Tron: Ares Review

I'm interrupting my mad string of daily 31 Days of Horror posts to write about seeing Tron: Ares with the family tonight. I had lowered expectations for this movie because while I enjoyed Tron: Legacy it was not my favorite movie by any means and I had many issues with it. The original Tron holds a special place in my heart, but is distinctly a beast of its time, and aged about as well as a movie trying to do CGI in a nascent era where CGI was all simple vector graphics could (and the rest wasn't even CGI, but rather simulated CGI). That said, I was a kid when the first one came out, and I read the entire novelization the night before seeing the movie, and my mental visual of the book was never going to compete with the poor film....it didn't stand a chance.

So going in to Tron: Ares I did not expect the following: that I not only liked it, I thought it kicked ass. Possibly my second favorite movie of 2025 next to Superman, and may immediately have joined a small but worthy passel of guilty pleasure movies, films I just viscerally love to watch. This list includes Predator 2, Robocop 2, The Thing, Tropic Thunder and The Life Aquatic, to give you sampling of the films I deeply love without justification. Tron: Ares is instantly on this list for me. 

For one thing: The Trent Reznor Nine Inch Nails soundtrack kicks ass and elevates this movie immediately. It is a worthy successor to the retired Daft Punk of the last film. For another thing, this movie maintains a lovely, simple premise that expands the Tron universe without going wild. It raises subtle and interesting questions about what happens when the beings of the digital universe (the Grid) grow accustomed to the existence of the users, and no longer hold theological reverence for them. Instead, we focus on the idea that Dillinger's company and grandson have figured out how to use a variation on 3D printing to create real world hard-light constructs in which the programs can load themselves, and the new security program Ares is one such program. As Ares experiences the world, he realizes that he values something beyond his role as a program in service to Dillinger, and this leads to conflict as he is opposed by the more dedicated and single-minded program Athena. 

Meanwhile, Eve is the CEO of Flynn's old company Encom, and she's trying to discover the secret of permanence....how to make hard light constructs turn into real world things forever. Her work is revealing what amounts to replicator technology from Star Trek; making real food in a 3D printer, for example, that people can eat. In contrast, Dillinger's grandson is focused entirely on the entities of the Grid, and how they can be weaponized. This drives the conflict of the story, which is delivered in glorious, ultra stylish and cool fashion to amazing NIN music, making an almost mesmerizing experience. This really is what I wanted Tron: Legacy to be more like. 

Supposedly the movie isn't doing too great at the box office. I hope it does well enough for a sequel, because I liked it enough to really want more Tron now. Also, this movie made me genuinely like Jared Leto as Ares, and I am still trying to wrap my head around that. Solid A, and this one goes into my short list of films I'll rewatch regularly.

The 17th Day of Horror: The Tower by Simon Clark

 

The Tower by Simon Clark

Originally released in 2005 and published as a mass market paperback under the Pinnacle Imprint, The Tower is Simon Clark in fine form, and also a bit of a change from some of his more popular books (Blood Crazy in particular comes to mind). It is firmly in the haunted house corner of the horror genre, but takes a bit of a twist: in this case the house itself is the evil menace at the heart of the story. I read this a couple months ago so I'll be a bit briefer in my recollection of the details, but I did enjoy this book and felt it was worth talking about in the 31 Days of Horror-thon I have subjected myself to.

The eponymous Tower of the novel is in fact an ancient building, dating back to medieval times and possibly earlier, around which later construction was built out, enclosing the original ancient structure deep inside a much larger mansion. The mansion was an important staging ground for British air defense in World War II and in the years leading up to the time in the novel it was a retirement home for the elderly before being shut down and abandoned and turned by whoever owns the property into a rental in a remote region of England (if you live in England you can correct me on exactly where it is at), accessible only by taking a ferry and crossing a broad wetlands region. 

