Author Archives: Ricardo Denis

Should we be excited for The Exorcist: Believer?

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The Exorcist: Believer

William Friedkin’s The Exorcist is considered by many as the scariest and most accomplished horror film in history. It essentially perfected the possession story while setting the blueprint for future forays into the subgenre.

Building a franchise around such a landmark film, though, proved remarkably difficult. Expectations shot up astronomically given the towering presence of the original. Other than the uneven but compelling Exorcist III (released in 1990 and directed by William Peter Blatty, the writer of the 1971 The Exorcist novel the first movie adapted), and the amazing but short-lived The Exorcist 2016 TV series developed by Jeremy Slater, every other attempt at expanding upon the signature horror of Friedkin’s classic has failed spectacularly.

The question now is, will David Gordon Greens’ new Exorcist movie, subtitled Believer, become a possession that’ll reignite audience fears of demonic activity, or will it be another botched exorcism that’ll fade into obscurity along with Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) and the the prequel movie Exorcist: The Beginning (2004). Another version of the prequel exists called Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist which was released in 2005 after The Beginning failed to ignite the box office or win over critics. Yes, Warner Brothers released two versions of the same movie, complete with two mostly different casts and two different directors (Renny Harlin worked on Beginning and Paul Schrader on Dominion).

Believer is the first of a planned trilogy that seems to be taking more than a page from Gordon Green’s treatment of the Halloween franchise. The first trailer for the movie established a considerable alteration to the formula concocted before it by showcasing two possessed girls instead of one. This doubling down on the source of horror is an idea that also made its way into the latest Halloween trilogy, to an extent. In the third installment, Halloween Ends, a new character opens the door to the possibility other people can “become” Michael Meyers, thus changing the fabric of the original concept.

The first Believer trailer goes on to show the parents of the possessed girls in a desperate race to try and figure out what’s wrong with their kids. This lands them on the path of someone who’s been through this experience before and who’ll end up helping the parents navigate the possession: Chris MacNeil (Ellen Burstyn), the original survivor parent.

The Chris MacNeil character seems to be cut from the same cloth Laurie Strode was in Gordon Green’s Halloween, Strode being that franchise’s original final girl. She’s a survivor that looks like she’s either been waiting for or has been preemptively preparing for another bout with the same demon that possessed her daughter Regan. Trauma cloaks this character to justify a continuation of the story that ties in to the very first film. From there, we’ll have to see how much is sticks to the Halloween reboot formula and how much it deviates from it.

A few things worry me about this new chapter in the Exorcist franchise, apart from potentially being too similar to the latest Halloween trilogy in structure. First, we’ve gotten a lot of exorcism and demonic possession movies since the first Exorcist. Clichés, genre trappings, and expectations have had ample time to settle in and make themselves known. The first trailer, for instance, shows the possessed girls talking in that overdone multi-voice distortion effect that sounds more like an anonymous caller asking for ransom money than it does a demon.

One of the things that made the first movie’s possession so gut wrenchingly terrifying and memorable was the fact the demon had its own voice, which was masterfully crafted and performed by actress Mercedes McCambridge speaking over Linda Blair’s lines. It created a horror icon and it made things intimate and infinitely more disturbing.

Thus far, the two possessed girls from the Believer trailers come off as more generic, the standard demon kids that spout the usual unholy jargon in the exact voices you’ve come to expect. Fans have gotten a good helping of this already this year alone with The Pope’s Exorcist, though that movie did largely stick to one voice actor for the main demon. In this case it was Ralph Ineson (The VVytch) who took on demon duties. Before The Pope’s Exorcist, though, we had an exorcism episode in FX’s American Horror Story: Asylum, a found footage take on it in The Last Exorcism, an Anthony Hopkins-led movie called The Rite, and the Scott Derickson film The Exorcism of Emily Rose (the better of the bunch).

When Friedkin’s Exorcist came out, no one had seen anything like it. That’s not the case anymore.

My second worry concerns the decision to turn the story into a trilogy. In a sense, The Exorcist already tried this, though not intentionally nor with an eye to create a larger narrative that extended to several movies to get the complete story. Regardless, the result was just not good.

John Boorman’s Exorcist II: The Heretic is considered one of the worst horror sequels in existence, to the point that Friedkin himself once said to have felt disgusted after watching it (a sentiment shared by Blatty, who called it a humiliating experience). It’s a direct sequel, catching up with Regan a few years after her exorcism to find the demon might not have been cast out entirely (diminishing Father Karras’ sacrifice at the end of the first movie).

The Exorcist III, while boasting some great scares and an underlying sense of unease that carries throughout, didn’t exactly stick the landing. It could’ve bene great, but its ending (of which there are different versions of) felt like it belonged to another movie. Its successes, though, are owed to the new mysteries it creates regarding good and evil and spirituality. It’s not a retread of the first movie. Rather, it’s an expansion that explores similar themes through different avenues and perspectives using the more fleshed out characters from Blatty’s novels.

Having this new set of movies already conceptualized as a trilogy might alleviate these problems, but Gordon Green’s previoustrilogy work with Halloween saw a good idea stretched to its limits in all the wrong ways. Michael Meyers became a blunt metaphor for Trump era divisions, characters were killed for shock value rather than carefully plotted story arcs, and the violence authored by The Shape became gratuitous to the point of losing touch with the narrative.

