NIGHT OF THE MANNEQUINS

Nightmare whisperer Jones offers up an eerie, contrarian take on a teenage slasher’s daydreams.

Jones is clearly capable of heavier fare, but fans will appreciate this nasty little novel that’s closer to The Babysitter Lives (2025) or I Was a Teenage Slasher (2024) with its eccentric reversal of horror tropes. Wes Craven couldn’t have set it up better: A teen lark goes terribly wrong with fatal consequences. “So Shanna got a new job at the movie theater, we thought we’d play a fun prank on her, and now most of us are dead, and I’m really starting to feel kind of guilty about it all”: So confesses our narrator, Sawyer Grimes, who comes off at first like the good guy in any 1980s horror movie, just trying to Scooby-Doo his way through a bloodbath. The prank involves a rancid old mannequin, aka “Manny,” who seemingly comes to life, gorging on plant food and growing into a murderous, unstoppable killing machine. But wait—now Sawyer has gotten the bizarre idea that Manny has sworn revenge against him and his friends, and will kill all of their families—unless Sawyer kills all of his buddies first! “I’d read Frankenstein in AP English, so I knew you don’t just walk away from your creations,” Sawyer says. “Not without consequences.” There’s a lot going on in this brief book, not least a convincing portrayal of mental illness spawned by early trauma, abetted by hallucinatory visions of carnage. Sawyer’s inner monologue is frightening because that voice is so familiar, which is why it’s disarming when readers figure out it’s all an acidly funny take on the deluded “chosen boy” trope. Sawyer’s delusional commentary is also surprisingly compelling, which is good because his friends are all, as advertised, pretty disposable—final girls and all.

Weird, startling, and tightly wound, a scary story ripe for gorehounds who grew up reading about The Baby-Sitters Club.