YMMV / Richard Laymon

• Anti-Climax Boss: Resurrection Dreams, The Woods Are Dark, The Traveling Vampire Show.
  • One Rainy Night is an interesting variation in that the one who caused the black rain, the voodoo priest, is disposed off with ease but the final boss of the novel turns out to be Buddy who causes some trouble before being taken down for good.
• Ass Pull: After Midnight has one when the protagonist is backed into a corner. She reveals that she's been secreting a knife this whole time.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: There's always at least one sex scene per story and plenty of narration revolving around women's anatomy.
• Cliché Storm: Laymon tends to write the same archetypes for every story.
• Designated Hero: The female lead in Flesh faces this criticism, as she spends the majority of her scenes obsessing about men and sex, her actions only work to the antagonist's advantage, she learns nothing and ends up sleeping with the real hero of the story.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: Resurrection Dreams has a villain who likes wearing loud colours. The villains in The Glory Bus dress like the stereotypical bad-boy and bad-girl you'd expect to see in a high-school drama.
• Fridge Horror: The existence of vampires is debatable in Laymon's works, but even if they don't exist, there's still a lot of biting and blood-sucking. Considering how the average person's mouth is less sanitary than a dog's, that means the risk of disease is quite high.
• Iron Woobie: Considering the number of female protagonists who get raped or narrowly avoid rape, it's pretty amazing that so many of them have the emotional strength to fight back.
• Jerkass Woobie: The stray dog from The Travelling Vampire Show. It's vicious as hell, but you can't help but feel bad as it was prodded with spears until it died.