If you’re like me, you’ve played just about every Puppet Combo game out there. There is something magnetic in their retro stylings and unrelenting gore. If you’re also like me, you’re an avid reader. Always hungry for more Puppet Combo, I’ve compiled a short list of books that evoke the tone of a Puppet Combo game. These books range from direct adaptations of their games, as well as some that feel adjacent to what Puppet Combo might dream up themselves.
There are a lot of fantastic slasher novels out there, and maybe it feels like cheating but I can’t write this list without including the direct adaptations of Puppet Combo games, both because I don’t think many folks have read them, but also because they’re pretty good.
The goal is to capture the essence of the Puppet Combo experience. Small-scale, tight thrillers with a body count and intense gore. Books that range from campy to macabre, books that feature monstrous killers.
Having read each book on the list, I’ll go into brief detail as to why I included them here, and explain what aspect of Puppet Combo games they evoke. Let’s get to it!
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Babysitter Bloodbath
Babysitter Bloodbath is the first entry in a series of adaptations of Puppet Combo games. This is a fleshing-out of the game by the same name and follows babysitter Sarah on her fateful night within the Burr home.
Taking a seemingly easy babysitting gig, Sarah hopes to spend time with her crush, Jack, but an escaped murderer hoping to return to the site of his killings that committed him to a mental institution has other plans.
This read is fast and aggressive. It’s hard to read five full pages before someone is getting their head squashed like a melon, or stabbed to death with a knife.
It’s campy, it’s fun, it’s brutal. The gore is overtop and unrelenting, but never transgressive. The characters, (while often short-lived) are surprisingly well developed and succinctly written.
Babysitter Bloodbath, like most Puppet Combo games, was slim on lore and plot, with only a few character interactions and notes to read to flesh out the story. In the novel adaptation, it’s great to see more attention paid to setting the stage for the killings, by breathing some life into the world.
If you want to read the first in the series of official Puppet Combo books, check out Babysitter Bloodbath
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Nun Massacre
This one is a treat for me, as I consider Nun Massacre to be the best Puppet Combo Game.
Dawn and her friends have just graduated High School. What better way to celebrate than to go to the abandoned St. Cecilias Preparatory School? Naturally, this is the site of a brutal mass murder that left no one alive.
Penned by the same author as Babysitter Bloodbath, Regina Watts, you can expect the same tight writing and gruesome kills. She twists the story in interesting ways to flow better as a novelization, but I don’t think there’s much lost in the transition. Smart choices with the story and an expanded cast make for more opportunities for Sister Apollonia to draw her knife and slash away. It’s brutal, kinetic and fun.
Nun Massacre is another great addition to Puppet Combo’s novelizations.
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Murder House
Rounding out the trilogy of VHS Terrors adaptations of Puppet Combo books is Murder House.
Just like the game, the book follows Emma, a young intern for a generally sleazy news channel. Breaking into the abandoned home of a dead serial killer to do a segment, they quickly find out that the Easter Ripper might not actually be dead.
Once again Regina Watts does a fantastic job of novelizing Puppet Combo games. She gives the characters time to breathe and fleshes them out enough that when the kills happen–oh, and they happen alright–they feel impactful. Similar to Babysitter Bloodbath and Nun Massacre, the Easter Ripper is built out a little more, just enough to feel enigmatic and dangerous.
I never thought something so video-game-esque like hunting down literal easter eggs could be adapted to a book, but here we are. And it’s done in such an absurd way that it could have only come from a Puppet Combo game.
The action is tight, its pace is rapid and it’s viciously gory.
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The Slob
I want to be clear about something before we discuss the book. There are any number of trigger warnings in the Slob. Do not read this book if you’re squeamish or sensitive to transgressive, gratuitous fiction. The entire point of this book is to revolt and disgust you, so please proceed with caution if you choose to read it.
The Slob follows Vera, as she takes up the job of door-to-door salesman after learning she’s expecting a child. Her husband can’t work, and they’re desperate for cash as the new baby arrives.
However, things take a turn when she comes to the door of a house that reminds her of her traumatic childhood home, and whose inhabitant is worse than anything she’d experienced before. It’s not long before Vera is kidnapped, and must do anything to escape the house and The Slob who lives there.
Ok, this book is outrageous. The reason I recommend it here is The Slob feels as if the gore and depravity of Puppet Combo was magnified by 100. If you were to rip away the retro stylings of their games and slap on a photo-realistic filter, you’ve got the Slob.