Halloween Kills and Halloween Ends betrayed the storytelling highs of the first one, killing the momentum early into part 2 and never really catching up again. Believer’s chances of hitting the targets it has in its sights become stronger if each movie justifies its existence without coming across as a cash grab that’s only just tangentially connected to push out another horror trilogy. To score a win, it needs avoid the things that ultimately held Halloween back.

So, should we be excited for Exorcist: Believer? Based on the trailers alone, no. There’s always a chance the odds get flipped and we get a great new take on the material. But whatever expectations we might have now should be taken with caution. Don’t get me wrong, I want to see a good trilogy come of this, especially since the triple-feature approach hasn’t gotten the chance it deserves in horror. Unfortunately, the journey to Believer carries a lot of baggage that can weigh it down considerably. More excitement could’ve been afforded to it had it not been an Exorcist movie but a whole new venture into possession horror, one that stands on its own demonic legs. Then again, anything has the capacity to surprise. Breaking the cycle and giving audiences something worth screaming at, or potentially fainting from, will be welcomed with open arms. The road to that, I fear, is looking quite bumpy.

The Exorcist: Believer opens October 6th, 2023 nationwide.

DEATH MASK is a delightfully gory start to Storm King’s Dark & Twisted series

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Vigilantes are strange creatures. They walk a path paved by violence that shares more with horror than we like to think it does. Put under a harsh light, they can be viewed as a special kind of serial killer. The thing with their own brand of killing, though, is that theirs is guided by a moral compass that keeps them from being categorically identified as evil. Vigilantes, as is often the case, are wronged people that decide to take justice into their own hands once they’ve seen the legal system fail miserably at catching those responsible of extreme wrongdoing.

This is what Amanda Deibert and Cat Staggs have decided to put the spotlight on for their graphic novel Death Mask, a vigilante story with an unrelenting view on justice and whether something else should take up the mantle when the law falls short. The book is the first in Storm King Comics’ new line “Dark & Twisted,” a series of comics that will be focusing on human horror. No ghosts or ancient gods here. Only the most dangerous monster known to humanity: Us.

Death Mask follows Detective Maza, a hard woman that still believes in playing things by the book despite the dire conditions of the system she’s a part of as a series of murders seem to initially point towards a new serial killer. Problem is, the victim pool is all deserving of the very gory ends they meet. They are part of a cartel with a vicious history of violence, and their deaths are actually welcomed by some in the police. But not for Maza. Therein lies the debate at the heart of the story: does every victim deserve to be served justice equally, or is there room for prejudice depending on the victim’s rap sheet?

Deibert’s writing navigates these complex waters well. A lot of character work is afforded to the story’s players to really fish out the tensions between the killer’s methods and the investigators’ view on how energy should be expended on solving the killing of criminals. Maza, for instance, deals with troubles at home as her wife struggles with the all-consuming nature of her partner’s work. It places her professional convictions as a legitimate stressor on her home life.

What’s interesting is that Deibert manages to portray Maza’s stubborn fealty to the letter of the law as a potential character flaw that’s bled over to her marriage. It’s a clever bit of characterization that makes Maza stand out as not just another detective character in a vigilante story, and it keeps the story feeling fresh throughout. The same goes for the killer, but going more into that would spoil the amazing work the creative team put behind the story.

Staggs approaches these themes with a rawness that frames the vigilante’s violence squarely in horror territory. Every single killing is gory, gruesome, and unsettling. The very first one involves a decapitation via golf club. Golf clubs aren’t sharp metal objects. They’re blunt instruments. You do the math.

While there’s a fair bit of fun had with the violence, it does point to the severity behind the vengeance the vigilante seeks. In a way, it builds up the character in surprising ways that makes the reveal of their identity hit with a well-earned sense of shock. It speaks volumes to the quality of the storytelling on display.

Nothing comes across as gratuitous. It’s all trained on adding layers to the question of vigilantism and to the characters entrenched in this very bloody situation. In fact, Staggs invites an interrogation of the violence to consider whether it fits the crimes the vigilante has deemed them worthy of. It’s why its explicitness works. Readers are supposed to engage with it.

Janice Chiang does an excellent job with the lettering, expertly weaving conversations, screams, and sound effects in between all the character work that graces most every panel. Characters are allowed breathing room with text placement that admirably affects the pace of the story. The SFX, in particular, accentuates the gorier elements without turning them into caricature, giving the art an extra push in its capacity for horror.

One point of note here. Death Mask uses horror in subtle and nuanced ways and it’s important not to take that for granted. Vigilante stories deal in the cruelty humanity is capable of, especially when it comes to violent crime. Deibert and Staggs are well aware of this, especially as it pertains to the need not to shy away from darkness to get at deeper meanings and explorations. The gore is reminiscent of slasher horror in parts, and it will satisfy readers that enjoy splatter, but the creative team here has managed to indulge that style while making sure it fulfills other narrative purposes. It achieves in doing what horror does best: confronting people with necessary darkness.

Death Mask is a great addition to the vigilante tradition. Deibert and Staggs have come up with a story that puts morality and justice under the unforgiving gaze of consequence to cast doubt on whether there is a right or a wrong way of making bad people pay for their bad behavior. It’s smart, urgent, and confrontational, and it uses the language of horror well to make its ideas land with brutal force. Death Mask has set the tone for future “Dark & Twisted” stories at Storm King. You can’t ask for a better start.

