When Will Hollywood Discover Richard Laymon?

I'm not gonna lie. I was never a big book reader, my yearly average was pretty much one a year, if that. I know, it's shameful. But, over the past couple of years something clicked and I've been on a book binge ever since.

I've read most of Stephen King's catalog, nearly all but finished Thomis Harris', delved into Dean Koontz, took a few reads from Clive Barker and James Herbert, and most recently I've been into Richard Laymon.

Now most of these authors have become household names, and I'm sure many of you discovered most through their film adaptations rather than their literature, and that's me all over.

Watched all the films but never though to read the source material until recently. But, one thing that has stood out is that I can't find a single adaptation of any of Laymon's books, not one. Why is that? Why won't anyone touch his work? I take a look within.
Richard Laymon was born January 14, 1947 and sadly passed in February 14, 2001. During his time he became a prominent American horror writer  in the horror and suspense genre as well being a mainstay figure during the Splatterpunk movement.

Laymon had wrote 40+ novels during his career as well as a slew of short stories. Some of his most well known work is Island, The Lake, The Woods Are Dark, The Cellar, Funland, and one of the last books he ever wrote; The Travelling Vampire Show. His books range from vampires, maniacs, the supernatural, cannibals, creatures, pretty much anything you can think of within horror, Laymon has probably wrote about it.

If you've ever read any of his books you'll usually find a quote from Stephen King praising the writer such as, "If you've missed Laymon, you've missed a treat." Dean Kootnz has also praised his work. Both writers have had a number of their books adapted to the screen, but Laymon's still lay waiting to be adapted. And well, maybe that's a good thing, sometimes horror fiction doesn't translate that well to the screen, especially with all the creatures and gruesomeness that one can imagine in their own head. But, just take a look at The Shining, Odd Thomas, heck, even my personal favorite Maximum Overdrive, although I did recently watch the TV movie Trucks, and well, the less said about that one the better.

But it all goes down to personal preference. But Laymon's, much like King and Koontxz is just ripe for the picking, so why hasn't Hollywood delved in?

Maybe it's some of the subject matter. Now I've only read a handful of Laymon's books, so I'm a far cry from an expert on his work, but I've noticed a running theme through some. he LOVES breasts, I swear nearly every other page there is the word BREAST. Now don't get me wrong, I'm a connoisseur on the subject, but it comes across more than just a lover but more an obsession and then there's the whole rape thing.

I've only read a handful of his novels, but I've delved quite deep into his short stories and both seem to have the running theme of rape between them. Now, I don't mean that each focuses just on that, but rape scenes do appear quite often, plus many of the women seem to be all too willing to get naked or use their bodies to get what they want, and it can be just in some random scenes that just seems so out of place. So maybe Hollywood just isn't too keen on a lot of what features throughout his work, but if you can get passed a lot of the sexualization of women there is a lot to admire in his work.

I really enjoyed some of his short stories such as The Maiden which features a potential blood-thirsty mermaid, Wishbone which features a human skeleton stuck in a tree that suddenly animates with horrific results and then there's Herman, the invisible man or Good Vibrations which features some kind of sand monster/pervert, or maybe Roadside Pickup where a young woman dupes people into her trap, also another road-type story is I'm Not a Criminal, which is a little silly but reminded me of the Hitcher, just boosted on the whole crazy scale.

And then of course there is Stickman, much like a scarecrow, but pretty much just a stick which wears the limbs of its victims. It's crazy stuff and with things like Slenderman, this just seems like a no-brainer.

When it comes to his novels, Island is just a slasher fans dream, it's ripe for the pickings for someone to adapt into a slasher film, and Funland, although it was on the slow side, I could imagine that could be a fun movie to watch with all the craziness and sideshow attractions featured at the amusement park. And quite possibly one of the most original which was also one of his last is The Travelling Vampire Show which features a vampire in captivity who performs, it's such a unique book that is just laying in wait to be adapted. I'm sure there are many more that could be adapted also, so if you've read some Laymon books and agree that they should be adapted, which do you think would work or perhaps you have another author in mind?

Oh, also the aptly titled novel, Savage, which gives a different take on Jack the Ripper, it's interesting stuff.