end of February 2026. Give the man a break if it’s not, he’s at the whim of his printers. Click on this FATHOM PRESS link to purchase.
Video review here. Written review below.
The year is 1978. We are right outside London. A young lad named Ed Briggs is watching TV when his workaholic handyman dad comes home early from work. Hello son, where’s mom?
Mom is upstairs packing her bags. She’s had enough of this loveless marriage. She’s met a new man and in his arm’s is where she will be from now on.
Dad is not into this new arrangement and lets her know how he feels about it with physical violence. He smashes a silver mirror and with a sharp sliver of mirror he repeatedly stabs her. After her last breath escapes her lips, he takes the sliver and slashes his own throat.
At the bedroom door young Ed has been watching in fascination the entire time. The scene is written in pure graphic violence and gore.
The year is now 1983. Ed and his sister Maureen, now adults, are still living in the house. Ed took over Dad’s handyman business. We get a sample of modern-day Ed and his opinions on women. He is on a handyman job, and the woman is being flirty. Asking about his girlfriends. MOCKING HIM. Or so he thinks. He feels embarrassed and humiliated, which makes him angry. Why do women act like that? Because they are sluts who need to be put in their place. It seems Dad’s handyman business isn’t all that Ed took over from his father.
You know what woman doesn’t act like that? Maureen. His dear younger sister Maureen. She’s the kind of woman that Ed could appreciate if you know what I mean.
But poor Maureen does not feel the same way. She hates living with her creepy brother who is always relating them to a married couple. Ed is stifling, controlling and jealous, which is no good because Maureen has met a man and wants to move in with him.
Before Dad died, he sound-proofed the home. He hated outside noises. Maureen finds living in the home depressing. Like living in a vacuum. No sound gets out. The only thing that exists while you are in the house is the people inside. Every sound is pronounced and loud. Dripping water. Creaking Steps. It really sets the tone of trapped isolation.
Ed has made some adjustments to the house himself including peepholes to watch Marueen take baths. While creeping Ed thinks to himself, no one turns him on like Maureen. They belong together. If she were ever to leave, he doesn’t know what he’d do. He goes down to his workshop cellar to contemplate some more. He plays with his chainsaw.
Maureen is done with Ed. He hardly talks. He isolates himself from the world. He makes her very uncomfortable. While venting to her Derbyshire boyfriend Mike, he invites her to come live with him. Finally, Maureen sees an escape, but she is afraid of her brother’s reaction. When she gets home, she tells Ed right away.
Out comes the cleaver and he starts hacking. One in the neck. Chops off her hand. Chops off her head and holds it in front of him. He gets turned on by her headless corpse lying on the floor. Ah man, please don’t go where I think this is going.
Thankfully, not that far but still absolutely brutal. This is total gore described in excruciating detail. Her body and bits gets shoved into a plastic bag. Her decapitated head is taken into their parent’s room and set on a pillow where he gently whispers, “I told you you’d never leave me.”
And there it is, Ed is now an up-and-coming serial killer. Maureen’s boyfriend gets it next when he comes searching. It’s enjoyable to Ed because he was Maureen’s lover but what he’s really looking to do is punish some more women. Typical incel behavior.
We cut to our protagonists. Dave Todd is a reporter doing a story on the seedy side of SoHo. Sex shops, strip clubs and hookers. Dave has made friends with two ladies of the night, Valerie and Amy. We get some emotional investment here as the author shows the beautiful ladies as the wonderful human beings that they are. Shaun Hutson ain’t no incel, he knows what’s up. From a reader standpoint though we know that’s no good. These ladies are probably going to get it.
The writing in this book is vivid. Very colorful. Like if prose was neon lights.
Ed visits SoHo to pick up ladies. He wants to bang them in front of his dead sister’s decapitated head. Different strokes for different folks, right? Being the weirdo that Ed is, he will tell the hookers his real name. What difference does it make, they won’t be around to tell anyone anyway. Or maybe that’s just how off he is.
Let’s stop for a second and check on how Maureen’s head is doing.
“It was in an advanced state of putrefaction now. The skin had lost that waxy sheen and was now dull and flabby. The eyelids were closed, covering the eyes which were now almost fluid- soft mushy balls which looked like coagulated grease. One ear had withered like a flower exposed to flame and the eyebrows and lashes had come away in places. A clear fluid had trickled from both nostrils and solidified on the drooping top lip. The cheeks were sunken, a piece of bone showing through on the left side.”
The rest of the book follows the same trajectory. Ladies go missing. Dave Todd, the reporter, is reminded of a brutal murder he once read about involving someone with the last name as Ed. Dave and Valerie are on their own as they try and figure out what is going on with the missing women and the connection to this son of a murderer.
This is a straight slasher movie. It's one of the adult slashers though. No kids at a camp. This is grimy big city streets. It’s sleazy with it’s neon lights and porn shops and pimps. The ladies working the streets doing what needs to be done and some just like it and that’s just the way it is. In this way it reminded me of an old Men’s Adventure Magazine shocking supposed true feature of the life of a pro. “We just do it for kicks, you suburban squares!”
It’s not cartoonish. There aren’t masked supernatural stalkers with cool theme music. It’s cold, real and unsettling. Taxi Driver meets Driller Killer.
And it leans hard into the gore. We’re talking about Hershell Gordon Lewis type stuff right here.
“Edward was panting for breath. He steadied the McCullough (the chainsaw) and, with a shout of pleasure, drove the monstrous blade forward. It ripped into her, pulverizing the delicate flesh, tearing upwards through her body, the barbs hacking effortlessly onward as he pushed, driving further as they began to churn through her intestines. Blood sprayed in all directions. Now he wrenched it free, briefly hearing the drone of metal on bone as it crunched her pelvis and lower ribs into a thousand splinters. Entrails seemed to snake upwards like the bleeding tentacles of some stricken octopus and a stench so rank it made him sick, wafted up from the riven cavity of her stomach.”
It spends time with the brutality. It's weird to think this was from the 80s. It feels like it was written yesterday with how much it nails the atmosphere. In a modern day lens, it’s easy to look back on slasher movies and pull out all the stops but this pulled it off in the era.
I've never read a horror book like this and to be honest, extreme horror is not my cup of tea. The detailed chunkin’ and cuttin’ up of bodies is a wading pool of gooey guts here. That being said, it’s from the 80s. Their extreme is not the same extreme you would get in some modern day books who fly the extreme flag.
My personal favorite aspect of the book was the sleazy SoHo street-walker parts. If this story was told strictly from their perspective, it would read more like an erotic serial killer thriller. As is though, if you are a fan of the gloriously bloody heyday of 80s slashers, this is the book you’ve been looking for.
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