After discovering her estranged ma has died, single white trash female Kat Somerville takes her kid Sybil back to her childhood smalltown home, Comfort Notch, “home of Amurica’s prettiest autumn” (the only time I’ve heard that season described so on that side of the pond - usually Muricans calls it “Fall” because it sounds more Biblical I guess), for the funeral and to take up residence in her ma’s house. But things aren’t what they seem in Comfort Notch. Them fancy trees is killer…
The Autumnal sorta lives up to its genre label literally in that it’s horrible, but otherwise it’s not a good horror. Writer Daniel Kraus spins the most tedious, drawn-out, watered-down, wannabe-Stephen King story with a dash of the worst of M. Night Shyamalan. The end result is both a boring and irritating comics version of a Bumhouse movie.
Kraus spends the book ticking off the list of horror story cliches. Mysterious death that sets the whole thing off, check; small town folk who appear all folksy and pleasant but really aren’t, check; stupid old town legend, check; children’s nursery rhyme that’s sinister, check; finding out info via old newspapers at the library, check; chosen one crap, check; and that idiotic finale.
If it’s not derivative, it’s forgettable. Kat is a dreary main character and I didn’t care about anything that happened to her or her even drearier stock daughter character. She hooks up with a tattoo removal artist… so what. The myth of the Autumnal makes no sense (how…?) and elements of the plot are too convenient, ie. the junkie character goes from being an addict to being clean having gone to rehab in the space of a few pages. What am I saying, of course we all know how easy it is to kick heroin…
Artist Chris Shehan tries to make this comic scary but can’t given how hopelessly weak the material is. I mean, how do you make dried up leaves being blown across pavement terrifying? You don’t. It’s more comedic than horrific. ‘member those shots of branches swaying in the wind that made audiences of The Happening wet themselves from fear? The latter didn’t happen, but, that. And on a smaller scale here.
I wouldn’t bother with this piss-poor “horror” unless, for some reason, you want to read a godawful comics version of Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery, or The Wicker Man movie (I’ll let you guess which version I mean. No - not THAT! NOT THAT VERSION, NOOOOO!!!1).
No comments:
Post a Comment