Review:  We are here treated to two stories: The Box, and Madam LaRoue's House of the Macabre.  The Box is easily the stronger of the two, but neither one dropped the ball when it came to laying on the tension.  Ultimately, with any title - particularly what amounts to an anthology - you have to ask yourself if it does what it sets out to do.  While neither of these stories are necessarily (in my jaded opinion) "scary" in that "sends you screaming from your bed at night" sense, they do get under your skin and lay into you with a vague disquiet.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's good horror storytelling. 

Artistically, the vibe was carried across exceptionally well in the clean, idealized characters who were then dipped into gore drenched terrors hitherto unseen.  I had a lot of fun reading this title, and I'd be hard-pressed to find a reason not to recommend it, save that it leaves you wanting more.

Overall: 4 stars.

Alex Haas

Review:  I'm going to agree and disagree with Alex somewhat on this one.

First, I agree about the artwork. I thought the artists did a really good job of capturing the emotion of the story. The mild manner postman looked just that, and all of the more evil characters conveyed this image without going over the top.

As for the stories, this is where I disagree some.  I found the first story, "The Box" to be just to repetative. I understand this is what the author wanted to do, but I found it to be a bit distracting.  At one point I was wondering if there was a printing glitch and I was reading the same page over again.

The " Madam LaRoue's House of the Macabre" story just seemed to be missing something. I never felt the angst of the characters and I didn't really care what happened to them. I understand that isn't all that important for this type of story but a little more background on the characters may have helped.

I know it sounds like I didn't like the stories, but I did...I just was hoping for a little more out of them.

Overall: 3 stars.

Ron Miller