Dread That Lingers Long After The Final Page: Reviewing ‘Night Of The Ghoul’ TPB

Welcome to the table,

Few monsters hold my attention more than the ghouls do. From my early days of encountering them in Lovecraft’s work, the species of corpse-chewing strangely cultured hidden horrors have filled me with wonder and awe. I often worry that much like Pickman, my fascination with these creatures from the land between spaces may lead me to ruin.

Until that time comes though, let’s talk about one hell of a fun comic, Night of the Ghoul.

Scott Snyder has been a favorite of mine since his New 52 Batman days and Francesco Francavilla is not only a wildly talented artist but also one of the kindest people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Between these two modern masters, they conjure some of the most nail-biting edge-of-your-seat horrors that have been committed to the comic page.

This framed story follows filmmaker T.F. Merrit who has spent decades confined in a medically leaning retirement facility, which he claims is run by the Order of the Fly, a cult organization from one of his very own movies.

The story is played so beautifully between the present where Forest Inmann questions T.F. Merrit about his thought to be lost horror film masterpiece, and the footage from the partially burned film, a film that tells a tail of an entity that dwells inside of a human waiting for its moment to crawl out and consume the dead, over, and over, and over again.

The ghoul in this story eats the dead, lives among humans but can travel to what seems to be the Dreamlands, and has an exaggerated physiology but that is where the similarities between the oddly cultured immortal corpse eaters of my fandom end and the chillingly horrific monster from beyond the walls of sleep begin.

The monster in this book is worryingly well-conceived in that it touches on some primal fear in me that harkens back to the shadow figures that haunted my nightmares as a child. Rarely does a horror title focused on a monster unnerve me the way Night of the Ghoul has, not through gore or shock, but through a looming dread that lingers long after the final page.

If you love a monster story and being creeped out in the best possible way I urge you to grab a copy of this collected tale of twisted terror and see why Night of the Ghoul is sure to be one of the top monster stories for years to come.

You can score a copy at this link.

Until next time, you can check out Pickman’s Model for free at this link. It’s not Lovecraft’s best ghoul story but it sure is a fun one.