Phobia

The book referred to by the previous reviewer is indeed by Masterton, but is not PHOBIA, which is a movie novelization he wrote under the name of "Thomas Luke" and quite a bit shorter than 400+ pages; in fact it comes in at around 250, and it's a psychological thriller about a fear-besotted psychiatrist watching his patients die of what they themselves fear most. (The film was directed by John Huston and starred Paul-Michael Glaser of STARSKY & HUTCH.) As filmscript novelizations go, it's not as memorable as one might hope from Masterton, but utterly readable and very entertaining. Likely the previous reviewer is referring to Masterton's FEAST -- which is indeed QUITE dark, very graphic, and does indeed center around a religious sect that rationalizes cannibalism as holy and biblical. It's an excellent horror novel, if you can stomach it (pun intended) ...

A truly scary tale, not for the faint of heart. Indeed, at times, the author steers too much into the gruesome. Nevertheless, it is mesmerizing...hard to lay down the book until all 400+ pages are done. Surprisingly, Masterton even applies biblical quotes in a reasonably accurate way, as he chronicles a truly awful religious sect. The ending was surprising as I expected something darker. Only in this ending, do we have anything supernatural in the book. Yet, for the first 440 pages, the author is able to scare his audience to the point of nightmares. Although I like Graham Masterton's horror books, this one was unexpectantly good! Higly recommended.