It is to this house which an aspiring young band of musicians who have recently secured a lucrative contract decide to sequester themselves away in for a month, to compose their new album and strike their fame and fortune. The group consists of a narcissistic leader, the guy who composes the songs and brings along his two girlfriends, his drummer, guitarist, keyboard guy, and a gal whose another girlfriend I think, and whose skillset I can't recall offhand (and apologies, I don't remember anyone's names and can't be bothered to look it up right now)....each is an interesting enough character, though maybe the bandmates are all a little too similar except for the self-absorbed leader, who stands out.

As the group arrives in the small town nearby and leaves the ferry, they find themselves in a drenching storm and stumble across their first omen, an exausted stray dog on the road. One of the bandmembers takes pity on the dog and brings it into the car. This dog is an important character in the book from this point on. 

Anyway, they come to this spooky house, notice it's odd architecture, and are perplexed at a clock which seems to blare from every room equally and goes off on the hour, often inconveniently while they are trying to record. They barely have a day's time to do some practice when they've had it with this clock and try to find its source....and it looks like the source may be in the weird smaller building/tower buried inside the inner building. 

The first night things start happening. One of the team has an oppressive dream of the house literally closing in on him, crushing him to death, but he wakes up thinking maybe it was a dream but his chest bruise suggests otherwise. The next day things get worse, as more horrific things are imagined and one of the girls disappears on the property. There's an old groundskeeper, it turns out, and we the readers learn he is a slave to whatever entity possesses the house. Indeed, the entity may have been there a very long time, and demands sacrifice periodically. I don't think the group gets further than another day or so before they are all keenly aware they are being hunted by the house, which seems determined to stop their music and kill them.

About the biggest problem I can identify in The Tower is that over the course of reading it I began to get the feeling that Simon Clark had a good core premise for a story, and he filled in the gaps and bits as he went along. The hint of the house's ancient nature, perhaps originally the location of an ancient shrine used to appease some ancient chthonic old one beneath the earth was never more than hinted at, which is a shame, because I would have liked to see a bit more of this. We get a lot of grisly dream sequences where people witness their own deaths, then later that death confronts them in the real world and with luck they might escape it....and in the end, the dog they found at the beginning turns out to be a shockingly important key to their escape. 

I was motivated to plow through the book over several days and enjoyed every minute of it. I had a vague feeling I had read it many years ago when it first came out, but my memory was so faded on that first read that I was able to enjoy it with surprises aplenty. Although I own a copy of the physical book in my library, I snagged a copy on Kindle and read that (the better to keep my original intact and uncreased; it's an old book now!) Well worth a read if you like weird house haunt tales, or if you happen to enjoy Simon Clark's writings. I am a big fan of his, and this book, like all of his works, was well worth the time.

The 16th Day of Horror: Deep Gravity TPB

 

Deep Gravity TPB

Released by Dark Horse Comics in 2015, this graphic novel is based on a story by Mike Richardson, scripted by Gabriel Hardman and Corinna Bechko, and illustrated by Fernando Baldo. Deep Gravity is a fine example of what Dark Horse Comics does best: mini series (repackaged as graphic novels) focused on distinct stories that don't need to tie into some sort of existing IP universe. Deep Gravity is particularly entertaining in that it feels like a graphic novel adaptation of a twenty-tens movie we never got to see. It's one part explosive scifi action and one part space survival horror, and nestles well in the "horror SF" tradition without feeling like it is riding on any specific film or story's coat tails.

Deep Gravity's tale is about the arrival of the deep space freighter Vanguard around the remote world Poseidon, located around a fictional red dwarf three light years from Earth. The corporation Maelstrom holds the contracts to supply and manage the colony located on Poseidon, which is a higher gravity world with a unique ecosystem of creatures that exhibit both plant and animal-like traits, but the toxic elements in the ecosystem plus a higher exposure to radioactive particles (presumably due to a weaker magnetosphere, or its proximity to a red dwarf star?) means the people assigned to duties on Poseidon have to rotate out every three years, the maximum safe period humans can occupy the planet before risk of death goes up exponentially. 

