Have you ever watched Nic Cage's 8mm Movie? You have okay well that's like a children's cartoon, Dora the Explorer, Blues clues compared to this freaking book omg. It's dark, graphic, brutal, stomach-turning disturbing but in a good way. The author is so descriptive I could smell the filthy dark, damp alleyways and disgusting rooms.

Let's talk about Andy who is an unsympathetic addict and voyeur deprived of any human remorse. He maintains the Colossus Theater's projectors. Andy uses these particular projectors to lure in men with an insatiable taste for darkness and extreme horror that money can buy. But what they don't know is that Andy possesses a very unique film whose origins are unknown but what is shown is truly horrifying and chilling.

I am going to say this because I don't want to give much away but if you have a very weak stomach, and can't deal with triggers this is not the book for you because baby it has damn near all of them and they are dark and twisted. But if you are like me and love a dark and twisted story this book is definitely for you. I can tell you this it's one of those books you will remember for a long time. I devoured this book in one day only coming up to drink and eat.

A rollicking mashup of horror subgenres and a loving homage to The Deuce. Expertly evokes a long-gone midtown Manhattan while skewering toxic fan entitlement. Very good!!!

Rating: ★★★★☆ (4/5 stars)

Preston Fassel, the award-winning author of "Our Lady of the Inferno," returns with another chilling tale that plunges readers into the heart of New York's darkest days. "Beasts of 42nd Street" takes us on a blood-soaked journey through Times Square at the peak of its decadence and depravity, where murder, betrayal, and unspeakable horrors lurk in the shadows.

At the center of this kingdom of the damned is Andy Lew, an unapologetic junkie and voyeur who maintains the Colossus theater's projectors. It is here that he captivates the dangerous men with the most extreme horror cinema money can buy. Yet, there is something peculiar about Andy. He possesses a unique film, its origins shrouded in mystery. The woman it features is ethereal, while the nightmarish images it presents plunge deeper into the abyss than any other. The denizens of 42nd Street will stop at nothing to obtain it, but Andy's love for the enigmatic woman drives him to protect her at all costs.

"Beasts of 42nd Street" serves as both a savage love letter to 70s exploitation cinema and a biting satire of toxic fan culture. The novel dares to make horror dangerous again by delving into the mind of a psychopath like no other, leaving readers recoiling even as they crave more. It unapologetically guides us through the grimy and sleazy underbelly of 1970s New York, where the most base and primitive human desires reign supreme.

Preston Fassel's writing style is a revelation. It flows effortlessly, painting vivid images that linger long after the book is closed. Each sentence is meticulously crafted to provoke a visceral response, immersing readers in the sinister atmosphere of 42nd Street. The author's ability to conjure images that linger in the mind showcases his mastery of the genre.

One of the most striking aspects of this novel is the absence of traditional protagonists. The characters we encounter are not individuals to whom we can easily relate or sympathize with. They are violent, sociopathic, and sadistic drug addicts, solely driven by their self-interests. And strangely enough, that is what makes this book so captivating. I found myself completely enthralled by these despicable individuals, not because I agreed with their actions, but because the story left an indelible mark on my soul. The lingering feeling of contamination, as if I needed to cleanse my very being, is a testament to the profound impact of this narrative.

While "Beasts of 42nd Street" features a supernatural element, the true horror lies within the depths of the human psyche. The characters alone are terrifying enough, and their journeys lead us to a chilling climax that will leave readers breathless. This book is an unapologetic exploration of the darkest recesses of the human condition, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to those who are unafraid to confront their own fears.

In conclusion, "Beasts of 42nd Street" by Preston Fassel is a gripping and unrelenting descent into a world tainted by violence, depravity, and obsession. With its masterful writing, memorable characters, and its ability to leave readers feeling haunted, this novel stands as a testament to Fassel's talent and establishes him as a force to be reckoned with in the horror genre. Prepare to be enthralled and disturbed in equal measure.

Took me a very long time to get through this one because I was juggling too many books at a time. But it's definitely a unique one for sure.

So just how messed up is this story?  Where do I even begin.  Fassel's tale of junkies, snuff films, and revenge set in 1970's New York City makes Nic Cage's movie, 8MM, look like an episode of Sesame Street.  It's brutal, it's disturbing, it's graphic.  I could smell the filthy rooms and back alleyways, I could feel the grime that covered every surface.  This book is not for everyone (fair warning:  if you have any triggers, just walk away now, as this pretty much has them all), but if you like to immerse yourself in depressing stories of depravity, then you really need to check this one out.

