Until the producers of the HALLOWEEN franchise can learn how to crank one out every October without fail like those SAW peeps, we’ll have to make do with the original HALLOWEEN comics from Devil’s Due Publishing. And since you know “until” equates to “never,” you have no other choice for a new Michael Myers fix.
HALLOWEEN: NIGHTDANCE is the first trade paperback of an ongoing series of new graphic novels for Haddonfield’s least favorite son. It’s a four-chapter look at what happens when Michael discovers Lisa, a girl who looks remarkably like his own sister Judith, whom he killed all those years ago. We know for Lisa, this can’t be good.
And sure enough, it’s not! She’s been haunted/stalked by Myers for a few years, starting with the day she and a little boy she was babysitting explored an abandoned cabin and were trapped in its basement by Myers for enough time to scar them both forever.
That boy and his family haven’t been in contact lately with big sis Marcie, who lives in another town, so she and her happily married hubby take a road trip home. Before they can get there, however, fate quite cruelly crosses their headlights, thus bringing about three initially confusing storylines together with a single crash.
It’s a marvelous night for a NIGHTDANCE, and this graphic novel has the feel of some of the mid-franchise sequels like HALLOWEEN 4 and 5, before the Weinsteins got a hold of the property. There’s the expected blood, gore and nudity, and the trick of Myers’ blank visage popping out of the darkness never gets old for me.
Stefan Hutchinson — who made the excellent HALLOWEEN: 25 YEARS OF TERROR superfan documentary, by the way — takes the writing reins, and with the exception of an overreliance on metaphorical internal monologues, does the boogeyman right. The rather effective art — carnival clowns and all — is done by Tim Seeley.
A cover gallery includes contributions from Bill Sienkiewicz, Sean Phillips and Ben Templesmith, and there’s a brief prose story in the back. About all that’s missing from HALLOWEEN: NIGHTDANCE? This. —Rod Lott
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS SERIES:
• HALLOWEEN: AUTOPSIS by Stefan Hutchinson
Related posts:
- Halloween: Autopsis
- Q&A with HALLOWEEN AND OTHER SEASONS’ Al Sarrantonio
- Happy Halloween!
- The Ultimate Halloween
- Wicked Karnival Halloween Horror