Story: Amanda Deibert Art: Cat Staggs Letters: Janice Chiang
Release date: September 19, 2023
Story: 10 Art: 10 Overall: 10 Recommendation: Buy, and never underestimate the power of a golf club.

Storm King Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review

Pre-order: Amazon

BLENDJET’s TMNT portable blender will have you breaking out smoothies like a ninja

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BLENDJET’s TMNT portable blender

Licensed products hold a curious place in nerdom, specifically because they act as flags that signal our love of something. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is perhaps one of the most treasured licenses for this. Their toys, movies, and countless other products have become a staple of childhood memories. One way or another, you’ll grow up with something bearing the TMNT name.

Blendjet is the latest company to further that mission with their new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Blendjet 2 portable blender. It’s a light, easy to carry, and USB-rechargeable blender that lets you make smoothies on the go. It’s a powerful machine (retailing as of the time of this writing at $49.99) that can crush ice, mix it in with fruit and liquids, and produce a drink in some 20 seconds, give or take. One charge should yield 15+ blends.

The blender functions as advertised. I’ve squeezed some 16-19 blends per charge and have tested all manner of frozen fruits to see how it holds up. Cleanup consists of adding water and soap and then pushing the button to let it, essentially, clean itself. Sometimes you still have to carefully clean the blades yourself to remove any leftover pieces of fruit, but for the most part it really does do the job on its own.

BLENDJET’s TMNT portable blender

Of course, what TMNT fans will be eager to know is if it looks cool enough to add to the collection. I’m happy to say it does, and it’s mostly owed to the careful approach to design. The blender comes in two styles: “Colorful Ninjas” and “Shredder’s Mind.” For what I consider to be obvious reasons, I went with Shredder’s Mind.

There really wasn’t much competition considering the machine’s sharp and powerful blades can easily remind users of the equally sharp and dangerously pointy baddie that’s been after the Turtles since the beginning. In essence, this portable blender is like having a small Shredder in your backpack ready to rip and tear through fruit for your smoothie drinking delight.

As stated earlier, it’s the care that went into designing the package that really stands out. The blender features a wraparound illustration of the Turtles with April O’Neil, Splinter, and Shredder hovering behind everyone set to a soft purple background that brings back memories of the 1980’s animated TMNT cartoon. It keeps things from feeling exclusively tied to the release of the Mutant Mayhem animation currently in theaters, feeding the nostalgia factor driving the product’s appeal.

BLENDJET’s TMNT portable blender

The circular lid is especially attractive. On its very top is an illustration of a classic pepperoni pizza pie, crisp enough to make it feel like a collectible all of its own. The lid itself is purple as well, keeping with the Shredder theme. It’s a nice detail that accentuates the TMNT spirit of the design. Blendjet truly put together a blender that wouldn’t look out of place in either the Turtles’ or Shredder’s costumes. It’s battle ready.

Fans of TMNT have good reason to get one of these if only for the sake of adding it to their collection. Knowing it’s also a beautifully put together machine that can blend a mean smoothie, though, is truly what makes it special. It captures the child-like excitement associated with the license and it looks sleek. It’s a great addition to any kitchen, but it begs to be taken out into the streets for a blend while on the move, or while jumping over rooftops. I hope the line expands to include styles specific to characters like April O’Neil and Casey Jones, but the two we have available are more than enough to warrant attention. Shredder himself would be proud.

Disclaimer: Graphic Policy was sent the product for FREE for review

Junji Ito’s SOICHI is a terrifying celebration of that weird cousin we all have

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Soichi

For all the terror that Junji Ito conjures throughout his stories (even the cat one), there’s a fair amount of dark comedy to go around with it. When Ito wants to be funny, he’s funny. But it’s never without a healthy dose of weird to go along with it. Oddly enough, it’s a style that lends itself perfectly to stories about families. I mean, what is a family if not a dark comedy with a strange cast of characters that features at least one person that freaks everyone out.

This is what Ito’s Soichi is all about, a humorous look at a family that harbors enough horror to give you nightmares all while giving the weird cousin character his long overdue time in the spotlight.

Soichi is composed of 10 short stories featuring the titular character, a kid with a strange and macabre sense of humor that likes to torture his own family along with any visiting cousins that dare spend their vacations where he lives. To an extent, the book chronicles the strange life of Soichi, going from birthdays to elaborate myths concerning his grandmother and then to incidents concerning the creation of life-sized puppets that come alive to create havoc and spread discontent.

Explaining Soichi’s character can be quite tricky. It’s easy to label the kid as nothing more than a proverbial black sheep, the kind every family seems to have at least one of. He’s antisocial, scurries around the attic with the intention of loosening dirt so it falls on people eating below, claims to be able to tap into supernatural elements to torment those he sees fit, and he shoots nails from his mouth.

In the book’s first story, titled “A Happy Summer Vacation,” Soichi’s second cousins (Yusuke and Michina) come for a visit all the way from Tokyo, hoping to spend time with distant relatives they’ve never really had the chance to bond with. They find this part of the family to be the very picture of happiness and cordiality. But then they quickly find out that their son, Soichi, is the exact opposite of this. This kid trades all the brightness his parents and siblings exude and trades it in for doom and gloom. To Soichi’s chagrin, everyone loves the very pleasant Yusuke and Michina. He finds them annoying. So, he responds in kind by creating voodoo dolls in their likeness to visit as much misfortune upon them as possible.

