Night of Madness by Ryan Douglass

Mara is a horror buff whose only fond memories of her dad are bonding over movies by Jack Stanley—the producer of the eighties. Stanley’s campy slasher movies may have kept Mara’s fraught parental relationship on life support and gained a cult following, but the man himself has faded from the public eye…until he announces a contest centered around Asylum, his most terrifying film. Five teen influencers will be invited to spend the night on the fully constructed set; whoever sticks it out until morning wins a hundred thousand dollars.

Stuck in a dead-end job, Mara seriously needs that cash. She may not be a famous influencer, but there has to be a way to manufacture an online presence that will capture Stanley’s attention. With the help of her brother and best friend, Mara finds some creative solutions to her dilemma and lands herself onto the roster of the lucky chosen few by way of her engaging authenticity.

When Mara and the other contestants arrive on set, it’s a horror fan’s dream being immersed in the asylum setting, but as the night wears on, they realize the danger is more than movie magic… They’re not there to win or lose but to live or die. As Mara fights to survive, she discovers an inner ruthlessness she didn’t know she had. Just how far will she go to see the sunrise—and will she still recognize herself by the end?

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The cameras are rolling. The asylum is waiting. And this time, the danger is real.

✶ PRE-READING ✶

An abandoned asylum. A horror film producer. Five teen influencers. A hundred thousand dollars.

This is very much the “influencers go somewhere terrifying and get killed” subgenre of horror, but Night of Madness does something I wasn't expecting: it takes its time.

Rather than dropping the characters into the horror almost immediately, we spend the first third watching Mara try to make herself interesting enough to earn a place on the show.

And surprisingly, I think that works.

✶ POST-READING ✶

As I thought... Mara is an interesting protagonist.

She's got the familiar motivation of someone desperate to escape a dead-end life in a dead-end town, but her connection to horror producer Jack Stanley gives her something that many protagonists in this sort of story don't have: a personal reason to care about the man behind the game.

Her memories of watching Stanley's films with her father give the whole contest another layer. She's not just chasing the prize money or trying to become famous. She's stepping into a world that's been connected to her life for years.

I also really enjoyed the first part of the book, even though it takes a while for the horror to properly begin. Watching Mara and her friends try increasingly ridiculous ways to build her social media presence is funny, revealing and useful groundwork for understanding who she is.

And then they arrive at the asylum.

That's where the book gets tense.

The setting is creepy almost immediately. An abandoned medical space is frightening enough without adding anything supernatural to it, and the fact that this one has been recreated as a film set adds another layer of unease. Everything is supposed to be artificial.

Except it increasingly isn't.

Once things start happening, the tension ramps up very quickly. The combination of reality TV and horror works particularly well because the characters are already accustomed to performing for an audience. The question becomes what happens when the performance stops being something they can control.

It surprised me by... how much of the book is really about the idea of performance.

Mara spends the beginning trying to construct an online version of herself convincing enough to get noticed. Then she enters a horror scenario where everyone is being watched, judged and filmed.

And eventually, surviving means finding out what she's actually capable of when there's no audience left to impress.

It's a solid, quick horror read, with a particularly effective setting and a good understanding of why abandoned medical spaces are so inherently unsettling.

✦ RECOMMENDATIONS ✦

Book Recommendation: Clown in a Cornfield by Adam Cesare, for another fast-moving horror story that understands how much fun there is to be had with modern media, small-town settings and a whole lot of people making very questionable decisions.

TV or Movie Recommendation: The Blair Witch Project, for the reality-TV-adjacent feeling of people entering a situation they believe they understand, only to discover that the rules have changed.

✧ VIBE CHECK ✧

A colour palette: sickly hospital green, fluorescent white, dirty grey and the deep black of corridors where the lights have gone out.

A soundtrack: camera equipment humming, footsteps echoing down empty corridors and the sudden silence when something should be making noise.

A season: late autumn, when darkness arrives early and abandoned buildings feel particularly hostile.

A mood: tense, claustrophobic, voyeuristic and increasingly desperate.

A scent: disinfectant that's long since faded, damp concrete and something medicinal underneath it all.

A texture: cold metal railings and peeling paint beneath your fingertips.

★ TAROT CARD PULLED ★

Seven of Wands.

The Seven of Wands is about holding your ground when everything is pushing against you.

Mara spends the first part of the story fighting to prove that she belongs in the competition. Once she gets there, the stakes become considerably more literal.

But there's another battle happening too: the fight to survive without becoming someone she doesn't recognise.

The question isn't simply whether Mara can make it through the night.

It's what she'll have to become to do it.

Final Thoughts

Night of Madness publishes on the 29th of September. I received a free copy and am giving an honest review.