Who wouldn’t want to take up gardening when you have so much free fertilizer?
Creative Staff:
Writer: Steve Yockey
Artwork: Vincenzo Riccardi
What They Say:
The Doctor’s Garden – A botany student visits the in-home laboratory of a scientist, Dr. Rappaccini, who is known for his experiments with plants. During the student’s visit, he finds himself almost drawn to Rappaccini’s daughter. But is the temptation with the consequences?
Content (please note that portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Zenescope revives the old horror genre with their version of Chamber of Darkness, Weird Mystery Tales or Tales from the Crypt. This anthology of moralities is a take from their regular fare by that each narrative is a tale of ordinary people which takes place outside of the normal Zenescope universe. And of course, as in the previously mentioned titles, it usually ends badly for the participants of the story.
The typical issue begins with Keres, the Goddess of Death, meeting some unfortunate soul as they try to make a decision which will effect their immediate future. However, when you meet this Grim Reaper, you never know what will happens as she spins a tragedy related to the visitor’s current situation.
In this anecdote, two students visit their grieving professor, a renown botanist, after the recent death of this wife. He has not been back to the university and so they decide to check up on him. But, not all is what it seems as they drive up to see a variety of weird flora and a silhouette in the window.
As the dedicated student tries to console his teacher, all he wants is to left alone; but, the pupil will not give up. His bored friend excuses himself and stumbles upon the beautiful daughter whom they asked to leave alone, so that she may mourn in peace. But, of course, he doesn’t and thus ensues the merriment!
In Summary:
Although each issue of the series is a self contained tale, Zenescope changes the creative team every few issues, so a feeling of consistency is lost in the anthology. This is especially true with this series when they change the writer. Although the publisher does this with their other titles, since this series is dependent on its stories, the mood is lost when you use different authors.
Another problem with the horror genre is the pitfall of the rehash; writers have run out of ideas!
In this story, as I was reading it, I kept having flashbacks to old plant horror movies like: Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Stephen King’s story/role in Creepshow or Little Shop of Horrors! I kept expecting the fauna to yell out:
“Feed me! FEED ME!”
And as what will happen in any horror movie, the protagonist’s warning is never heeded and so the antagonists always go off and meet their bloody end. Although this time they were lured in with the help of a beautiful daughter scattered amongst a forest of flowers. Teenagers and their hormones.
What a surprise there!
Hopefully, future issues will have more assorted adventures or at least mix up the underlying narrative so that the ending will not be so disappointing.
Grade: C
Rating: 16+
Released By: Zenescope via ComiXology
Release Date: May 27th, 2015
MSRP: $3.99