Soichi

While reading this first story, I half-expected the family to be revealed as Satanists that openly worshipped the Dark Lord before every meal. But they weren’t. They were the perfect relatives, the kind everyone wants. It made no sense that this family was responsible for creating such a dark cloud of a human being without an equal within the unit. Therein lies the genius behind these stories.

Because Soichi’s family doesn’t share in his darkness, Soichi becomes relatable. He might be annoying and aggressively unlikeable, but he’s also part of a family that represents everything he’s not. He’s the grungy teen, the headbanger, the metalhead, and the horror hound that every family has at least one of. This is apparent in the way Ito illustrates him.

Soichi is extremely thin, almost to the point of looking sickly. He almost always in a slouch and he has black bags under his eyes to denote a lack of sleep, as if he was destined from the start to be a creature of the night. It’s important that he doesn’t look entirely unwell, though. He’s not neglected by his family or abused. He’s just not like them, making it hard to justify spending quality time with them. He likes to dress in black and he sticks to corners and shadows. Sharing in family events is an obligation to be skirted for him.

While his pranks and snarky remarks go too far (remember the voodoo dolls?), I couldn’t help but feel sad he doesn’t have another likeminded sibling or aunt or cousin to share his darkness with (an idea that comes up in a later story concerning a possible twin brother that no one else can see other than his equally ghoulish grandmother).

soichi

Anyone who’s ever tried to convey the excitement of watching George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead or how listening to Black Sabbath can be life-changing to family members whose automatic response is a disgusted scoff or a throwaway comment on why they’ll never get why people watch horror movies will feel a connection with Soichi.

Ito amplifies this by not turning his family into a scarier and more twisted version of The Addams Family. Soichi doesn’t have a sister like Wednesday or a brother like Pugsly. Hell, he doesn’t even have a Cousin It. He has a painfully normal family that is nothing like him. In truth, Soichi just needs someone who prefers to view life for the terror it is. Views contrary to that are simply alien to him, much like his family.

Soichi will mean different things to different readers, but something that’s indisputable about the character is how much of an outsider he is. He doesn’t care that no one likes him, or that his cousins would rather keep their interactions with him to a minimum. His world is his own, though. He apologizes for none of it. His plans might backfire each time, but he’s true to himself. And then there’s the creeping idea that Ito masterfully sneaks in to make readers consider a very basic fact: every family has their own Soichi, and it might be you. If that’s the case, just be you. But maybe try not to go overboard with the voodoo dolls and the nails.

The Enfield Gang Massacre #1 promises a whole new chapter in the world of Ambrose County

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The Enfield Gang Massacre #1

Westerns are bursting at the seams with infamous towns and counties whose histories are written in blood. The city of Tombstone in Arizona, the town of Deadwood in South Dakota, these are places that birthed stories and legends about how wild the West really was, and how violent the men in them were. Chris Condon and Jacob Phillips already had their very own dark Western town in their Neo-Western comic That Texas Blood, a place called Ambrose County. Now, fans of Texas Blood get a kind of origin story for it in a new spin-off series called The Enfield Gang Massacre, a story that goes back to the time of cowboys to unearth the violent happenings that gave birth to the land future criminals will take up residence in.

The story centers on the pursuit of Montgomery Enfield, an outlaw with a gang of his own, that’s believed to have authored the grisly murder of a bank worker back in 1875. The people of Ambrose County, a small Texas town at this point in time, demand justice at any cost. A mob of angry people have decided this man’s particular killing demands justice be repaid in kind, a comment on how thin the lines is between legal consequences and revenge. Just how fair the whole ordeal will turn out to be remains to be seen, but things are pointing to a very messy end, something that’s given credence by the comic’s title itself.

The Enfield Gang Massacre #1

Condon brings the same attention to detail to character development and world building that’s present in That Texas Blood. Both the people of Ambrose and the members of the Enfield Gang feel storied, complete with their own stubborn prejudices and ideals. It’d be easy to equate the world and character work done here with that seen in the crime films of the Coen Brothers, and while there’s certainly some of it here, Condon’s approach is specific enough to warrant its own space in the genre.

The same carries over to Phillips’s art, another showcase of nuanced character design and geographic cohesiveness. Phillips’s attention to character is as focused as that afforded to Ambrose County. Personalities and attitudes jump out of every person displayed on a panel, while the location’s essence is felt throughout. Phillips harnesses the violence Condon extracts from his dialogues and makes sure everything follows suit.

The Enfield Gang Massacre #1

The coloring, done by Phillips along with Pip Martin on assists, makes sure there’s an aesthetic link to Texas Blood. There’s an interest in capturing an overarching feel to the story that places Enfield Gang in the continuum of Texas Blood‘s history. Every single element is tuned to that particular frequency, and it allows for a personal type of worldbuilding that favors the minutia of shared experiences rather than large scale events to hold everything together.

Special mention has to be given to the faux newspaper article exploring the titular massacre found in the last pages of the book. It takes the form of a special investigative report on the myths behind the massacre and how important it is to remember that facts are always pulling in one direction while local legends push with equal strength in the other. It puts the story’s essence on a slab for readers to dissect, inviting discussions on the nature of verifiable truth vs. agreed upon truths. I look forward to more of them.

The Enfield Massacre #1 promises a whole new chapter in the world of Ambrose County, giving it a longer narrative reach while opening numerous doors for more stories spread throughout the location’s history. Condon and Phillips are producing career-defining work here, and we’re lucky to be witnessing it one comic at a time.