First time reading Preston Fassel, and really enjoyed this book. Enjoyed the characters, the p[ot, and the pacing. We definitely need to read more from Preston Fassel. #Beastsof42ndStreet #NetGalley

It took a few chapters for me to get into it, but once I did I really enjoyed Beasts of 42nd Street. It was a great collection of well-rounded despicable characters that I didn’t fully hate. I’ll be keeping an eye out for more from the author.

Cemetery Dance is a name almost synonymous in horror publishing with quality and cutting-edge works. Cinephile and novelist Preston Fassel brings us The Beasts of 42nd Street, a cinematic novel that combines the bleakest parts of New York with the grimmest depths of the human soul.

Meet Andy Lew. A loser, degenerate, addict and voyeur. Andy runs the projects at the Colossus theater, showing extreme and depraved horror films. Andy has a secret, though: he owns a mysterious movie nobody seems to know much about. The maker is unknown but the horror it depicts is truly chilling. The starlet leading the cast is beautiful, so gorgeous that Andy is frighteningly obsessed with her.

There are no heroes in New York, not in Fassel’s novel. Andy is a dope fiend and haunted by something in his past. For much of the early third of the novel, Andy is completely unsympathetic and despicable, until Fassel weaves a picture of a more sympathetic lead. Nobody around Andy is any more sympathetic, a combination of street filth and cruelty that seeks to possess the mysterious film Andy owns.

The Beasts of 42nd Street reads as a homage to the exploitation grindhouse cinema films of old. The novel has a grimy underbelly, something Fassel delights in portraying. The writer enjoys showcasing the lives of society’s forgotten. The lurid grotesquerie is almost artistic as a result. If Andy is redeemable, it is only just. Those around him are even worse. This is not a book that will appeal to everyone, but the reader may envision it playing onscreen in a small theater at midnight while an old projector rattles audibly in the background.

DNF about 88 pages in. The style of writing isn’t something for me. Thanks to the publisher for giving me a chance to read it. Seems to be one others are looking forward to

Andy Lew works in one of the 42nd Street grindhouses as a projectionist, always championing the explicit, the outré, the weird. Maybe it's what the Colossus' audiences have been eager to see all these years, or maybe he's just giving himself a perverse satisfaction. The truth is found somewhere in the Venn Diagram overlap between both of these outcomes. He's an artist, he's a junkie, he's obsessed with a film woman he cannot identify, he's a thief of moments who swipes individual frames here and there from the prints that roll through his theater. The 1970s is the heyday of such licentious material, giving him access to some interesting stuff indeed.

Andy's latest program is for Last House on Dead End Street, a flick that has attracted the wrong kind of attention. It's a cinematic depiction of human evil and twisted kink, and it also happens to be a flick that a couple of losers kind of want to steal. Why? Who hired them? Well, that's part of the mystery. Could it be the porn star Nicky "Blayze" Blaszkiewicz, who faked his own death and now lords over a hidden empire of sex and violence? Well, be him or not, he might be the guy to show Andy's experimental film to: a clipped together bit of elements stolen from other movies or taken from real life traumas: it's a film looking for a distributor.

However, bad luck rears its ugly head when Andy's dirty cop pal Michael "Gator" Hyatt shows up with news: Andy's missing brother Steven has been found. Actually, it's only his head that's been located, and the forensic evidence around that head has been opening a lot of questions about statements Andy made at the time of his brother's disappearance. This news has set a fire under Andy's butt about getting some cash and getting out of town (with his prized reel, of course; he could not go anywhere without … Her). Maybe getting a new identity and a new existence in California.

Everything seems to be conspiring against Andy, however. His manager at the Colossus, the cops, his own family, and a patron with an agenda are all working against his best wishes. And the monkey on Andy's back doesn't help.

When his one prized possession is taken from him, well, that's a step too far. Tracking it down will reveal plenty about the city that he's taken for granted and his place in it. He will discover the identity of the mastermind behind The Last House on Dead End Street print theft, a hidden cult, and even the depth of homicidal evil he is capable of. Andy Lew is coming, and he's not going to let anything stand between him and his true, sick love.

