PopHorror Let's Get Scared
As we approach the most horror-ific time of year, the month all of us boils and ghouls love, us here at PopHorror shift into gear, ready to consume more of our favorites than any other time of year. It looks like Jonathan Chance, writer of the first Never by Night anthology series (our review here) wants to spoil us and get us off to an early start by delivering a second volume of his eerie series.
1st Story- “Late Night Host”
While there is no way Chance could have predicted recent late night media events, this just happens to be a hell of a hook to start volume 2 on. Thankfully, I can safely let prospective readers know none of the touchy issues of Kimmel’s recent episodes come anywhere near this tale. The story starts on the night of Dick Halloway’s premiere as the new host of Late Show, a late-night program, where he is passed out from celebrating and is attacked by an alien creature that fuses with him, causing him to mutate and hallucinate. As the night of his premiere gets ever closer, Dick must fight to keep not only his sanity but his own body.
This story has a nice balance between contained story yet potential to be expanded to a full feature if Chance ever decides to do so. The art by Joao Vieira has a sketchy and visceral look that helps sell the hallucinatory scenes, making us readers just as unsure as Dick where the story will go and what is truly happening. The body horror is just subtle enough to create a creeping tension and uncertainty, and I loved that. Is it sleep deprivation and bourbon talking or is Dick really being changed by an invasive alien species? Wherever the story leads, we are sure it will be nasty.
With taut storytelling and emotional heart strings pulling, I’m proud to give the opening story a 3.5 out of 5 fallen stars.
2nd Story- “Video Van Man”
After the first story, I was starting to get excited to see if this volume would surpass the original in scares and tension. The second story, “Video Van Man,” is set in the late 1980s during the time of video nasties – films that were banned from distribution in the UK for their content and material – like Evil Dead and Cannibal Ferox. Bob is a man determined to make a living renting tapes out of his van. However, Bob has high standards, and you’re not going to like it when you disappoint Bob.
Art by Mike Bogdanovic
I really appreciated the art of this story, done by Mike Bogdanovic. It utilized clean and occasionally impressionistic linework and a flatter color scheme that made it feel less digital and more like a comic of the era. While we’ve seen similar stories to this like Dexter, the combination of the period appropriate art and timely story made this one stick out. A solid 3 out of 5 properly rewound tapes.
3rd Story- “Now All Is Silver Blue”
The third story features a father named Eddie in a snowy post-apocalyptic scenario, locked down in some kind of bunker. The story opens with him paranoid and refusing to let anyone leave the bunker yet for safety reasons, but we are not made clear of why besides a mention of bandits. Eventually, a group rebels and leaves with most of their supplies. In the hustle, something kidnaps his son. This leads to Eddie breaking down and letting go of his caution and going full Liam Neeson in Taken to retrieve his son, leading to a gruesome conclusion.
Similar to the finale of the last volume, this story was a bit hard to get through. Like any other apocalyptic style story, the primary goal of the protagonist is to survive, that was clear. But the supporting cast deciding to rebel and leave Eddie behind takes up a solid chunk of this story and we’re given no emotional connection to this decision until we see Eddie’s son taken. The lingering horror that we got in the first story is not so much here, rather this is more of a gruesome action apocalypse story a la Doomsday, directed by Neil Marshall. Sorry to say, but this story was the weak link of the 4, and I’d give it 2 bandit teeth out of 5.
Final Story- “Collect them All”
The final story’s title is a little bit of a bait and switch. You’d think from the title it’d be about something like Pokemon, given the 90s setting, but instead it’s a zombie survival story involving an older man taking his granddaughter to a Chuck E. Cheese equivalent and everything going wrong. I found it very clever to use the lick and stick tattoos that were all the rage at that time as the start of the zombie infection. After hearing so many urban legends about laced lick ‘n sticks with poison or LSD or what have you, it was a fun twist on an urban legend that modern kids may not know.
This story is the most comprehensive of the four and I think it would only take a little bit of retooling if Chance decided it could be a solid feature film (I certainly think so). The art by Rodel Noora is beautiful, often reminding me of Mark Buckingham’s work on VERTIGO’s Fables series. There wasn’t much detail given to supporting characters but the grandfather character was touching in his steadfast love of his granddaughter, staying with her even past the point of no return.
An exciting short with a ton of potential and a little bit of heartstring pulling. I would call this one the best of the lot, giving it 4 pizza slices out of 5!
If you are interested in Never by Night volume 2 (or the original), you can go to your local Barnes & Noble or on Amazon to purchase your very own copy on October 1st. If you want to meet the author, he will be at a signing at LA Comic Con this weekend as well as at Golden Apple this October! You can also follow him on social media here:
