I recently found a treasure trove of vintage horror books at a local flea market and this was one of them.

Getting started was slow going with this one, not sure why. I usually make short work of these type stories, vintage horror is my jam. Maybe the writing style? Maybe the characters?

The main male protagonist, Charlie... a self absorbed, insufferable, whiney prick... is pretty tough to stomache.
Julia, his wife, honestly isn't any better, weak and pathetic are her main personality traits.
The daughter, Beth, is very generic. I feel very little thought went into her character development. Although, synopsis of the story centers on her... we will get back to that later...she was the very basic child side character, inmature for her age, unbelievably naive and " child like", etc.

The synopsis..very misleading. The events mentioned only take place at the end, and in a very small part. The main story isn't really about Beth, her Halloween story or her change into "an evil and horrible creature".

While this may sound like a negative review, I did end up actually liking the story. Once about halfway through, I became engrossed and read it very quickly. I liked the ending tremendously and appreciated the steer away from the typical all ends well ending. ( )