Our protagonist is Steve Paxon, an engineer who volunteered to join the three-year journey as one of the lone crew on the Vanguard to remain conscious as a ship tech while the rest of the new colonists are kept in hibernation. His motives aren't driven by money or altruism, but rather to follow his ex-girlfiend Michelle, who was arrived three years ago for a tour of duty on Poseidon and is about to finish out her rotation. His three years on the Vanguard gave him time to reflect on what a poor life choice this was.

No sooner has Steve landed on Poseidon with the rotation of staff than do bad things start happening, as the flora/fauna of Poseidon are reminiscent of Harry Harrison's Deathworld novels; it's a dangerous planet. His pilot buddy his badly injured after Steve decides he wants to go look out the security perimeter for fun, then he distracts Michelle when she's trying to assist in loading a larger beast for transport; Maelstrom hauls a lot of specimens back to Earth as part of hits contract, you see. Either way, Steve is a bad luck magnet who can't stop distracting people at critical moments. 

The story ramps up when the Vanguard, having delivered the new team for the colony loads up and returns to the Vanguard in orbit with a mix of the old crew rotating out from the colony plus the many specimens they have on board, including an immense, insanely deadly octopoidal beast called the galeocrinus, alias the "Leo," a hyper-predatory beast that can squeeze into lots of narrow confines with the instincts and intellect of an octopus and the appetite of a bottomless pit. That would be all fine, if it remained confined.....

After docking while moving the cargo around, something odd happens, and the Vanguard shifts trajectory for mysterious reasons right into the path of an asteroid, and ends up being critically damaged. The destructive wake of the asteroid leaves many of the crew and creatures dead, but Steven and a handful of survivors work to escape the wreckage as it begins orbital decay, while the Leo also survived and begins hunting them. It turns into a race against time to figure out what happened, how to escape, and if Michelle is still alive to be rescued.

This was a great read! Not a long read as the original print run was only four issues, but well worth it if you enjoy a good scifi/action/disaster themed survival horror tale that manages to do a good job within the genre without feeling like it is borrowing from any other property in the cluttered horror SF genre. 

I think it might only have been improved a bit if Baldo managed to make a few of the crew look a bit more distinct from one another (Steve is utterly generic so does not stand out among other utterly generic crew men in certain scenes), and one might imagine that with more time or pages to expand on the broader story we could have been treated to a bit more of Poseidon itself. The book ends on a definitive note, but also suggests maybe a future story could revisit the universe of Deep Gravity. I'd give it a B+.  

The 15th Day of Horror: Ugetsu (1953)

 

Ugetsu (1953)

One thing people around me can probably tell you is that I just won't shut up about how much I love the movie Ugetsu, and I have watched it several times now, each time finding some new bit or piece to enjoy. Originally produced and released in 1953 by director Kenji Mizoguchi, Ugetsu is a period piece set durng a period of civil war in the 16th century in Japan. While it is, strictly speaking, not a horror film it is almost more of a blend of genres, reflecting the kwaidan tradition of the period in which it is set, in which weird tales can often blend with more conventional narratives to tell a fable and perhaps even a moral lesson (or, just as often, a "just so" story).

The story focuses on two families in a small village near Lake Biwa, trying desperately to survive during an eruption of civil war in which the peasantry of the land are treated as nothing more than a resource to be abused and discarded. Genjuro and his friend Tobei conspire to take their ceramic wares across the lake to the city where it is still possible to make a living, and while they try to bring their wives along at first, fear of the risk overcomes Genjuro who leaves his wife Miyage behind with their young child. Tobei's wife Ohama stayes with him.....but as things progress, everything falls apart. 

Genjuro makes money selling his wares, but he encounters the beautiful noblewoman Wakasa, who quickly lures him to her estates, despite mysterious warning from the locals, where he becomes enmeshed in an affair with her. Tobei aspires to become a real warrior, and to seek the status of a samurai; by pure luck he manages to be in the right spot at the right time and manages to ambush a warrior with a suit of armor, which he takes and then presents himself to the army where he quickly advances in status. His wife, now lost in the conflict, ends up recruited into prostitution.

