I'm grateful to Image Comics for giving me access to an advance e-copy of Houses of the Unholy to consider for review.

I recently went to see Arthur Miller's play The Crucible at the Gielgud theatre in London. This story of mass delusion leading to a literal witch-hunt is a deep part of modern culture but it was the first time I saw it. The parallels with the McCarthy political purges are well known, but I didn't realise until I read this graphic novel that it also prefigured a more literal form of witch-hunt that actually took place in the USA in the 1980s, a couple of decades after Miller's play appeared. (My lack of knowledge of this perhaps reflects a deep gulf between the pre Internet age and now - something like this would, of course, be all over social media and impossible to miss. But in the 80s I, and most people, were not online).

The parallels are, as Houses of the Unholy describes them, close. Young kids, pushed by peer pressure and fundamentalist-minded parents and authority figures such as therapists and clergy, denounce teachers, youth workers and others. The whole things snowballs. Reason sleeps. Those falsely labelled are ostracised, lose their jobs and sometimes take their own lives. In the backwash, when a degree of common sense is reasserted, there is guilt and retribution. Lives are damaged of lost.

In Houses of the Unholy we first meet Natalie Burns checking in at a remote motel. She pays in cash and asks for a cabin isolated from the others. Is she up to something, or does she just want a bit of peace and quiet? Of course it's the former, and the story soon takes a dark turn, resulting in attention form the local police and a driven, lone gun FBI agent.

Learning more about Natalie's background, we gradually understand how she got caught caught up in the 80s panic, and what she feels she has to atone for. The stigma of those events wrecked Natalie's family and her brother spiralled off into online conspiracy fandom. She herself cannot forget what she did - but nor can she properly distinguish the false memories from the true ones. At first seeming a rather unpleasant character, Brubaker and Philips do build sympathy for Natalie as the story continues, showing how she, too was a victim in all this and what she has done to rebuild her life.

Agent Paul West, who begins by arresting Natalie but then offers her a deal if she'll cooperate, is a bit of a classic loner, apparently working an angle that he shouldn't be. We learn little about him until later in the book, partly because his attempts at bonding with her are pretty much rebuffed. Endlesss car journeys in frozen silence are more native to a graphic novel depiction than to prose. and Houses of the Unholy makes excellent use of panels without speech bubbles as well as using background colour to animate the mood - a cool blue for the frequent noir-ish, nighttime scenes, red when we scent evil, particularly for flashbacks to the 80s. It's a compelling and addictive story, weaving together both the aftermaths of the 80s panic and a modern strand of apocalyptic, End-Of-Times fear that's pointed up later in the story by a distant warning siren (we never learn what it's warning of) as well as our heroes encountering unnatural disasters such as floods and wildfires.

All in all and excellent horror-tinged tale that ends on a note of real uncertainty, blurring the boundary between human evil and the supernatural. Great fun.

Brubaker & Phillips take on the Satanic Panic, which seems to be the subject of a wider re-examination lately, and therein lies part of the problem: it may be on hiatus at the moment, but in Department Of Truth there's already a current Image comic where the lead is one of the kids told they were a victim of ritual abuse in the eighties, subsequently realising they were in fact both a victim and vector of a popular delusion, and now placed in a situation where they don't know what to believe. The set-up here is, unsurprisingly, a much simpler take on the situation, the protagonist one of six kids from a particularly high-profile case who, as adults, are now turning up dead in suspicious - and apparently Satanic - situations. Which, yes, is a hook - and I like the observation about how there were indeed religious organisations doing all those things to kids, except it was the Christians not the devil-worshippers (parallels with similar current panics, and how a lot more noisy right-wingers than drag queens turn out to be nonces, are perhaps wisely left implicit). But it's all very close to territory Brubaker/Phillips have covered before - in Fatale, Kill Or Be Killed, a volume of Reckless - and, especially compared to last year's winning Where The Body Was, a reminder that I always like them more when they operate a little outside their comfort zone. And whereas normally I can at least respect their mastery within that zone, here it occasionally feels like it's slipping; around the halfway point, a kiss that needs to convey a lot instead feels inert and posed, and then hot on its heels we get one of the least surprising twists in history.

(Netgalley ARC)

Thank you to Image Comics & Netgalley for the ARC copy of this book!

Houses of the Unholy pulled me in from the get go, the storyline kept me engaged the entire time and the graphics are 10/10!

Loved loved loved this horror graphic novel.

Houses of the Unholy is truly spectacular!

Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips are a powerhouse duo delivering some fantastic storytelling that pairs with some amazing illustrations. This story in particular was just so dark and twisted that I found myself glued to the pages! This story follows Natalie, our heroine, who just so happens to have some personal history with the Satanic Panic. However, she is doing her best to move beyond that until her past seemingly catches up with her.

This was truly a riveting story. It starts out with such an interesting grab that immediately I was questioning what was going on. Then the storytelling continues to evolve creatively, you get some orange/yellow side stories that align to tell some background and it just weaves so perfectly together. Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips have generated a truly harrowing adventure. Along with this adventure the illustrations and images are just so absolutely terrifying. I really did love this story!

Check it out and prepare to revisit the Satanic Panic in a deliciously devious way!

my first horror comic didn’t disappoint. i liked this! i finished it in one sitting and i’d read like 10 more of these suckers. great pacing.

I would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. A horror graphic novel about Satanic panic, sign me up! The story drew me in as soon as I started it and couldn't put it down. What a wild ride.

