It may be both inaccurate and unfair to label Richard Matheson’s novel 7 STEPS TO MIDNIGHT as a post-traumatic sufferer of Shyamalan’s Curse. Inaccurate, because STEPS was written and published years before M. Night Shyamalan released his trend-setting thriller THESIXTHSENSE. Unfair, because it may lend the impression that Matheson ripped off Shyamalan’s penchant for last-act twists in the narrative.

Nevertheless, the comparison, while admittedly strained, proves accurate when one bothers to read STEPS. Because as much as one may want to enjoy a novel by the author of I AM LEGEND and HELLHOUSE on its own merits, our culture has been hijacked by Shyamalan’s Curse, and we all now have to suffer.

Not to say that Shyamalan’s films lack any merit. Indeed, SIXTHSENSE is a dark and moody character piece, and his companion films UNBREAKABLE and SIGNS show the same sure hand in balancing character development and atmosphere with plot shenanigans, ensuring that the now-standard Shyamalan plot twists are rooted in characters the audience cares about.

Sadly, despite the inarguable talent that lies behind those films, the main cultural offshoot, in Hollywood anyway, is the `surprising’ twist at the end, forgetting that Shyamalan took care in laying the groundwork beforehand. Now, we are inundated with lame-brained `thrillers’ like GODSEND, THESKELETONKEY, and HIDEANDSEEK, films that assume that a late-act left-turn will distract the audience from the fact that the films as a whole are fairly poor. Even Shyamalan is not immune; his last film, THEVILLAGE, was weakly written, silly, and had a surprise ending you could see coming from the moment the opening credits rolled.

So by today’s standards, Matheson’s novel is too obvious by half. And what is worse, from a writer of Matheson’s stature and prestige, a novel as poor as 7 STEPS TO MIDNIGHT is cause for grief.

The plot starts off strongly enough, with befuddled mathematician Chris Barton leaving his mysterious job for home. Along the way, he picks up a hitchhiker, who warns that Barton’s grasp on reality may be on the verge of serious slippage. Getting home, he finds that another man, also named Chris Barton, now occupies his house, and the real Barton has appeared to have been replaced. Taken into custody, he finds himself on the run, living a nightmare where little makes sense.

So far, so good. While the story may not be riveting, at least the reader is still interested. If not up to par with his earlier work, there are possibilities to work with. Perhaps STEPS will be a tale akin to Matheson’s scripts for THETWILIGHTZONE, or perhaps Barton will begin flipping his way through multiple dimensions ala Robert A. Heinlein’s enjoyable if preachy JOB: A COMEDY OF JUSTICE. Maybe the whole tale will become an exercise in insanity, a trek into the netherworld of the subconscious, such as in L. Ron Hubbard’s FEAR (incidentally, the only novel Hubbard ever wrote that truly deserves far more than its current cult status).

Yet it quickly becomes apparent that Matheson has less on his mind than an examination into the self, and is more concerned with getting Barton from Point A to Points B, C, D, and E as rapidly as possible. As Barton meets strangers who utter nonsensical instructions, assassins who are unable to kill him, and an alluring spy who is the embodiment of every Hitchcockian cliché of the femme fatale, it becomes rapidly apparent that Matheson is not interested in making STEPS his version of Franz Kafka’s THETRIAL, and more interested in just keeping things moving.

Granted, he does all this well enough. For all its facile and disappointing nature, it is a far more entertaining chase novel than, say, anything Dan Brown has ever produced. But keeping the audience confused is not enough, something Brown, for all his unearned success, has never learned; there has to be something to care about, a character to empathize with, a tendril of realism the reader can cling to. Matheson provides nothing of the sort, mistaking action for plot development, and surprise twists, for mystery, ending with a revelation so obvious and silly that it actually hurts.

Coming from Matheson, this is remarkably poor. In I AM LEGEND, he turned the vampire legend on its ear, giving us horror with bite, and ending with one of the most haunting denouements in modern literature. THEINCREDIBLESHRIKINGMAN gave us humanity at a sub-atomic level. WHATDREAMSMAYCOME found pathos and redemption in the bowels of Hell itself.

7 STEPS TO MIDNIGHT is not a novel, it’s a B-movie, with nothing on its mind but movement. Coming from Dan Brown, it would be a step up. Coming from Richard Matheson, it is a cheat.