If you’re attracted to Puppet Combo games for the brutality and bloodshed, you might find The Slob takes it a little too far. It takes place in the late 80’s so aesthetically it lines up as well. There is not so much in the way of action, as most of the book is just “bad things happen to Vera”, but it’s sufficiently gross if that’s the only thing you’re looking for.
If I were to compare this directly to a Puppet Combo game, I’d say it evokes Stay Out Of The House. You’ve got a giant, filthy house, a murderous occupant, and some hintings at a greater mystery tucked in the back end.
Check it out on Amazon
My Best Friend’s Exorcism
Ok, now for something a little lighter.
My Best Friend’s Exorcism follows two best friends, Abby and Gretchen as they navigate teenage life in the late 80’s. One seemingly harmless night of skinny-dipping leaves Gretchen acting strange, and even stranger things begin happening around her. Abby must investigate the changes in her best friend, and discover what actually happened to her that fateful night.
My Best Friend’s Exorcism leans hard into the paranormal. It’s not uncommon for Puppet Combo games to end up there, but this is a possession story through and through. There’s also something notably lacking in this book that’s a staple of Puppet Combo games–A murderer
Yes, this book isn’t a slasher. But it is drenched in retro 80’s pastiche. It feels comfortable and familiar, warm in its nostalgia and campy in a way that is very reminiscent of Puppet Combo games. I could practically feel the CRT filter just reading it.
This is the most lighthearted and well-intentioned book on this list. If you’re looking to soak in the nostalgia of the 80’s more than anything else, read My Best Friend’s Exorcism. It could also be a great palate cleanser after some of these other books…
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The Cellar
The Cellar by Richard Laymon is a transgressive horror novel from the 80’s. It is nothing compared to The Slob but it throws around some incredibly heavy and dark themes like rape and pedophilia, so please proceed with caution. There are some very explicit scenes in here, and the novel borders on horror-erotica.
However, I’m including it in this list as the sheer absurdity of the overall story and plot progressions feels comparable to those of Puppet Combo games.
It centers around a woman named Donna, a single mother on the run from her psychotic ex-boyfriend who’s just released from jail. While on the run, Donna ends up in a small town where she meets a mercenary hired to kill a mysterious beast that lurks in the area. Naturally, the two get involved and things go off the rails.
I enjoyed The Cellar for its trashy boldness. You’ve got a young woman relentlessly pursued by a murderer, while there’s this larger, weirder threat lingering in the background.
It’s the longest book on this list by far, and takes itself seriously to a level that no other books on this list do, but it’s worth checking out if you’re looking for something a little darker and brooding, while still holding onto the macabre tone that makes Puppet Combo games so good.
Check it out on Amazon
Tastes Like Candy: A Slasher Novel
Exactly, as its name suggests, Tastes Like Candy is a book with a body count. Written by Ivy Tholen, it follows a group of teenage girls as they fight for their lives over the course of a night trapped in a Halloween-themed theme park.
The gore is weighty, the kills are intense, and the characters that unfortunately suffer them are very human. You get to spend a lot of time getting to know the girls before the bodies begin to pile up, which makes them all the harder to read.
This is helped by the sense of mystery in the story. The masked killer that stalked the teens has arranged for these girls specifically to wind up in the theme park, under the guise of a high school senior scavenger hunt. They’re being targeted, but why?
The plot sets up many interactions with folks who could be the killer early on, so you’re always guessing. But that means that if you’re in it just for the kills and action, you won’t get to those until about halfway through the book. This is also the first book that does not take place in the 80’s or 90’s, so the teens actually have cell phones!
But Tastes Like Candy feels like a Puppet Combo game obviously in its premise of a masked killer, and Final Girl slasher stylings. It’s a spooky, campy and gory ride through a life-or-death carnival, and one that should feel very welcome to anyone who likes Puppet Combo slashers.
Check it out on Amazon
Go read these books
There’s your list of books like Puppet Combo games. Each one of these are gratuitous and terrifying in their own ways, some much more so than others. But I hoped to capture a good spread of tones and styles, all of which are present in Puppet Combo games themselves.
If this is interesting, be sure to let me know, I could have easily added another ten or twenty books to this list! There’s no shortage of campy, gorey horror fiction out there.
