A review by thecommonswings
After Dark by Manly Wade Wellman

4.0

What a strange little book - it feels like a charming, low budget, ramshackle rural horror film from the mid seventies and I enjoyed it very much. Something about the small scale universe of it (effectively it’s a siege story but with thinly veiled vampires) and Wellman’s obvious knowledge of the milieu is very charming. Occasionally there’s the sense of the writer throwing way too much scholarship, and showing off a little in the process, at the page but again that’s quite sweetly done. I really enjoyed it, mainly because it doesn’t go for huge elder god rural horror. It knows what it wants to do and is resolutely old fashioned but that’s in no way a bad thing at all