Night of the Ghoul

Forest Innman makes his living digitizing old films for a movie studio.  It’s a decent living, but a constantly depressing reminder to him that he never made it as a filmmaker himself.  Then he comes across a canister of film for “Night of the Ghoul.”  Thought to be lost, it was a horror film made by T.F. Merrit in the 30’s and never completed due to a fire on the set during its last day of filming.  Convinced that the rest of the film is still out there somewhere, Innman embarks on a journey to find Merrit that leads him to a rest home in the California desert in the dead of night with his resentful son.  Is the ending to the lost film here, or has Innman found something much worse waiting for him and his son?

“Night of the Ghoul” is another product of the publishing partnership between writer Scott Snyder and ComiXology, with Dark Horse again handling the print editions.  This is only the second Snyder-written comic to hit print in this fashion after “We Have Demons” with his “Batman”/”Metal” collaborator Greg Capullo.  You may be wondering why you never saw a review of that series after I talked it up a bit in the solicitations for Dark Horse comics.  The answer is that I was able to read it for free on the ComiXology app, thought it was kind of boring and predictable, with only Capullo’s art to recommend it, and promptly forgot about it.

That’s very much the case again here as artist Francesco Francavilla turns in the strong work you’d expect from him that’s entirely appropriately to this tale with spooky aspirations.  Regrettably, the story isn’t on the same level as it manages to hew too close to familiar conventions in both the present-day sections and the flashbacks which detail how the Ghoul came to America, while also handling its big twist badly as well.  Most readers will be able to see it coming because of how the story is paced, while Snyder and Francavilla manage to over-sell the idea of who the good and bad guys are in a way that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Between this, the aforementioned, “We Have Demons,” and “Dark Spaces:  Wildfire” I’m starting to question Snyder’s ability to deliver quality work that doesn’t have the “Batman” in the title somewhere.  “American Vampire” would be the exception here, but it had some awful/dumb moments throughout its run as well.  He wouldn’t be the first writer whose work I’ve stopped reading because they failed to consistently deliver after an initial project of theirs won me over – looking in your direction Jeff Lemire – but it’s always hard to decide when to finally cut the cord.  If nothing else, “Night of the Ghoul” makes that decision a little easier.