Story: Chris Condon, Art: Jacob Phillips Color Assists: Pip Martin
Art: 10 Story: 10 Overall: 10 Recommendation: Read and make sure you’re also following That Texas Blood.

Image Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review

Purchase: Zeus Comics – Kindle

Godzilla returns in Gojira Minus One and he looks postwar angry

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GODZILLA MINUS ONE

Godzilla has been on a rampage as of late, from Gareth Edwards‘s 2014 reboot to 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong. In between those films we got the best Godzilla of the current era with Shin Gojira (2016), directed by Hideaki Anno and Shinji Higuchi, a movie that paved the way for other Shin entries such as Shin Ultraman and Shin Kamen Rider (though supposedly not to be taken as part of a shared universe).

This year, Godzilla rises again with the recently announced Gojira Minus One, a return to the giant monster of the 1954 original that decimates cities with colossal anger while carrying the metaphor of nuclear threat in every roar.

Toho International released a teaser trailer of the new production that confirms as much. From what brief look shows, the story goes back to a post-World War II Japan that’s struggling with the destruction wrought by the allies during the last year of the conflict. Godzilla’s arrival plunges the country into the minus, a cruel position in which devastation takes another pass over an already devastated land.

The bits of Godzilla we get in the final seconds of the teaser show a creature consumed by ruthless aggression, as if intent on passing judgment on the country and how it managed to sink to the place it found itself in after it unconditionally surrendered to the allies.

It’ll be interesting to see what director Takashi Yamazaki (Lupin III: The First) has in store for Godzilla in terms of metaphors. The original movie turned the iconic kaiju into a representation of atomic trauma, spawning from the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 to end the war. The aftermath of the two infamous attacks brought about a period of absolute confusion, especially as the effects of radiation started becoming physically noticeable in those close to the affected areas. Godzilla is an expression of that, a monster that communicates fear a newly minted nuclear world.

With war still a global concern, both in the effects of current conflicts (Ukraine) and the possibility of future world wars, Godzilla is a potent enough symbol to carry messages on its spiky and hulking body. In fact, Godzilla has proven quite adept in embodying different metaphors at different points in time.

The aforementioned Shin Godzilla does an exceptional job at poking fun at the ridiculousness and total dysfunction of bureaucracies in the face of national crises. Anno and Higuchi turn Godzilla into a natural disaster that could have been more quickly and effectively solved had the government not been tangled up by committees with overlapping powers that clash against one another rather than facilitate solutions.

Edwards’s 2014 take turned the kaiju into a warning against the continued use of nuclear power in the present, using imagery and discourse surrounding the radioactive disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant as a result of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. The crisis resulted in critical disruptions to the plant’s operations and led to explosions and radiation leaks that led to the evacuation of some 110,000 residents from the areas surrounding Fukushima.

Edwards’s Godzilla spoke to the severity of that kind of catastrophe, and it made sure the message landed with a force, though the movie didn’t exactly live up to expectations given certain creative decisions that didn’t give the titular kaiju more of a chance to shine. If the teaser is any indication, Minus One won’t be having that problem.

Gojira Minus One, the 30th entry in Toho’s giant monster franchise, has a November 3rd, 2023 release date on its sights for Japanese audiences and a December 1st, 2023 date for American audiences. If you want to give the entire franchise a look, Pluto TV is currently streaming a 24/7 Godzilla channel dedicated to the creature’s many encounters with Japan and the other monsters his presence has attracted throughout his storied career. It’s a good time to be a Godzilla fan, and the new film looks to be terrifyingly special.

Swan Songs #1 sets the tone for a unique emotional journey

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When it comes to W. Maxwell Prince comics, “weird” doesn’t cut it. From Ice Cream Man to HaHa, strangeness and weirdness are just the first few pages. From there they pivot hard into less traveled territory, a place of in-betweens and unstable angles that often deal in raw and painful emotions. I like to refer to Prince’s work as emotional Twilight Zones. They can be brutal, bruising, darkly sweet, and outright terrifying.

His latest anthology, Swan Songs, goes down the same path, but this time the emotional anchor lodges itself into the concept of endings (hence the title). Issue #1, fully painted by Martin Simmonds (Department of Truth), cracks the spine of the series open with a tender and frightening tale about the apocalypse coupled with the care of a terminally sick parent. It tugs at the more sensitive parts of the soul, and then it adds pain and love to leave a lasting mark on the reader.

Swan Songs will feature a new artist each issue, among them Caspar Wijngaard, Filipe Andrade, Caitlin Yarsky, collage-artist Alex Eckman-Lawn, and Martín Morazzo. The first story, titled “The end of…the world,” follows a young guy that braves a broken-down cityscape in search of a Better Home Magazine before an atomic bomb destroys all life as they know it. His mom, who is bedridden in a near-empty hospital, loves listening to her son read to her from the magazine. The young man wants to indulge his mom one last reading session before the final curtain falls.

One way to approach Maxwell Prince stories is by taking them as emotional puzzles. It’s not that you’re required to make specific pieces fit into place to make sense of the story. Rather, your experience will hinge on how you connect certain story sequences together at a deeper level, taking into account what drives each character to engage with their world. In Swan Songs, this thought exercise is perhaps more guided than Maxwell Prince’s previous work thanks to a strong sense of finality that permeates throughout each page.

