Night of the Mannequins – Book Review and Summary
Review and summary of novella Night of the Mannequins by author Stephen Graham Jones
Spoiler Free Review
This is my third book from acclaimed horror author Stephen Graham Jones. I think it’s my favorite so far. It starts as a simple prank gone wrong, teenagers in trouble, slightly supernatural horror story and turns into something far more interesting.
A group of friends once found a mannequin in the woods. As teens would naturally do they use this mannequin to prank each other. They spend a summer placing this mannequin, named Manny, in silly situations to startle each other. When they return to school they abandon their inanimate friend.
They bring him back for an epic prank on their friend Shanna but it doesn’t go as planned. Manny just gets up and walks away from the whole scenario. Did this mannequin just become alive?! Although most of the friends come up with reasons this could have happened that don’t involve Manny gaining sentience the narrator knows that he’s alive, and malevolent.
Night of the Mannequins takes an unpredictable turn as it follows the narrator attempting to mitigate the potential carnage he believes Manny will cause. We are left to decide if we believe his perception of the events or believe that mannequins cannot move of their own accord and that something else is going on.
I loved this use of an unreliable narrator and was excited to watch the events unfold. The story is weird and sad and above all it’s different. I thought I knew what kind of book I was getting into but it got turned on its head.
At 136 pages Night of the Mannequins is a quick read that stays entertaining throughout. Although I would have liked just a wee more character development the story is effective and definitely horrific.
If you read the bestseller The Only Good Indians you’ll be drawn to this one as well. I love a good horror book and appreciate compact ones that stick to the scares. Recommended for anyone wanting to get spooked over a weekend.
4/5 mannequins 👨🏻🦲👨🏻🦲👨🏻🦲👨🏻🦲
in order to keep me up to my ears in books please consider using the following affiliate links to purchase this product. it’s at no extra cost to you and would really help me out, thank you and happy reading!
Night of the Mannequins Summary
This short novel starts with the narrator, who goes unnamed for nearly all of the book, describing the situation which brought him and his friends to play a prank on their friend. The target, Shanna, has started working at the local movie theater and they have a devilish idea.
The summer before they had found a mannequin in the woods and used him to play little pranks on everyone until they went back to school and forgot about him. They resurface Manny the mannequin and sneak him into the theater.
They reassemble and dress him and place him in a seat like he’s watching the film. The managers, with Shanna, come into the room to check tickets but the person who checks Manny doesn’t seem alarmed that he’s inanimate. The friends sit quietly through the movie, confused about what happened. As the credits roll Manny stands up and exits the theater.
The narrator sees this happen and knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that Manny is alive. His friends try to come up with more realistic conclusions.
Then, Shanna is killed. A semi truck plows through her house and kills her and her family. Most people decide it’s a tragic accident but the narrator knows it was Manny.
In another strange occurance bags of fertilizer start to go missing from the neighborhood. Residents chalk it up to local youths but we’re told that it’s Manny. He’s eating the fertilizer and growing to Kaiju proportions. He’s ready to kill the entire friend group and everyone they hold dear and absolutely no one will be able to stop him.
This is where Night of the Mannequins becomes an unpredictable horror story. I thought that it’d be a simple supernatural mannequin killing spree but I was very wrong. The narrator is convinced that Manny is going to kill not only his friends but also their families and that he must put a stop to the carnage.
He concludes that his friends will die, there’s just no way around that, but that he can at least keep the families alive. He comes up with a psychotic plan to kill his friends before Manny can get to him. If the friends are already dead then there’s no reason to come for the families, right?
He starts with his friend Tim. He strangles him and explicitly stages the body so that it doesn’t look like a suicide. He doesn’t want his family to have any guilt about his death so he makes it look like a murder. It’s starting to look like maybe his actions are misguided.
Next he kills Danielle and her boyfriend. The boyfriend wasn’t involved in the prank but it’s reasoned that 2 deaths is fewer than Danielle’s whole family so it’s okay. Plus he doesn’t much like this boyfriend so it’s a bonus. This time he dons a mannequin mask and kills them in the movie theater. Seeing as how this is a very public place people see him flee the scene. The media dubs this strange new killer Blankface.
He has one friend left to kill. They go to the drive in with the friend’s family and as he attempts to lure him away from them a tornado swoops in. But the narrator knows this isn’t a tornado, this is Manny coming for them with a deranged fury. So he quickly kills his last friend in an attempt to stop the chaos.
He flees the scene and goes to the lake where he’s sure that Manny has been living. He takes a little boat out to the middle of the lake and awaits Manny’s return. He hopes that Manny will be impressed or grateful for all that he’s done and take him away to live as a mannequin.
Night of the Mannequins ends with him wearing his plastic mask and bobbing in his little boat proud of murdering his best friends.