Warning: Review contains multiple juvenile use of the “A” word.
Creative Staff:
Story: Anthony Bourdain and Joel Rose
Art: Sebastian Cabrol (Deep), Paul Pope (Boil in the Belly)
Colors: José Villarrubia
Letters: Sal Cipriano
What They Say:
One by one the candles are snuffed out as the ghostly game of dread and terror continues through the never-ending night. Next up, two tales of shocking horror: ”The way to a mans heart is through his stomach” takes on a whole new meaning as an accomplished young chef returns to his small-town home from the big city to find insatiable mouths to feed. And in the backroom brigade of a fine French kitchen, an abusive master chef gets what’s coming to him in the most unspeakable of manners.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Remember in my reviews of the previous two issues of Hungry Ghosts how I said that the comic needed to find its theme? Its reason? Well, it seems like it has in this issue, and let me tell you, it’s not what I thought it was. Anyone faint of stomach or with an aversion to butt stuff should probably skip this review.
For those of you brave enough, or curious enough, or whatever enough, this issue only features two stories, and that works to its advantage. One of the problems with the first two issues was that the stories had no room to breathe, making them rushed and unsatisfying. Paring the issue down to two stories is a step in the right direction, but, sadly, it still isn’t enough. More on that in a moment.
As I said before, Hungry Ghosts seems to have found its identity. Before, I’ve compared it unfavorably to other anthologies, such as Tales from the Crypt and Grindhouse: Doors Open at Midnight. I wrote that the difference between this title and the other two is that the other two have a clear worldview and a strong thematic core. Tales is all about horrible people getting their comeuppance in gruesome, supernatural ways. Grindhouse is a love letter to the eponymous cinema genre, taking its basic characters, tones, and story concepts and playing with them. Although Hungry Ghosts ostensibly works around the theme of food and the people who make it, that’s more a backdrop instead of a theme. Up until this issue, it possessed no motive, no thesis. Now it does, and it’s all about the ass.
The first story, “Deep,” is told by a chef who came up in the “Brigade System.” Basically, the system revolved around the strong bullying the weak. When the Chef was unhappy, he took it out on the Sous Chef, who in turn took out his frustration on the Chefs de Partie, who would then take it out on the Commis. The Commis, being apprentices, had no one under them to brutalize and terrify, and wound up turning on each other.
It’s basically frat boy mentality. The narrator describes shoulder punches, shin kicks, ball grabbing and ass squeezing as “all in good fun” (remind me never to go to his house), but he also says that one chef took it too far. Gaspard was his name, and ass was his game. Although the narrator never comes out and says it, and thankfully Sebastian Cabrol only implies it, Gaspard sexually assaults these young men, and had a particular sweet spot for the narrator.
Fortunately, the narrator had a friend, a chef from French Indo-China. This friend takes the narrator aside at one point to comfort him. He tells the narrator that bullies such as Gaspard act the way they do because they have a “small ball up their asses.” He goes on to say that some people—and creatures—find that ball a delicacy, especially the Japanese Kappa.
So far so good, right? Up to the point I’ve described, the story was well-plotted and executed with solid pacing and a much better eye to detail in regards to setting up the story. When I was reading it, I thought “Good! They finally found their groove!” Well, curse me for the optimist I am, because the story falls apart in the last two pages. The kindly chef becomes a kappa, sucks the ball out of Gaspard’s ass, and says “Come, little one, we feast.”
All the tension, all the buildup, all the good work put into the beginning of the story just falls apart here. There’s no clear narrative arc, and the ending is a total deus ex machina (or kappa ex machina if you’re inclined to mix your Japanese with your Latin). It’s unsatisfying and it falls back on shock and gore instead of doing the actual legwork to finish the story.
And if you thought that sounded bad, wait until you read about the second story, “Boil in the Belly.” The storyteller says that the story happened to a friend of his, a nice boy from a midwestern town who left to go work in the big city. This nice boy returns home and cooks his family a sumptuous meal. Later that night (or a different night—the timing is suspect in this one) he screams in pain for his mother. Turns out a boil appeared on his stomach. His mother tries to treat him, but the boil opens up demands to be fed, like a gross Audrey 2, only without the voice of the lead singer of the Four Tops to make him charming. The mother feeds the boil, who demands more and more food. Meanwhile, her son starves, because the boil gets all the food.
Eventually, they turn to a doctor, who says that he’s seen this sort of thing before (remind me never to go to that doctor). The nice boy has been infected by a “hungry ghost.” Luckily, the doctor knows just how to handle it. He mixes up an ipecac. The concoction put the boy in enormous pain, causing him, for some reason, to flop on his face, arch his ass in the air, and pull his pants down (maybe the doctor did this—it’s unclear). The doctor, ready, shoves his gloved hand up the nice boy’s ass and pulls out the hungry ghost, a creature that looks a bit like a purple sandworm from Dune. The doctor and the family hack the ghost to pieces and all’s well that ends well except that the pieces become sentient and crawl up Mom’s leg and, well, let’s not think about it.
Despite being drawn by the excellent Paul Pope, “Boil in the Belly” serves as a return to form for Hungry Ghosts. Again, the pacing is forced, the climax isn’t built up well, and there’s no real arc. It’s just random awful stuff happening to a person. It’s the sort of thing that Richard Matheson could pull off, but these writers aren’t Richard Matheson. The best I can say about this story is that Pope draws one helluva disturbing mouth-boil, which I suppose is something.
I know I harped on the ass stuff a bunch in this review, but come on, you don’t have to be Columbo to see the pattern here. In some ways, Hungry Ghosts falls under the body horror genre, but it’s almost like it does that despite itself, or accidentally. The stories are visceral and gory, and to their credit, they never hold back, but just like the Splatterpunk movement in the late Eighties, early Nineties, there’s nothing underpinning the gore. For some, the crudity and blood and guts might be enough for the price of admission, but for me, you can throw in all the gross, nasty stuff in the world, but if I don’t care about the characters, and if I don’t see an actual story, it’s just going to fall flat. Hungry Ghosts most definitely falls flat.
In Summary:
I said a while back that I was giving this series until issue three. If I didn’t like it by then, I was going to drop it. Well, I’m eating my words here, because I didn’t realize this was a four-issue miniseries. In retrospect, I should have known. After all, Anthony Bourdain is a busy man. He’s not going to spend the rest of his days writing this comic. This means I’ll be here for the next issue. I doubt it will redeem itself, but we’ll see. I’m always ready to be pleasantly surprised. In the meantime, if you’ve been on the fence about this series, I’d say stay up there. There’s nothing here to make this worth $3.99. If you’re jonesing for a good horror anthology, check out Creepy, Eerie, Tales from the Crypt, or Grindhouse: Doors Open at Midnight. Trust me, you’ll have a much better time. Dr. J gives this a…
Grade: C-
Age Rating: Mature
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: 28, March 2018
MSRP: $3.99
