Jay Stephens

I suppose this is technically an anthology of horror stories, although they all take place in the same town (Elwich) and have a lot of overlapping elements.

In the first story, a teen (twenty-something?) in the witness protection program kills a mobster and then goes crazy and kills a bunch of other people, thinking that he's doing it for the crows that keep following him around.

In the second story, a psychology student researching Foreign Accent Syndrome goes to meet Brandon, a suspected FAC show more patient, and begins to worry that there's something supernatural going on.

In the third story, a woman is angry because her grandmother has gone missing from a retirement home. She finds her grandmother's old puppet, which speaks to her, and ends up on the run from the retirement home folks, who seem intent on silencing her.

In the fourth story, a rich kid opens Fang Factory, a haunted house that makes use of infrasound, a hum that can't be detected by human hearing but that the body can still feel. Things go very badly.

The fifth story is a tangled little tale about a woman who's being chased by mobsters and who seems to be haunted by the spirit of Pesto the Clown.

The sixth story alternates between the past and present, focused on an older man who swears he has no memories of his childhood but who, on the encouragement of his therapist, keeps digging into those memories in order to find the source of his phobias about plants and nature.

In between the various stories, there are extra comics about a guy who repeatedly cheats the devil.

The weakest story of the bunch was probably #5, which was really hard to follow. Meanwhile, the best were probably #3 and #6. I loved the tension and various messed up elements of #3, and #6 had a nastiness to it that built up nicely.

Although I knew these all took place in the same town, for some reason the various elements that crossed over between one story and the next still took me by surprise. For example, the baby in story #2 is the child of #3's Charlie, who is the daughter-in-law of the older man in #6. It made for a funky timeline - it's tough to tell, but I'm pretty sure story #2 takes place after story #4, and #3 has to take place after #5 because one of the people killed in #3 turns up as a random horrible person in #5.

This was dark in ways that reminded me of Max und Moritz, a 19th century German story about two prankster boys - although Dwellings isn't intended for kids, what with all the torture, murder, abuse, drug use, and more, there's a nice helping of old school kids' comics nostalgia in the artwork. Everything is very happily sinister.

Overall, I enjoyed this and wouldn't mind reading another collection of creepy/nasty stories taking place in Elwich.

Extras:

A cover gallery.

(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

There was, like, WAY too much gore, and horrific violence, and dismemberment, for the way I caught myself repeatedly thinking "This is cute." Have I been desensitized to horrific ultraviolence if it is performed by the equivalent of Bazooka Joe or a kewpie doll?! Am I a monster now?!

From the parody retro ads, the “adorable” art, and the surprisingly complex plots, the gimmick of DWELLINGS has something for every horror fan and beyond.

A "Happy Tree Friends"-esque take on the horror anthology where all the art is done in a cutesy old fashioned style (but with blood and gore and dismemberment). Really enjoyed the throwback look and feel, as well as the variety on the stories.