WTF WAS THAT ENDING?!
'A Guest in the House'
Don't make the same mistake I did and read it at night, because wow, what a horror graphic novel.
With a feminist edge, twist and turn.
It is a ghost story, and also psychological horror. It is nineties suburban housewife horror. It could count as social anxiety horror.
It made me think of my own place in life, where I am, where I want to be, and what I want to do, and the limited, boxed, conservative conventions and expectations placed on women everywhere, even nowadays. In a number of ways, 'A Guest in the House' speaks to every woman of every decade. How subtly trapped we are, in one way or another. It is tragically timeless.
It has elements of classic novels such as 'Rebecca', 'Jane Eyre', 'Northanger Abbey', and the works of Shirley Jackson, and also the 2000 movie 'What Lies Beneath', and the filmography of Alfred Hitchcock and David Lynch. But at the same time, it is nothing like any of those things. It is its own unique brand of horror creation.
I am not a fan of the horror genre, and I had read one other graphic novel by E.M. Carroll, 'When I Arrived at the Castle', and I did not like it. Its imagery... did not appeal to me. But with 'A Guest in the House', I found that it not only scared me on a deep, unsettling, psychological level, but I was thrilled that it achieved its goal - I'm glad it scared me, and its imagery enchanted me and sparked my imagination as well as unnerved me, and I cared about what was happening, and I cared about the characters. In some ways I understood them, as flawed, believable humans.
The atmosphere, the gradual, slow burn pacing, the timing of its reveals and scares, it is on point.
And that ending. That sudden, shocking, wild, piercing, ambiguous, deliberately abrupt ending. It cinched it for me, as a great comic as well as a great horror story.
It is a story that requires you to reread it for its ending to make more sense. What marvellous care, attention, and passion.
'A Guest in the House' is about the power of imagination, creativity, fairy tales, childhood trauma, adulthood trauma, escapism, and expectation, to go with its horror themes and context. It's not conventional, nor predictable, which is how effective horror should be like. It should leave you as uncertain and unsettled as if you were wandering in a dark, creaky haunted house yourself, never knowing what or who might be at a door, or at the end of a corridor.
I'll leave it at that. I won't dare risk spoiling anything about this effed-up, soulful and wonderful graphic novel. It's like if 'Page by Paige' was adult horror by water, with ghosts and fables.
'A Guest in the House' - what a meaningful, interpretive title.
My first loved horror comic? A proper adult horror comic?
What a trick and treat, even for a wimp like me.
Final Score: 4/5
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