Jack Herbert Christal Gattanella's Reviews > Night of the Ghoul

In this tale of icky monsters and (as the title promises) dreadful ghouls, Scott Snyder and the masterful artist Francesco Francavilla cook up a yarn out of EC Comics but with an extra thread or two about an extremely aged film director kept inside of a hospital who is visited by a filmmaker-cum-fan who wants to interview him and talk to him specifically about a "lost" reel of a film that was part of an unfinished project. But this leads to a story of a conspiracy, of supernatural demons and the unknown, of things out of Lovecraft (or as I might suspect with these creators influences, Bottin and Carpenter), and the filmmaker's son is involved as well as a consortium of doctors who may not be what they seem (dot dot dot...)

I think the story gets a little bit away from Snyder in the latter part of this series, like he and Francavilla realized this or that needed to be filled in and so they had maybe one twist too many (and there is one in particular where even a seven year old reading this will go "yeah, of course that would happen with him, saw it a mile away"). But I'm not necessarily reading this for the most unique story or even for it to have something to "say" about the nature of good and evil or about the (sigh) "real" monsters in our midsts (especially since in this story there *are* real monsters, like giant 🕷 looking freaks who will eat you in two seconds).

I'm reading this for the thrills of a page turner, and for the dynamic artwork and on this end the creators don't disappoint. If it's not quite up to the level of the Black Mask, it still hits the mark and then some for ingenious and disgusting creatures, atmosphere, and there is a pretty good (though not great) sub plot showing us the story in the film that the filmmaker wants to see - and it made me almost wish to read an entire war-and-post-war comic series written and drawn by these guys rather than the "No, you MUST SEE THE FINAL REEL" theatrics from this decrepit director Mr. Patrick (though he never stops looking cool as a wretched old fuck)