By GABE THOMAS
To say slasher sequels have changed since the ’80s is no industry secret. In the early 2000s, popular horror franchises were working hard to find their place in an onslaught of Scream wannabes and J-horror remakes. The titans of the genre – Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, Chucky and others – had all become stale by the start of the 21st century. However, the call for new blood or at least fresh takes on these beloved characters was on the lips of every fan who was tired of seeing their favorite big-screen slashers jump the shark.
Studios such as New Line Cinema and Universal had a cavalcade of great horror villains and no real plans to use them. It wasn’t long before they began searching for ways to keep these monsters relevant that didn’t involve multi-million dollar budgets for underperforming R-rated productions. Luckily, there was plenty of room for these killers on the pages of comic books.
Several approaches were taken to bring recently deceased franchises back to life. Some blood-soaked adaptations took the form of direct continuations of the most recent movies. The majority of them just used their main villain as an excuse to fill 30 pages with gory mayhem. Continuity aside, some stories stand above the rest – for better or worse.
One of the early adopters of this craze was the man of our dreams – Freddy Krueger. Freddy had the longest history in comics up to this point, with the first iterations of the character appearing as early as 1989. When it was time for Springwood’s favorite son to slash his way back to the page in 2005, he returned with a vengeance in A Nightmare on Elm Street: Paranoid, written by Brian Pulido.
This arc covers the plight of high school student Claire trying to survive Freddy’s wrath with the help of her underwritten group of friends. There’s nothing experimental about the setup here, but there are a few unique elements worth mentioning. Taking place after the events of the film franchise, the local police have come to believe in Freddy Krueger. They deliberately keep information about his existence away from the outside world so he can’t rise to power. The downside to this is that anytime some kid comes along spouting stories of Freddy’s return, they’re silenced – or even killed – to keep the town safe.
Juan José Ryp’s art style is often off-putting, with characters appearing as if their flesh is loosely hanging off their skeletons. Intentional or not, it adds a dreamlike uncanniness to every page. As for the dialogue, it’s about what we’ve come to expect from exhausted teens who are “so over” Freddy Krueger. There isn’t one who stands out, but they function as bloody glove fodder all the same.
What the book does do well is switch up the formula for a world where the residents of Springwood are very aware of the threat Freddy poses. The police force is complicit in drugging the town’s water supply with Hypnocil to suppress everyone’s dreams. Inventive set pieces feature Freddy as a judge, a cop and other more unfortunate characters.
Paranoid is better than other Elm Street comics mainly because of its creativity and understanding of its antagonist. There’s no doubt that Krueger is as disgusting and deplorable as he’s ever been. This depiction makes it all the more satisfying when our new team of dream warriors gets the chance to kick his ass. Some of it hasn’t aged well, but there are worse outlets for anyone looking to take a casual stroll down Elm Street.
Moving onto another Brian Pulido project, 2007’s Chucky serves as a follow-up to Bride of Chucky (and mostly ignores Seed of Chucky). The four-issue series continues the adventures of Jessie and Jade as they evade Chucky’s maniacal rampage. Unfortunately, this comic is only notable for the baffling mishandling of its title character.
The series opens with a group of moronic camp counselors sitting around a campfire, telling tales about Chucky as if he were Jason Voorhees. If this wasn’t egregious enough, he hardly has an in-character line through his first appearances. Whenever somebody other than Don Mancini tries to flesh out this world, the result is always a dumbing-down, leading to bitter disappointment.
Inexplicably, he can’t stop talking about the breasts of his female victims, calling them MILFs or making repetitive jokes about how he’s made of plastic. A major plot point is based around Chucky’s desire to become human again – solely so he can have a working penis. No joke. This story has as much to say about Chucky as a T-shirt with his face on it.
Still, a few interesting kills earn the book some points. Scenes in which Chucky takes victims down with nail guns and chainsaws work well to emulate the cartoony carnage of the early movies. Even stabbings are rather visceral and messy thanks to artist Josh Medors’ fantastic compositions. The visual contrast he achieves from panel to panel is constantly impressive, even if Chucky doesn’t look the way he should.
It seems like Chucky should lend himself to the medium of comics quite easily. He’s got the quips, a colorful design and a distinct personality. Nevertheless, nobody’s been able to pull it off yet. It could be that transferring your soul into a doll is an easier task than transferring Chucky onto the printed page. Maybe we just need Mancini to do it himself.
Our final comic brings us back to the faceless shape who started it all – Michael Myers. Stefan Hutchinson’s Halloween: The First Death of Laurie Strode is a sorrowful tale in more ways than one. Immediately following Halloween II, a grief-stricken Laurie falls into a downward spiral of drug abuse and anger after losing her friends that fateful Halloween Night.
Adorned with gorgeous panels of autumnal artwork, Jeff Zornow infuses Haddonfield with a vibrancy and sense of mystery it’s never had before. Conceptually, there are plenty of ideas here that would be followed up on in future Halloween movies. Laurie is filled with an undying dread that Michael is still alive, later expanded on in the 2018 sequel.
At its core, this is a realistic look at what depression and isolation can do to someone. Laurie Strode is a beacon of innocence in the original movie, which makes her corruption in this comic tragic. Her frustration about her parents hiding her identity and the untoward psychological methods Sam Loomis employs on her are just some of the ways she is tested. Halloween: The First Death of Laurie Strode treats all of this with a delicate empathy that its contemporaries sorely lacked.
The scariest element of TFDOLS is the real-world practices undertaken by Devil’s Due Publishing. It is alleged that the creative team was never properly paid. The miniseries went unfinished. Only two out of the three issues were published, leaving the fate of this Laurie Strode forever unknown. Even more tragically, there was another series planned that would detail Michael’s time in the Thorn Cult, which I know many would love to see explored. It’s a true shame that Hutchinson never got to finish his story. In a more creator-friendly space, this will hopefully change.
While these comics may vary in quality, each has its own charm. Just like cinematic slasher entries, they often don’t have the same tone or characterizations, but there’s always something new brought to the table. There’s much to discover about the way these characters evolved during their dark period with the help of these books. If nothing else, they serve as memorable time capsules of a (thankfully) bygone era.
