For movie buffs, it’s no obscure bit of trivia that many films have been lost to the ages due to things such as lack of preservation or catastrophic fires. Even some films featuring big stars or made by iconic directors can no longer be found in the archives, such as the 1927 Lon Chaney flick London After Midnight. This certainly creates a mystique around these movies, and Scott Snyder and Francesco Francavilla’s new mini-series Night of the Ghoul plays into this.
Night of the Ghoul #1 and 2
Andworld Design (Letterer), Francesco Francavilla (Art and colors), Scott Snyder (Writer)
Dark Horse Comics
October 4 and November 2, 2022
The comic’s modern-day story centers on Forest, a man who digitizes old films for a living but has become obsessed with a lost picture from 1936 that shares a name with the comic’s title. Although pieces of it survive, the whole film is no longer intact. Forest takes his son Orson to a hospital to find and question the director, T.F. Merritt, who slipped out of the limelight for decades after the movie’s release. Unfortunately for Forest and Orson, they find themselves in an unnerving situation as things do not seem right with either Merritt or the hospital itself.
The comic cuts between Forest, Orson, and Merritt’s plot and clips of the film itself. At first, the story follows some soldiers during World War I, but when one of them, a father named Kurt, comes home from the war, he comes home changed. His best friend Johnny and son Alex will have to unravel the mystery of his strange behavior.
The debut issue does an excellent job of laying out a lot of plot across its hefty 60-page run. Although Forest and Orson may not be the most original father-and-son duo, Merritt does well as an unsettling old man ready to boil over in anger due to the secrets he’s been forced to keep. Interspersing bits of the film itself creates tension and provides a helpful backstory on the legend of the ghoul and Merritt’s own childhood, since much of the film proves to be at least semi-autobiographical.
Francavilla’s old-time pulp-heavy art does not disappoint. His pencils and inks are clean without coming across as too polished for a horror comic, and it’s never unclear what’s going on from panel to panel. He also holds his signature control of color schemes, using plenty of blues and reds. The sepia tones of the film clips are appropriate and help separate the timelines.
Night of the Ghoul issue #2 picks up where the first left off–with the shocking revelation that the doctor in the hospital is the cadaver-eating ghoul featured in the movie–at least according to Merritt himself. Forest and Orson are forced out of the facility, but Forest won’t be so easily dissuaded from continuing his investigation. He’ll dive head-first back into the world of the ghoul to learn answers.
This second issue mostly serves to thicken the plot and up the stakes. We learn a little more about Forest’s family problems, but characterization feels perfunctory as the comic yields more time to create dread around and kinesis within its primary story. Inside the movie’s narrative, Johnny and Alex find Professor Holloway, an expert in ancient global lore. She explains to them the origins of ghoul tales and just how long the creature has been haunting civilizations. Johnny and Alex take the knowledge to hatch a plot to stop the ghoul.
Francavilla’s art shines in the dark, and it’s worth looking at carefully to spot some of the more unsettling flourishes that pop up across it, including a figure passing across the road in the back of a car’s window.
So far, between the two first issues, the book feels like a 1930s Universal horror film sprinkled with contemporary body horror. There are some great moments of real dread, and the overall approach is effective in creating tension and propelling a reader forward. Although Night of the Ghoul may not have the most compelling characters so far, its sense of developed mythology can satisfy those looking for a fresh take on an old monster.
