by Tiff Douglas
When we think Grindhouse, we think sleazy, violent and low budget. The word conjures up an image of voluptuous vulgarity with a very thin veil of morality. Normally associated with film,Grindhouse cinema is one of the most loved and hated sub genres in cinematic history. Comics ,also a form of visual entertainment, are perfect breeding grounds for such reckless nastiness, you can pretty much do whatever you damn well please in a comic book and you don’t have a stinking budget blocking your shot; you’ve got the audience, you’ve got the skill. Game on!
When we think Grindhouse, we think sleazy, violent and low budget. The word conjures up an image of voluptuous vulgarity with a very thin veil of morality. Normally associated with film,Grindhouse cinema is one of the most loved and hated sub genres in cinematic history. Comics ,also a form of visual entertainment, are perfect breeding grounds for such reckless nastiness, you can pretty much do whatever you damn well please in a comic book and you don’t have a stinking budget blocking your shot; you’ve got the audience, you’ve got the skill. Game on!
In comes Dark Horse’s Grindhouse: Doors Open at Midnight series; first released in October 2013, it’s an all-out homage to midnight exploitation flicks that certainly leaves the same kind of taste in your mouth. What I love most about this series is that it has been spear headed by a lady named Alex De Campi (who wrote the Eisner Award nominated series Smoke) who is obviously a huge exploitation and grindhouse cinema fan, I respect that as a fellow horror movie and exploitation fanatic, women can be just as brutal at telling these stories than men can, and sometimes even more so.
I jumped into this title with number 5 which is colourfully named Bride of Blood:Part One. Acting as a medieval, pagan version of I Spit on Your Grave with a bit more wide spread homicide and carnage, this story is flipping brutal. The story has nasty written all over it, with some mean characters, some evil ones and some dirty ones in the mix. The art work, wonderfully done by Federica Manfredi (Star Trek: The Burden of Knowledge), paints the gruesome goings on with lovely washed out colours and just enough detail so we get the point. I get the feeling that the nastiness in this issue is going to set the stage for some bloody good retribution, being standard procedure for the first half of an exploitation flick. In the issues to come the formally helpless victim is going to put her formally helpless foot up their formally able asses! Every page is going to drip with blood and painful revenge, my prediction is this will not be for those who are squeamish.
I’m looking forward to finding out where this is going, judging by the last panel and how it made me smile, after reading the rest of it with an awkwardly surprised expression I know there is going to be hell to pay. As the Tag line reads “From the sadists that brought you Bee Vixens From Mars and Prison Ship Antares…As Her Dream Dies, His Nightmare Begins.. BRIDE OF BLOOD”. You’re asking yourself if you can handle it, at the Grindhouse... the doors open at midnight and there is “No Such Thing As Too Far”.
I jumped into this title with number 5 which is colourfully named Bride of Blood:Part One. Acting as a medieval, pagan version of I Spit on Your Grave with a bit more wide spread homicide and carnage, this story is flipping brutal. The story has nasty written all over it, with some mean characters, some evil ones and some dirty ones in the mix. The art work, wonderfully done by Federica Manfredi (Star Trek: The Burden of Knowledge), paints the gruesome goings on with lovely washed out colours and just enough detail so we get the point. I get the feeling that the nastiness in this issue is going to set the stage for some bloody good retribution, being standard procedure for the first half of an exploitation flick. In the issues to come the formally helpless victim is going to put her formally helpless foot up their formally able asses! Every page is going to drip with blood and painful revenge, my prediction is this will not be for those who are squeamish.
I’m looking forward to finding out where this is going, judging by the last panel and how it made me smile, after reading the rest of it with an awkwardly surprised expression I know there is going to be hell to pay. As the Tag line reads “From the sadists that brought you Bee Vixens From Mars and Prison Ship Antares…As Her Dream Dies, His Nightmare Begins.. BRIDE OF BLOOD”. You’re asking yourself if you can handle it, at the Grindhouse... the doors open at midnight and there is “No Such Thing As Too Far”.
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