Urgency becomes a crucial storytelling device thanks to that focus on endings. Martin Simmonds visuals are a large part of the reason for this, especially in terms of scope. Simmonds takes care to foster an acute sense of impending doom that carries through each page. The city the man runs through in his desperate search looks like it’s ready to collapse under its own weight. Background characters and other signs of life project resignation, whereas buildings and roads look like they’re usefulness has run out. It’s as if everyone and everything in the story knows it’ll all truly end once the comic reaches its final page.

Swan Songs #1

Simmonds’ use of muted colors mixed in with darker shades of reds becomes an integral part of the story’s emotional palette. The setting is made to look like it was hopeless and unsalvageable way before the atom bomb ever threatened to end all life. It creates an interesting contrast with the young man’s mission of finding the last Better Home magazine for his mom.

Horror is allowed to set in as well, especially with the presence of emotional vampires that threaten to block the man’s progression. They help populate a dark world that’s already signed its death warrant and they allow readers to connect even more emotional dots between the main situation and the other concerns that hover around it.

Swan Songs #1 sets the tone for a unique emotional journey that hopes to unsettle with the intention of getting at harder but necessary interpretations of our relationship with the end. There’s melancholy and there’s pain, confusion and frustration, but also the possibility of hope should the individual find it within him or herself to see certain things all the way to their conclusion. And yet, none of this is telegraphed to the reader. You don’t read Swan Songs for answers. You read it for the questions it’ll make you ask. Whatever answers you find are entirely yours.

Writer: W. Maxwell Prince Artist: Martin Simmonds Letterer: Good Old Leon
Story: 10 Art: 10 Overall: 10
Recommendation: Read and then stare into nothingness and let it all sink in

Image Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review

Pre-order: TFAW – Zeus Comics – Kindle

Early review: Swan Songs #1 sets the tone for a unique emotional journey

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When it comes to W. Maxwell Prince comics, “weird” doesn’t cut it. From Ice Cream Man to HaHa, strangeness and weirdness are just the first few pages. From there they pivot hard into less traveled territory, a place of in-betweens and unstable angles that often deal in raw and painful emotions. I like to refer to Prince’s work as emotional Twilight Zones. They can be brutal, bruising, darkly sweet, and outright terrifying.

His latest anthology, Swan Songs, goes down the same path, but this time the emotional anchor lodges itself into the concept of endings (hence the title). Issue #1, fully painted by Martin Simmonds (Department of Truth), cracks the spine of the series open with a tender and frightening tale about the apocalypse coupled with the care of a terminally sick parent. It tugs at the more sensitive parts of the soul, and then it adds pain and love to leave a lasting mark on the reader.

Swan Songs will feature a new artist each issue, among them Caspar Wijngaard, Filipe Andrade, Caitlin Yarsky, collage-artist Alex Eckman-Lawn, and Martín Morazzo. The first story, titled “The end of…the world,” follows a young guy that braves a broken-down cityscape in search of a Better Home Magazine before an atomic bomb destroys all life as they know it. His mom, who is bedridden in a near-empty hospital, loves listening to her son read to her from the magazine. The young man wants to indulge his mom one last reading session before the final curtain falls.

One way to approach Maxwell Prince stories is by taking them as emotional puzzles. It’s not that you’re required to make specific pieces fit into place to make sense of the story. Rather, your experience will hinge on how you connect certain story sequences together at a deeper level, taking into account what drives each character to engage with their world. In Swan Songs, this thought exercise is perhaps more guided than Maxwell Prince’s previous work thanks to a strong sense of finality that permeates throughout each page.

Urgency becomes a crucial storytelling device thanks to that focus on endings. Martin Simmonds visuals are a large part of the reason for this, especially in terms of scope. Simmonds takes care to foster an acute sense of impending doom that carries through each page. The city the man runs through in his desperate search looks like it’s ready to collapse under its own weight. Background characters and other signs of life project resignation, whereas buildings and roads look like they’re usefulness has run out. It’s as if everyone and everything in the story knows it’ll all truly end once the comic reaches its final page.

Swan Songs #1

Simmonds’ use of muted colors mixed in with darker shades of reds becomes an integral part of the story’s emotional palette. The setting is made to look like it was hopeless and unsalvageable way before the atom bomb ever threatened to end all life. It creates an interesting contrast with the young man’s mission of finding the last Better Home magazine for his mom.

Horror is allowed to set in as well, especially with the presence of emotional vampires that threaten to block the man’s progression. They help populate a dark world that’s already signed its death warrant and they allow readers to connect even more emotional dots between the main situation and the other concerns that hover around it.

Swan Songs #1 sets the tone for a unique emotional journey that hopes to unsettle with the intention of getting at harder but necessary interpretations of our relationship with the end. There’s melancholy and there’s pain, confusion and frustration, but also the possibility of hope should the individual find it within him or herself to see certain things all the way to their conclusion. And yet, none of this is telegraphed to the reader. You don’t read Swan Songs for answers. You read it for the questions it’ll make you ask. Whatever answers you find are entirely yours.

Writer: W. Maxwell Prince Artist: Martin Simmonds Letterer: Good Old Leon
Story: 10 Art: 10 Overall: 10
Recommendation: Read and then stare into nothingness and let it all sink in
Release date: July 5, 2023

Image Comics provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review

Pre-order: TFAW – Kindle

MOVIE REVIEW: CREEPYPASTA Is Hopefully the First of Many

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Creepypasta

Creepypasta is horror for the internet age. It started out as user-generated urban legends, more freely dipped in horror, that were shared online in forums and message boards in a style that catered to plausibility. They lived in the grey areas between ambiguity and anonymity, the two things that best describe digital interactions across the board (which is scary in itself). Classic monsters were replaced with hooded figures with abnormally long limbs or faces with frozen smiles on them, carrying names like Candlejack or Ickbarr Bigelsteine. Haunted houses were cast aside for liminal spaces and interdimensional spots that could feature stairs going to places unseen or strange TV shows with names like Candle Cove.