Without saying anymore, I will right off the bat identify this as a solid A+ film, absolutely worth a watch from the perspective of a haunting tale of historical drama mixed with the weird horror conventions of a kwaidan. Read on for spoilers of this 72 year old movie!

SPOILER SECTION

So far the horror of the story is primarily of small town folk getting swept up in a time of severe conflict and the damage it does to their otherwise more innocent natures....but the horror creeps in with Genjuro's tale as he eventually discovers that his new love, Lady Wakasa, is in fact a yurei, a ghost woman who perished and her estate burned to the ground as a result of the civil wars. Her covetous ghost does not want to let him go, until he at last realizes what he has fallen victim to and manages to escape. Meanwhile Tobei is reveling in his barely earned military success when, taking his men to a brotherl, he runs into his forgotten wife and realizes suddenly what he lost in order to gain his warrior's status. 

Eventually, the three converge back on their home village, realizing they enjoye the simpler life so much better. For poor Genjuro his descent into the haunted world is not yet over, as he returns to his wife and home, seemingly intact as she has waited for him all this time, only to discover the following morning that she, too, was a yurei, and she held on only long enough to see his return. 

Ugetsu is such an amazing movie, it is absolutely worth watching for anyone who meets one of these criteria: enjoys Japanese weird tales (kwaidan), enjoy Japanese cinema in general, enjoy period piece films, enjoy engaging historial dramas, or enjoy ghost stories in general. As I said above...this is a solid A+ for me in and my short list of all time favorite movies. It's available on streaming in various places and I believe Criterion has it on blu-ray.   

The 14th Day of Horror: Rabid (1977)

 

Rabid (1977)

Right off the bat this is one of Cronenberg's earliest horror films, and one which apparently garnered a cult following. It's main character, Rose, was played by Marylin Chambers who is otherwise better know for her work in the adult film industry, and I think this might have been her only "normal" acting credit. She actually holds up quite well as the protagonist of the film, and in true Cronenberg form there is no happy ending here, for anyone.

A quick rant: while trying to find a good cover image for this movie, I notice that a lot of them use a brief image midway into the film of a woman from the hospital who freezes to death in a walk-in freezer. It is a brief throwaway scene, and I am entirely unclear on why this image is used so prominently in most cover art depictions, given it is entirely unrepresentative of the rest of the movie.

The premise of the film lies within the venn intersection of plague/pandemic films and zombie apocalypse films. Had I known this was a sort of soft apocalypse zombie plague film I would have watched it a long time ago, actually. Rose and her boyfriend are part of a tragic motorcycle accident, which takes place near the Keloid special surgical hospital focused primarily on cosmetic surgery, but the good Doctor Keloid is also involved in various experimental procedures. To save Rose from deformity and loss of skin, he submits her to a specialized treatment of skin grafts that involve an apparently untested process using morphogenetic treatment. Unknown to the doctor, this treatment causes Rose to change....she heals quickly, but also grows a stinger like appendage which can emerge from near her armpit. This stinger can drink the blood of victims while anesthetizing them and later causing memory loss.  Later, the victims recover, but within hours go insane as they manifest an irrational hunger and a desperate need for violence. These infected can, in turn, transmit this sort of "super rabies" to anyone they bite or come into close contact with.  

As the movie progresses the disease spreads and soon Montreal is a hotbed of a deadly pandemic. The story unfolds at a tense but measured pace, and focuses on Rose as she at first gives in to her own hunger for blood, even as her incredibly lackluster boyfriend tries to find her. She eventually realizes she may be the source of the plague, and comes up with a way to test and confirm this. The film ends with Montreal potentially in a new era of perpetual martial law as the only solution the government has for containment and treatment is to shoot the manifesting infected.

This film holds up really well. It's got that seventies vibe, which is important to understanding the movie; the pace of the story and the progress of the overall reaction to a growing epidemic are suitable for the time period. This grounded sense of realism makes the movie feel just a bit more realistic and thus a bit scarier than some more over-the-top films of similar nature.

