Two tales continue with adult horror.
Creative Staff:
Story: Cullen Bunn
Art: Danny Luckert, Leila Leiz, Bill Crabtree
Letterer: Nate Piekos
What They Say:
Cullen Bunn (Harrow County), Danny Luckert (Regression), and Leila Leiz (The Last Book You’ll Ever Read) present a brand-new horror anthology flipbook taking place in a haunted comic book shop with a twisted retailer filled with tales of terror sure to leave you with the lights on. Welcome to the SHOCK SHOP!
The horror continues in these two-terrifying tales about woodland campers prey to monsters and a family plagued by powerful beings lurking in the shadows of their house.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Cullen Bunn continues to be my main go-to when it comes to scary stories these days and the debut of Shock Shop delivers in that anthology style that I enjoy a lot. The third installment of the series again comes with two stories with framing by a character that’s basically a haunted comic shop where the woman in it tells the tales. The first tale comes from artist Danny Luckert which has a really good deep woods distinctive look and color design while the second by Leila Lizz and Bill Crabtree hits it out of the park in working through a home with a really dark secret to it. The details in both are great but they’re distinctively different without being wildly different in look.
The first story is “Something in the Woods, in the Dark” and the whole trip just keeps getting worse. With a couple dead so far and everyone moving along with a lot of adrenaline and fear, tensions are riding high. Especially as everyone has seen and understood that monsters are at play here and then come to conclude about the shapeshifter aspects. The problem being that they opt to camp for a while because of their exhaustion and that just has them lowering their guard, not realizing that they invited the monster into the group already. It’s one of those moments where everyone is getting that moment of respite only to discover the person they’re being close with for comfort is the creature itself and it turns to violence. I think we’re down to three survivors at this point that are now on the run and it’s just grim and terrifying
The second story is called “Familiars” and we’ve seen some pretty grim sequences before. With the inhabitants of Trevor’s home having now killed Ryan, he’s doing his best at the funeral to make sure his ex and kids are all right, which isn’t really a thing in this situation. It does get tense with his ex-father-in-law giving him grief about it and the divorce so we see a lot of bad blood there. But we see even more blood when the trio of demons kills him and his wife as the critters see them as a threat. These things were never under Trevor’s control but they’re now causing real problems and that is about to draw the attention of the police too as things continue to fall apart. But it takes a twist we don’t get too much of a payoff for here yet in that the trio goes into their own demonic space to retrieve a book for Trevor that really makes you want to know what it’s all about.
In Summary:
The body count grows a fair bit in this book overall between the two stories and they’re again pretty strong works. Both are going in their own direction and style and the artwork for each is really good in capturing the right tone for that particular kind of horror since the stories aren’t alike. Watching the panic in the first one is great while the creeping realizations in the second hits really different. I’m enjoy both a lot and while it’s set to conclude in the next issue it feels like they each still need at least a full issue on their own to wrap things up without feeling rushed, so I’m a bit wary.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dark Horse Comics
Release Date: November 9th, 2022
MSRP: $3.99
