Home - The Last Page Bookshop - The Horror Reviews Mail Hal C F Astell - Site Map

The Demon Samurai

Novel by Clay Grant 1978.

Somebody had to do it and it turned out to be Clay Grant. This is the literary equivalent of a monster movie and where better to set it than Tokyo, home of the mighty Godzilla and the culture of the giant monster. Michael Kirk is a man who produces, directs and stars in horror movies and he is in Japan to film Monster Valley. But Mari Yanagawa, who loves the philandering Kirk dearly, has unwittingly set the stage for real monsters to take the place of the rubber ones in Mike's film.

This is not a monster movie in print only because of the obvious connections, but even down to the wooden characterisation, the cheesy dialogue (and cheesier monsters) and the incredible lack of plot. Any subtlety that Clay Grant might have shown in the fascinating interplay between Japanese and Western cultures is crushed by the blatant action. Anybody who loves Godzilla films will probably appreciate this, but anyone whose interest expanded into the fascinating Japanese culture will find it crude, blatant and pitiful.


Home - The Last Page Bookshop - The Horror Reviews Mail Hal C F Astell - Site Map