Review of P.A. Douglas’ “The Dark Man”

The Dark Man is a good old fashion bogey man tale, with flavors of teen horror flicks that many of us grew up on sprinkled in for good measure.  A group of teens decide that they’re going to party hearty one night with some illicit drugs while some want to see if a myth about a stranger coming to visit when other groups of teens have done the same thing in the past is real, or will be something that can be used to scare the pants off of the girls in their little group.  And when they all start tripping and the Dark Man does pay them a visit, they’re forced to figure out what is real and what is hallucination as their unending nightmare begins.

This is a simple and effective horror novella that doesn’t try to create new worlds or new beasts for us to try and wrap our minds around.  Instead of crafting outside worlds of doom and unspeakable horror, it reaches inside the mind, where our primitive fears of the dark and unknown lay tucked away but always within easy reach.  The Dark Man is a fun tale in the sense that it doesn’t require the reader to suspend disbelief or accept the implausible.  Instead, it uses what is inside us already to freak us out and send us to bed with nightmares about what is hiding underneath the bed or inside the darkened closet.

The Dark Man can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Dark-Man-ebook/dp/B009DKCGAK/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1348320489&sr=1-1&keywords=the+dark+man+p.+a.+douglas