Creepshow [2023] #4 - Image Comics

CREEPSHOW No. 4, December 2023

Arguably capturing both some of the wicked wit and grotesque gruesomeness of the original 1982 horror anthology film “Creepshow”, Nick Dragotta’s opening narrative for Issue Four of this comic book mini-series should certainly catch many a reader off-guard with its rapid decline into savage, physical mutilation. In fact, the “naughty” creator’s “Killer Cart Corral” may well completely wrong-foot the majority of this publication’s audience, courtesy of a storyline which initially suggests that a haunted shopping trolley will be its central antagonist, and then shockingly revealing a far grisly monster to break Billy’s heavily traumatised mother into several pieces.

Sure, some bibliophiles might believe that the thieving, drug-dealing brat’s parent may well have deserved a truly dreadful death at the bottom of her deceased son’s blood-splattered buggy. But this ten-page plot’s writer/artist does such a cracking job in revealing the adolescent’s deceit and his guardian’s unwillingness to accept his fatal flaws, despite closed circuit television footage to the contrary, that when she is still disconcertingly gurgling for mercy, few “Creepsters” will believe she genuinely deserves it; “As for you and your Billy. We simply cannot tolerate such carelessness. Good boy, Dougans.”

Just as intriguing, though not anywhere near as gory, is “The Amulet” by the “abominable Alisa Kwitney”, which explores all the concerns a wheelchair-bound septuagenarian may well experience when she is unlovingly expelled from her home straight into a cruelly-run nursing centre for the elderly. Quick to realise her perilous predicament, “Professor Emeritus of Archaeology and Anthropology at Ogelthorpe College” makes for a remarkably sympathetic heroine, who sadly appears well out of her depth against the Rainbow Rest’s utterly merciless and homicidally murderous manageress.

Proficiently pencilled by Belgian illustrator Mauricet, it’s debatably difficult to see just how the new resident is ever going to survive even a week inside the care home, especially when it’s spelled out to her just how quick a death a tenant can experience should they cross the malignant Miss Amy. But rather cleverly, the New York City-born writer manages to throw a few surprises into the mix at the end, including a truly disturbing scene of the facility’s outfoxed female felon being forced to eat the body parts of one of her previous victims as a staff member unwittingly watches on.

Writers: Nick Dragotta and Alisa Kwitney, and Artists: Nick Dragotta and Mauricet