The Haunted Heart

I spent yesterday reading some old horror stories. Old stuff — M.R. James, Robert W. Chambers, turn-of-the-century ghost story stuff, plus I watched some old trailers for horror flicks, too. So I’m in the mood to review a couple new horror comics. Let’s get to it, kiddies.

 

B.P.R.D.: 1946 #2

The adventures of Hellboy’s father, Trevor Bruttenholm, continue in post-war Berlin during the first years of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense. Bruttenholm and his associate, Trevor, narrowly avoid being attacked in the abandoned asylum when their soldier assistants show up to bring them home. Later, they meet up with an old woman who keeps her son, a former inmate at that asylum, locked away in a barn. The reason: The poor kid’s been turned into a vampire! The kid drags one of the soldiers up to the rafters when the Soviets show up — Varvara, the creepy little blonde girl who runs the USSR’s occult research division, had Bruttenholm followed. We learn a bit more about her after she goes into the barn to talk to the vamp, and later when she tells Bruttenholm an old legend about Peter the Great.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Varvara is a very, very scary little girl.

 

The Evil Dead #2

Ash and his friends are spending the weekend in a deserted cabin in the woods. One of them has already gone on a hover-in-the-air, eyes-gone-dead-white, speaking-in-freaky-voices, and trying-to-kill-everyone binge, but they’ve managed to lock her in the basement. Too bad that doesn’t solve the problem, as one other goes missing while another turns deadite on them — and not even hacking her up with an axe looks like it’ll keep her down.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Yeah, it’s still largely a re-telling of the original “Evil Dead” film, but there ain’t nothing in the world wrong with a little early ’80s gore. John Bolton’s paintings are also awfully nice to look at.

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