Shock Value: Legacy Anthology – review

Editors: Mark Adams & Matt Warner

First Published: 2020

Contains spoilers

The Blurb: Werewolves, Vampires, Monsters

Hellbound media presents a collection of terrifying tales that find their inspiration in the very origins of the horror genre. We look back to the stories and films that introduced the world to a coterie of classic monsters, and explore the legacy of fear they left behind. Each of the stories in the collection features a contemporary twist on the Gothic past, promising to continue the nightmares for centuries to come.

The review: Hellbound media had a stall at Grimmfest and I took advantage of the opportunity to grab a copy of this anthology. As the blurb suggests this contains a cornucopia of horror stories and deliberately puts a modern twist to the classics.

Vampires appear across the stories (perhaps in a newspaper article or sat with the other classic monsters – in the epilogue) but there are three specific stories I want to mention. Bloodsucking Teenage Biker Mummy has a vengeful Aztec mummy awoken and seeking to recover the powerful jaguar totem that has been stolen – and, of course, she sucks blood.

detail

The story Demeter follows a trawler who are looking to catch fish as a cover for the human trafficking they are participating in. The fish they capture is of an unknown species and the crew start to succumb to strange hallucinations. The name of the boat is, of course, named for Dracula and the novel is quoted at the end, the vampires… well they would seem to be more the crew whose criminal activity is morally vampiric in nature.

The story Youth is our most directly vampire related story and sees a vampire community suffering, for the first time, from a communicable disease that is ripping through their society like wildfire. The disease causes the vampires to change their age but the clock is running backwards and the vampires regressing to babies and beyond. They actively seek out old people to turn as they may have more time in the search for the cure.

Hopefully, you’ll see from these descriptions that the collection takes a unique perspective through its tales and, especially as an indie graphic novel, is certainly deserves support. 7 out of 10. The comic's homepage is here.