Preston Fassel's novel The Beasts of 42nd Street is a difficult to categorize beast all its own. A gritty novel that deals with crime fiction staples, but is not crime fiction per se. It's a novel about one man standing against overwhelming odds, but it's not a thriller per se. It's about a bargain made with a mysterious power, fueled with murder and drugs, but it's not a horror novel per se. Some passages possess a surreal stream of consciousness, others are energetic rants, and still others are sobering evocations of a bygone place in a bygone time but it's not a literary novel per se. In fact, The Beasts of 42nd Street draws upon all of these sources. It's also a solid character study of an odious but ultimately sympathetic sicko. It's an occult-themed grindhouse movie for the mind's eye, in fact, and when it is firing on all cylinders it's almost impossible to put down.

One of the fascinating elements in this book is how it acts like a mirror to some of the author's previous works. Specifically, I noticed both thematic and structural linkages to Fassel's novella, The Despicable Fantasies of Quentin Sergenov. Though Andy Lux is not a human brain deposited inside a deinonychus thanks to weird science, he is every bit as isolated, lonely, and dangerous as Quentin Sergenov from that earlier book. Both works follow a similar progression of loneliness, obsession, reaching out, being hurt, and then ultimately exploding into an incredibly violent final act. Here, we have a generally much meatier story, a beautiful evocation of the grit and grime of New York in this era, and an infusion of fictional events with actual history.

Fassel's novel is divided into multiple sections modeled after a film festival offering. Instead of a proper prologue, we get Coming Attractions, followed by three lengthy Feature Films (two set in the story's present day, and one that's flashback to fill in the gaps), and end with a Missing Reel, followed by End Credits (for the Author's Acknowledgements). These divisions fit into the book's setup quite nicely. There are no chapter breaks labeled as such. Instead, we get scene breaks.

Fassel is an author who is not afraid to drop readers right into the middle of action, giving us a sink or swim appreciation for the material that's going along. There are plenty of foreshadowing, cryptic comments, and details we are left to wonder about—just who is this Her that Andy's so infatuated with? What film is he talking about? Reading the book is akin to first experiencing David Mamet's Glengarry Glenn Ross on stage—listening in to people accustomed to the jargon for their jobs, talking to one another without any concern for cluing us in to just what they're saying. It's challenging, but not impossible, to figure out what's going on and that only adds to the book's attraction for me. It feels all the more authentic instead of manufactured--dare I say more real than reel?

The way Fassel weaves the supernatural threads into the narrative is terrific as well. They are not in your face sorts of things, but sly and questionable—is Mr. Draft just a dude with incredible resources and a perverse sense of humor or could he really be the Devil? This is also in keeping with some of the exploitation fare that serves as spiritual influences /corruptions on this work. I love a book that manages to straddle the "is it/isn't it otherworldly?" question until its final pages … and leaves us wondering if what we've read is even reliable closure or just another slice of unreliable shuck and jive.

Some readers may well be overwhelmed by the plot threads that dangle throughout the book. There are a lot of avenues that open up but never reach a real sense of resolution. In that way, the book feels like a poorly tended bonsai plant, with branches that go every which way and may well need serious pruning. Folks who want a more definitive beginning, middle, and end to their novels will find that with a bit of work. However, there are many avenues not taken, characters who make a notable or threatening appearance and are not heard from again, plot seeds that don't sprout in Andy Lew's life, and some flashback material that appears and disappears without leaving much impact. This kind of cluttered approach only makes the book feel all the more like a document of actual life, but it won't please folks looking for an uncluttered experience.

The Beasts of 42nd Street is not necessarily an entertaining book, per se. It's an interesting one, captivating and scuzzy and as fascinating as a car crash. Andy Lew is not a likeable protagonist, but he is one that's interesting to follow around for a while. Fassel's book is a real trip of a read, an immersion into the filth of The Deuce at its height and a way to process all the freaks, geeks, and beasts who dwell there. A mishmash of genres, an elegant prose style, and a wealth of research bring this period and these people to giddy and often gruesome life in a yarn that's impossible to forget once the final page is turned.
#
A special thank you to both NetGalley and Cemetery Dance for supplying an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book. True gritty new York crime/horror novel. The main central point evolves around a snuff film and one man.. I highly recommend.