Thank you NetGalley and ImageComics for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was just okay. I was drawn by the title but the plot delivery was mid. The writing is a bit lazy and the plot wasn't riveting enough to keep me invested. The artwork is good though and it made up for the lackluster storytelling.

2.5 stars rounded to 3.

This was such a good horror graphic novel.

The story follows Natalie Burns, a private investigator with a dark and sinister past. In the 80s, during the Satanic Panic, she and several other kids, known as the Satanic Six, accused camp counselors of satanic torture, which destroyed their lives. Natalie now focuses on saving kids from cults/cult-like activities. When a job goes wrong she‘s picked up by a FBI agent and together they try to save the remaining members of the Satanic Six.

The artwork is chef’s kiss. I loved the eerie atmosphere, the story was very well written and the pacing felt just right.
I absolutely loved the flashbacks to Natalie‘s childhood.
I do think this book would’ve benefited from being a bit longer. And I wasn’t the biggest fan of the ending.

All in all, a solid 4 star read that I‘d definitely recommend.

Brilliant! Anther incredible stand-alone graphic novel from Brubaker, Phillips, and Phillips. This volume leans more into the horror genre, and similar tones to their classic Fatale volumes. I actually found myself liking Jacob Phillips colours more in this volume then I have in the past few of their works. Great read!

thought this book was miles ahead of their other work that I read ‘where the body was’ but that may because I went into it having much more interest in the topics and the genres included. I really did not lil the ending as I would’ve preferred a much more definitive ending than the one we got but the rest of the book leading up to it makes up for it to some amount

Houses of the Unholy is another hit from the team of Brubaker and Philips. The story follows Natalie Burns as she gets dragged back into a past she's been trying for 35 years to escape, set against the backdrop of the satanic panic. The story moves at a relentless pace and is a thrill ride all the way through, taking Natalie and the reader through a tide of existential dread, with Brubaker's masterclass writing and Philips's beautiful pages with the colors by Jacob Phillips helping to complement the existential horror that permeates throughout the book making House of the Unholy another worthy addition to their bibliography.

I didn't love it. It wasn't terrible, but I think the plot's structure made the reader take somethings on faith that I felt was a bit lazy writing.

Admittedly, when I requested this title I didn't realize it was a comic/graphic novel. It sounded interesting and I was sold. I really enjoyed it, as my first adult graphic novel. The story was interesting and bone-chilling. A wild ride! Thank you NetGalley for the early access read!

Dark, disturbing & intense..exactly what I expected. I found the illustrations to be spectacular and the storyline kept me intrigued. I don't normally read graphic novels, but glad I got to read this one. I will definitely look into more.

I LOVE A GOOD HORROR GRAPHIC NOVELLLLLLL! Full Stop.

I am so thankful to Image Comics, Netgalley, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips for granting me advanced digital access to this thrilling graphic novel before it hits shelves on August 27, 2024.

Natalie Burns has a dark and sinister past, one that includes the Satanic Panic of the late 80s where schoolkids blamed teachers and camp counselors of satanic torture, only for society to realize that they’d been bamboozled by a bunch of pre-teens, ruining the lives of countless adults in their town.

Years later, Natalie is a private investigator/bounty hunter, of sorts, who works to save kids from cult-like activities but when a job goes wrong, she’s picked up by a rogue FBI agent who is all-too-familiar with her case from decades ago. Agent West is attempting to save the remaining members of the Satanic Six, as they are being picked off ritualistically one by one, and it’s perceived that Natalie is next.

Told through Rated-R illustrations, the creators of the Houses of the Unholy will leave you wondering if these ritualistic cults are real or just a brain fog from some very mentally ill individuals.

Description

In this new tale, an FBI agent from the cult crime beat and a woman with a past linked to the Satanic Panic are drawn into a terrifying hunt for an insane killer hiding in the shadows of the underworld.

This pulse-pounding story asks: can you ever escape your past, or are all your bad decisions just more ghosts to haunt you, wherever you go?

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I received a free ARC from NetGalley, and this review is voluntary

In this detective tale of the occult, devil worship, and how the satanic panic influenced the minds of a generation, we find Natalie on her travels - herself with a past linked to this time period in culture, courtesy of her mother and the ideology believed in. As the story unfolds, we learn that Natalie is hired as a tracker, by the parents of a teenager whom was kidnapped, supposedly by a cult. Although she was initially successful in her mission, the kid was able to escape and alert the authorities, after which time she was arrested and jailed for a handful of different charges. Enter the FBI Agent, from the cult crime division on his own mission, but needs her help due to her past connection to his existing case.

This was a fun read for a number of different reasons. In relation to the pacing, I felt the tempo was just right. The plot is mostly focused on the present, but there was also a build up in the background for something more, or for something else. It presented questions, because much like how the effects of the satanic panic influenced the minds of certain individuals to believe what they did, the reader may also wonder if what they're reading on the page is the true reality of the situation for the characters involved, or if there is something a bit more nefarious going on in the background. As they say, you won't know until the very end, unless by that time... it's too late.

This was well written, and provided such an atmosphere of the eerie. Just nailed down the psychology of the real life events of the satanic panic. An absolute homerun by Brubaker and Phillips

The art is so well done, It was like I was reading an old comic book, it gave me the same cozy feelings, I love the coloring.
The story was wonderfully written, thought out and creepy! the plot twist was a shock to me but it made me feel deeper for that character, I can't believe it's over! I really hope there is more of this story to come!