The ScreamBox exclusive Creepypasta movie manages to capture a lot of this with an anthology format that goes for 5-6-minute-long stories, à la The ABCs of Death, that feel like a greatest hits rundown of what Creepypastas are all about. Among the filmmakers that contribute to the film are Daniel Garcia, Buz Wallick, Berkley Brady, Paul Stamper, Carlos Omar De Leon, Tony Morales, Mikel Cravatta, and Carlos Cobos Aroca.

Like all good horror anthologies, the film features a wraparound story which, in this case, follows a man in a strange house who’s looking for a flash drive that’s housing a sensitive video in it. The place is a mess, with dead bodies strewn about and an analogue TV with an 8-bit video game stuck on its start menu screen to round out the atmosphere (here we get a clever Easter egg in the form of Ben Drowned, a popular Creepypasta by Alexander D. Hall, aka Jadusable). The man moves towards a computer screen that sits on a cryptic chat page that directs him to watch sinister video after sinister video as he searches for the right one. We never know who’s writing on the other end.

The short stories range from shadow people to long-legged boogeymen (like Jumby) that kidnap kids. They serve as introductions to urban legends, brief glimpses into horrors that have the potential to become movies independently. The setup is simple enough. One or two characters come into contact with something that defies explanation, and is also off-center weird, only to be immediately haunted or traumatized by it.

Reality itself gets altered to accommodate the beings in these stories, but never to the point of completely breaking away from it. One thing Creepypastas excel at is in projecting a kind of strangeness that flirts with the possibility of being real. I’d argue that’s what makes them so compelling. They aim to scare in a very intimate way while never fully letting go of the little truths that make the mind wonder.

Not every story hits the mark, though. Those that play around with scary imagery and keep to the margins so that the viewer’s mind fills in the blanks are more successful than those that indulge in special effects and overdramatic performances. There’s a story about blue-eyed people that communicate with another dimension, for instance, that could’ve done with some restraint.

On the other hand, There’s a Black Eyed Kids story that’s quite a highlight. It follow a lonely and sick old woman as she’s visited by one of these kids. The segment keeps to a grey toned and heavily shadowed aesthetic that accentuates the horror whenever we’re shown something terrible, if only for a moment, and it sustains the effect throughout the brief runtime. The closing story, about El Cuco (a variation of El Coco), is another high point, and it might be the best the bunch. It builds up the legend of a dark creature with clever use of suggestion and dread. It carries a sense of dark fantasy that makes it come off almost fairytale-like, but not to the point of shedding its Creepypasta identity. Its closing sequence makes sure the anthology ends on a high note.

Creepypasta has the necessary elements to become a very different and exciting horror anthology. It has a unique identity that already sets it apart from the rest. The micro-short story approach plays to the strengths of the Creepypasta concept and opens doors to future entries. Aiming for a stronger selection of stories and a continuation of high-quality wraparound stories will surely lead to the creation of a loyal fanbase that’ll constantly be itching for more. I wouldn’t be surprised if that fanbase isn’t growing now as we speak.

Don’t Worry, Mommy’s Here: 5 of the best moms in horror cinema

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When I was just a wee baby (as in barely a few months old), my mom decided to take me to the movie theater with her to see The Lost Boys (released in July, 1987). Jerry Rees’s The Brave Little Toaster was also playing. My mom apparently weighed her options and decided The Lost Boys would have more of an impact in my early development than a toaster with a smile.

I cried during the entire movie. If you’ve never seen it (and if you haven’t, you should), the vampire make-up effects by artist Greg Cannom were terrifying. The vamps kept their human forms, but their faces transformed into something resembling very angry bats. And then there’s the vamp feeding scene at a punk bonfire. Fangs sunk into skulls and blood flew over the fire as the bikers went into a frenzy.

mother

Years later, still a kid, I watched the movie again and managed to get through it without crying out of pure fear, but what stood out this time was how important the movie’s mother figure, Diane Weist‘s Lucy Emerson, was to the story and how much tension and terror the movie extracts from her as we watch one of her sons worry over her safety thinking she was dating a vampire. It left an impression. What if my mom got targeted by a vampire all of a sudden? Could I kill it on my own or did I need my own Frog Brothers to stake the bloodsucker?

It was easy to empathize with Lucy. She was a single parent moving in with her father at a time when her two kids were at their most rebellious in a new place she later learns is infested with vampires. She becomes a calming presence that could’ve helped more if her kids had let her in on the troubles of Santa Carla and the people they hung out with. One thing I admired was how brave she came off as in a place director Joel Schumacher went lengths to portray as dirty, dangerous, and forgotten. She was strong and she proved it in the final moments of the film, taking a decision for the sake of her family’s safety that jeopardized hers. All of this to say, Lucy Emerson was my first horror mom and she’s remained a favorite ever since.