This book was amazing to read. I had an epic time reading it and enjoying the thrill it gave me. Man i didn't want the book to end. I stayed up a full day reading this only stopping to eat and you know. This book is a must have so don't pass on it. Buy and love it like i do. I was lucky to get a copy for a honest review and honest i am. This book is coming home to me soon as well. Enjoy everyone

This book is the darkest of the dark and deals with the lowest of the low.
BEASTS OF 42ND STREET by @pafassel from @cemeterydancepub March 2023
This is destitution noir, the underbelly of 42nd Street NYC in the 60’s and 70’s. Scrape up the dredges of society and this book is about the deplorable humans that live beneath them.
This is a character study of Andy Lew, a projection film operator working at a rundown grindhouse movie theater. I couldn’t help but like Andy even though he is brash and he does not give any flying fucks…unless it is about her, the stunning mysterious girl who is sadly the main subject in a snuff film that Andy acquired. He has a hyper fixation on the movie reel and his selfish possession of it leads Andy to deal with a reprehensible cast of pornographers, cultists, and the NYPD.
Beasts of 42nd Street is bleak, hideous, violent, and beautiful. It is written so well. This is a true memorial to the rotten Big Apple of the 1970’s.

Way more fun than I expected. Definitely not for everyone but I do think this is going to be a cult classic at some point, at least I hope so.

Three strikes against me as the potential target audience. I am not a cinephile, a denizen of New York City, nor was I alive during the time in which this is set. Obsession and violence are universal tropes however and while I've read reviews that call this work, "shockingly violent", "gross", "extremely graphic", etc. I found it somewhat off-putting, but mostly confusing. I considered not finishing it (due to lack of interest, not because I found any content disagreeable) and while I don't feel any sense of accomplishment by not abandoning it, I don't believe my life's reading adventures have been necessarily bolstered by completing it.

It's fine and I would consider seeking out other works by this author, should they pique my interest.

This book is a gritty peak into New York during the 70s. Porn, drugs, and violence drip off the pages from start to finish. The book mixes dirty noir with psychotic masculine energy to create a visceral experience.

The main protagonist is obsessed with a woman he's never met, which instantly makes him someone many readers, including myself, do not connect with. Characterizations are over-the-top, adding an intentional filthy level of grime to each person. This makes it hard to emotionally invest in any of them. While flaws are expected and welcomed in characters, Beasts of 42nd Street is a cast of so deeply messed-up individuals that some will find it impossible to spot any redeeming qualities.

There is an audience for this book, but it's not me. On a side note, I've read other works by this author that have been exceptional, creative, and brilliant. This book just happened to be a miss, but I encourage readers to find try other works by Preston Fassel.

"Sin City" meets "8MM" meets "Her" in a totally splatterpunk gore fest of obsession, violence, occultism, deception, and death, yea lots of death, and blood and guts. Not for the squeamish, but if you like the gore it's a fun ride.

1977, Times Square: Andrew Lew projects the most extreme horror films he can find at the Colossus Theater on 42nd Street. The heroin addicted reel-worshipper also comes to own a very unique film, one several other local low lifes are willing to do anything to get their grimy hands on.

Told in three sections (with a revealing flashback to the 60s), this love letter to the NYC of yesteryear features one of the sleaziest casts in recent memory (there are no hero’s here), uses the infamous 1977 blackout as a great backdrop for the finale, and had this old Deuce-walker longing for the days when 42nd Street hadn’t become disinfected by Disney. The 70s feel here is so real I was expecting Berkowitz to pop out of the shadows at any minute.

For those of us who used to frequent 42nd Street, and who love exploitation films, BEASTS OF 42nd STREET is sure to get your blood going (I nearly yelled out loud in film-geek glee when a legendary director showed up), and I think the author does a fine enough job that those who may not be completely fascinated by the Times Square of old might still enjoy this sensationalized look back at moviedom’s most infamous block. This is a dirty, sleazy, violent ride, topped off with a supernatural twist.

I had difficulty getting to the story until the third “movie.” Everything before that seemed like a deep fascination and love affair with snuff films from a character that appears to have mental problems – he is in love with a woman he has never met, who got her head caved in. Maybe I would have more of an appreciation for this part of the story if I had more of a background in the 70’s exploitation films that inspired this story. I don’t usually have as much trouble as I do in following where a story is going, but I did with this one. While most of it made sense towards the end, my confusion persisted until nearly the end of the story. The third movie made much more sense and was much easier to follow. I do believe that others will enjoy this book and appreciate the 70's exploitation themes, it just wasn't for me.

Have you ever been driving around and came upon a street sign that reads “No Outlet?” Well, that is what came to mind after reading Beasts. It also reminded me of Matthew Stokoe’s High Life but rather on the east coast. This is a twisted, bleak, graphic, ride into the slime and corruption of New York City. Did I feel like I need to wash my hands after reading? Yes. Did I enjoy it? Hell yes!