Al in all, this is a movie you will best enjoy if you like vintage horror, but I honestly think it holds up surprisingly well, even if the events of the film would have a harder time making sense in modern cinema. Rose's mutation, for example, would require a bit more explanation as to why she grows a deadly plague-bearing, blood-drinking stinger, for example. But in 1977? Makes perfect sense. Solid B!  

The 13th Day of Horror: Monster Island (2024)

 

Monster Island (2024)

This awesome hidden gem from Singapore is playing on Shudder right now, so I definitely advise checking it out if you are a fan of classic monster movies. Also called Orang Ixan, Monster Islands starts in 1942 during World War II, on a Japanese Prison ship transporting American POWs and Japanese prisoners, specifically a former Japanese soldier named Saito who is being returned to Japan for execution. He is chained to an Australian (or British?) POW named Bronson, and not long after the ship is attacked and sunk by American fighter planes. The two washed up on a remote island, seemingly the sole survivors, and are forced to learn to trust one another as they realize that they are not alone on the island....some sort of monster is hunting them....

This movie is a nice, component production with good FX, a good budget, a smart action/horror story focused entirely on Bronson and Saito, with a few other survivors figuring in to the mix about midway in.  It owes a bit of it's lineage to a few films: the obvious one references as point of inspiration is the Creature from the black Lagoon, but I was reminded slightly of a couple other films as well, specifically ENemy Mine, and of course Predator. It's hard to throw soldiers into a jungle island and have a monster stalk them and not be reminded a bit of Predator. 

One thing the movie is not doing is riffing off of the mythos, as while the creature is a bit like an aquatic Deep One-like monster, the aquatic beast is most definitely just a cunning creature and not at all related to the spooky lineage of cosmic horror. The movie takes its queues from the more conventional monster movie genre, and does a great job of it. 

I actually was really happy to stumble on this movie while browsing Shudder, as I needed a break from the incredibly bad The Old Ones and the goofy, fun but ultimately far too silly Mark of the Werewolf. A movie that was earnest in its effort to make a serious movie of survival horror with actual characters and situations you care about was a refreshing change of pace. Solid B! Similar to Primitive War, it appears that there is a foreign film market out there which is just knocking hits out of the park.

The 12th Day of Horror: Primitive War (2025)

 

Primitive War (2025)

One of the coolest things I learned from Primitive War is that there is apparently an Australian box office blockbuster film industry, ands that it has cool directors like Luke Sparke making amazing movies on a fraction of the budget that American blockbusters consume. Primitive War got a very limited theatrical release about a month ago and I managed to catch it twice with different family members. Yes, Primitive War was so good I watched it twice in the same weekend. I also enjoyed it about twenty times more than the last three Jurassic World movies combined.

Primitive War opens up in the middle of the Vietnam War during an offensive push into territory where the American troops suspect Russian activity to aid the Viet Kong. A previous recon team went in to the valley where strange things are being reported and no one came back, so a second recon/rescue team is ordered in top find the first team and evidence of what the Russians are up to. The team does not discover Russians (though there are Russians), but instead they find dinosaurs....lots and lots of dinosaurs.

Indeed, it appears the Russians have a secret research base nestled in the region, and they've been experimenting with some sort of particle collider that created a wormhole into the ancient past, dragging what is clearly a near infinite number of dinosaurs....like, more dinosaurs than is ever seen in all of the Jurassic movies, into the 1960s. The collider experiment is out of control, and a myriad of dinosaur laden epochs are literally bleeding in to the modern world!

What ensues from all of this is a tale of survival horror, mad scientist generals, an aggrieved Russian paleontologist, an escalating series of increasingly amazing set pieces and action sequences, a team of American soldiers that all have better and more distinct personalities than any of the characters in the latest Jurassic World movie could evoke, and an end sequence that is so ridiculously over the top that it has to be seen to be believed.