It goes without saying by now, but my appreciation of horror, and The Lost Boys in particular, started getting nurtured the moment my mom decided to lightly traumatize me as a baby by taking me to the movies to see biker vampires on a big screen. So, in honor of the work mothers do from the moment we’re born, here’s a list of 5 horror movie moms that either scare, take care, or bring chaos to their kids. In other words, the kind of moms that keep steering future generations into horror.

Enjoy, and Happy (belated) Mother’s Day!

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1. Ellen Burstyn as Chris MacNeil in The Exorcist (dir. William Friedkin, 1975)

As frightening as the possessed Regan MacNeil is, none of it would’ve worked to the extent it did if the audience couldn’t channel their horror through her mom. Ellen Burstyn made this possible with a spectacular performance as Chris MacNeil, a mom that embodied both the fear of living with a child tormented by something unfathomable and the strength that’s required to fight a battle that initially looked unwinnable.

Burstyn dug deep to portray a mother that had her entire reality flung out the window and yet still managed to hold out hope as a demon tore apart her kid from the inside. Her facial expressions should be studied by anyone interested in capturing what true fear looks like, but also what anger and frustration look like in a supernatural setting. Each one of Chris MacNeil’s screams is a gut punch that makes you reel, heightening the horror of the possession and the idea of what it means to share a household with a sinister entity hellbent on corrupting an innocent soul.

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2. Hitomi Kuroki as Yoshimi Matsubara in Dark Water (dir. Hideo Nakata, 2002)

Mothers have a strange and complicated relationship with child ghosts in horror. In movies where the mother is grieving the loss of a daughter, for instance, the ghost becomes a metaphor for loss and denial in the face of death.

In Hideo Nakata’s Dark Water, though, the connection becomes something different. The story’s mother character, Yoshimi Matsubara, isn’t mourning the loss of a child. She’s getting consumed by the fear of losing hers, all of which stems from the ghost of a little girl that died in the apartment building they live in.

Actress Hitomi Kuroki plays Yoshimi like a tragic beacon of light that lonely ghosts can find a mother in. Her performance captures both the terrors that motherhood brings to the fore and what being a parent represents in the grander scheme of things. Kuroki channels the energy of a haunted house in human form, reluctantly accepting her role despite the consequences of potentially becoming mom to a ghost.

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3. Essie Davis as Amelia in The Babadook (dir. Jennifer Kent, 2014)

Perhaps the most influential horror mom in recent times, Essie Davis’ Amelia landed on the scene with a force that reminded viewers how brutal the experience of motherhood can be. The Babadook runs on her intensity, on her up-close and uncomfortably personal pain.

Amelia is a single mom taking care of her high-energy kid, called Samuel. Her life has essentially halted, fully, just because Samuel and his behavior take up so much of her existence, every inch of it, in fact. When the titular demon comes into their home, it finds Amelia ripe for murderous possession.

Director Jennifer Kent managed to paint a rage-filled portrait of a mother that was dealt an extremely bad hand. Essie Davis leans into Amelia’s frustrations and makes a compelling argument against becoming a mom, but only in certain moments. At others, she manages to flip the horror of the Babadook to show how incredibly beautiful it can be to take care of a life you created.

Bates Motel

4. Vera Farmiga as Norma Bates in Bates Motel (TV series developed by Carlton Cuse, Kerry Ehrin, and Anthony Cipriano, 2013-2017)

I’m going to cheat here really quick and go for a horror TV series instead of a movie because this example is just too good, and it should be discussed more as a whole. Vera Farmiga’s interpretation of the iconic Norma Bates in Bates Motel is one of the most fascinating takes on the role in the history of the moms in horror.

The series modernizes the Norman Bates story by making the motel he shares with his mother part of a larger ecosystem and by having Norma be very much alive. Drugs, late night rendezvous, and dangerous relationships form in their place of business, and Norma has a hand in everything in one shape or another. And yet, nothing with her is predictable. She can turn a bad situation worse or offer comfort in times when those closest to her are in need.

What’s impressive is how the show interweaves outside influences with the peculiar intricacies of Norma’s relationship and outright manipulation of Norman. Farmiga switches with ease between scheming and selfish to loving and nurturing. She’s a source of torment one episode and a pillar of stability in another. She’s both what Norman needs as a mother and what he desperately needs to run away from. Farmiga puts on a show for the ages as Norma Bates. Her contribution to horror should not be overlooked.

huesera

5. Natalia Solán as Valeria in Huesera: The Bone Woman (dir. Michelle Garza Cervera, 2022)

A baby can be a terrifying thing, especially as it grows inside you. It can either be a great source of happiness or a force of existential oppression that can shatter a parent’s identity. Add the fear of some foreign entity shaping and corrupting the life you’re carrying and things can get scarier fast.

Michelle Garza Cervera’s Huesera indulges in this kind of fear, asking what a child is supposed to mean to a mother and whether they should submit to whatever the answer is. It places the mom-to-be, Natalia Solán’s Valeria, at the center of the story as a kind of victim of pregnancy, someone who went along with social expectations only to open the doors for something sinister to latch onto her baby.

Solán approaches Valeria as a ticking time bomb-type of character that suffers quietly at first, but is then forced to face the entity and the prospect of becoming a mother in the worst ways possible. Watching Valeria unravel is tough, but it comes with the development of a different point of view regarding a mother’s obligations and whether it’s okay to resist them. The very meaning of personal sacrifice is explored here, and it leads to an urgent question more people should ask themselves: is the parent’s life, their dreams and desires, less important than that of the child’s? The answer, Huesera would argue, is not so simple.

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