Honestly, if you are a fan of dinosaur movies, pulp adventure films, or heck, enjoy a good old "soldiers vs. extremely bad odds" type setups, Primitive War is very much worth a watch. Although it doesn't have the perfect polish of a film with a bigger budget and a bunch of star recognition actors, it manages to accomplish everything your typical blockbuster manages to, with more fun and flair than is ever normally seen in movies with much bigger budgets. Primitive War was a solid A and well worth a watch. Indeed, I enjoyed it so much I plan to find more of Sparke's other films to see how they are.

The 11th Day of Horror: Through The Fire (1988 or 1997)

 

Through The Fire (1988 or 1997)    

So this movie was a little known gem I would have loved to catch when it originally came out, but it didn't get a proper release on VHS until 1997, when it was apparently marketed as a sequel to the Italian flick The Gates of Hell. Despite what is clearly a typically low budget for the era, this movie proved to be a lot of fun (and despite all the people on IMDB claiming it put them to sleep, I did not find it in the least bit boring to watch). 

Nick is a cop approached by a woman named Sandra to help find her missing sister, who went missing under "mysterious circumstances." They quickly discover a medallion and a satanic cult to the demon Moloch are involved, and the movie ends on a lovely low budget sequence in an abandoned office high rise which is laden with low quality effects but some surprisingly decent action sequences. 

I'm not going to pretend this movie is great, but I can absolutely say I regret not being able to see this movie in 1988 because it would have stood out along with the various other films of similar quality I enjoyed watching back in the day. Worth seeing if you enjoy 80's B movies. I don't know if it's on streaming, but I got a copy of it on Vinegar Syndrome. 

If you are a GM looking for some inspiration for an action/horror mashup, I might actually suggest this is worth viewing to outline a decent basic plot with a series of set pieces. It's got just enough of that magic to make you think "I could rip off this plot for game night and make it a whole lot better." I have actually done exactly that with a Savage Worlds plot I built out based on this movie a while back. I might use the premise again in a future Starfinder game.

Given what this movie is, and how much I enjoyed it, I place it squarely as a solid B! For me this rests next to other classic B quality films of the era such as Rutger Hauer's Split Second and the inestimable Hardware (will review that one soon). 

The 10th Day of Horror: Mark of the Werewolf (2025)

 

Mark of the Werewolf (2025)

At a recent horror convention in my area (the Morgue & Krypt Horror Fest) I managed to find lots of good stuff. One of these was a blue-ray of a film called Mark of the Werewolf, being promoted by some of the team and actors that made it. I pretty much bought this sight unseen, because my thought is: the best case scenario is this will be genuinely entertaining to watch, and worst case I figure I could be the proud owner of an amateur film, the likes of which often makes its way on to the Red Letter Media show. 

Well, first off: this was kind of a fun movie to watch! Maybe my recent ordeal with The Old Ones has tempered my expectation, but honestly? Mark of the Werewolf, while very rough in many ways, is a markedly better film than The Old Ones. It helps that I feel like the writer, director and producer, Dennis Vincent, who also plays himself in the movie, is aware of the fact that he is making a sort of goofy, campy film that aspires to be more of an homage to the 80's era of low budget filmmaking more than anything else. Like Yellow Brick Road, it is also carried on the weight of its actors' shoulders; no one here is "good" as such, but they all manage to outdo themselves in roles befitting a schlocky, campy 80's style horror film. The "Vinny" character (basically a guy doing a Joe Pesci impersonation) is especially amusing and on the mark for the "character vs. caricature" nature of the roles, but its very on the mark and lends to the film's self-awareness.

The premise of the movie is pretty simple. Brooke, an aspiring model and wannabe actress, convinces Dennis Vincent (who appears at the beginning as a film maker with a penchant for gory FX) to let her go to remote cabin in the woods with her friends and the "Vinny" photographer. Unbeknownst to her, the house in the woods is haunted by a woman who is part of a werewolf cult that is keen on the property but mad its been turned into an airbnb, and she is instructed by the cult leader to summon the Wolfgeist, a prominently features giant werewolf suit that is clearly a labor of love. Murder and mayhem ensues!  

The movie has some strong points and weak points. Strong points include the rather impressive use of a vibrant color palette, which you might not ordinarily think was a good idea in a horror movie, but I can tell there's some inspiration from the Evil Dead franchise, and the use of stark reds, yellows, blues and oranges actually creates a really interesting look that remind me a bit of Creepshow, giving it an almost comic book-like aesthetic. 

Another strong point is that the gore FX are rather proficient, and generally look good. The werewolf is pretty decent, albeit in a very "classic movie monster" kind of way, and maybe is a bit too on-camera too much for its own good; if it were use more sparingly I think it would have worked better.

I wouldn't count the story as a weak point because this film knows what it is and efficiently gets to the point. It's aiming for campy, goofy spooky movie feel and it pulls it off well.

The movie fails a bit in the direction of the scenes. It vacillates between great establishing shots and then we get surprisingly unexciting "killed by the werewolf" moments.* This shift in quality is quite odd. 

Overall, this is a pretty fun movie. It is the kind of thing you might put on the big screen TV during a Halloween party for the crowd to enjoy, and I could see having fun with this movie as a thing to pull out each year to watch with like-minded purveyors of campy, low-budget amateur horror. A solid B+! Unfortunately I have no idea how or where you can watch this movie. Hopefully it will get a streaming release soon, maybe on Shudder or Tubi or something. That, or keep an eye out at your local convention where this sort of movie might get represented!

* You can make a drinking game out of the number of "Oh no the werewolf slashed his throat again..." moments. Towards the very end there is a decent werewolf jump attack sequence, though.

The 9th Day of Horror: Hyde Street Volume One TPB

 

Hyde Street Volume One (TPB)

The first volume in this series, part of the Ghost Machine imprint/universe spawned by Geoff Johns (and Ivan Reis) is the latest in a series of real bangers coming out of Image Comics. This first volume collects issues one through seven, and is an excellent introduction to this horror-themed corner of the Ghost Machine universe, which covers a myriad of genres through its various titles (Geiger with post-apocalyptic super beings, Red Coat with immortal soldiers, Junkyard Joe with robot/unknown soldier, Exodus with a collapsing terraformed planet in the far future, etc.) I don't think they all take place on the same Earth (though some definitely do), but each series stands alone on its own merits quite well.

That said, this is 31 Days of Horror, so Hyde Street is the subject! The series focuses on the eponymous Hyde Street itself, a strange urban zone which exists outside of the normal laws, and to which people with secrets to hide find themselves trapped in. Some of these people are particularly noteworthy for their callousness, such as Mr. X-Ray, their maliciousness (as with the eternally young boy scout Pranky), their tragic backstory (The Monster), or Miss Goodbody, who is a pimp for something suspiciously like the Substance.

Each of these individuals have become supernatural predators, approached by a mysterious being called the Scorekeeper, who wants them to find others drawn to Hyde Street, and to see if they are worthy of judgement and damnation, or if they can somehow repent and be given escape. The hunters all have a motive to try and add to the total of the damned, for they can escape Hyde Street if they get ten thousand souls to the Scorekeeper. The conflict arises with some of the chosen predators, such as Pranky, who really like it here, and don't ever want to leave, while others such as The Monster find it a damnable place and despise sending the damned to wherever the Scorekeeper keeps them. The story weaves between the conflict between these trapped hunters and the arrival of other villainous individuals who are deserving of their judgement (or forgiveness), from an arsonist granny to a murderous Santa....there are a lot of unpleasant characters within these pages.

If you want a fantastic read, a novel concept that blends a mix of supernatural serial killers with Twilight Zone style aesthetics taking place in the Chaotic Evil version of Danny the Street,* then you should definitely pick this up! Excellent art as well by a great team, a real treat. Solid A+ and I am eager to continue on with Volume Two (who am I kidding, I pick this series up monthly as well!)

*Bonus Points if you know who/what that is and where its from! Answer : Doom Patrol's sentient traveling street, made more popular by the TV series