Monday, November 3, 2014

Cutter 4

Posted by Geek-o-Rama Admin on 9:00 AM

Jeremy lives a quiet life with his wife in a rural town. Successful and stable, Jeremy is the guy next door. But he and his high school friends share a dark secret. And when that secret literally comes back to haunt them, Jeremy must confront his past and his own sanity as he comes face to face with a vicious serial killer..."The Cutter."

Writer(s):
Seamus Fahey
Robert Napton
Artist:
Christian DiBari
Publisher:
Top Cow

Reading Cutter week by week has been a lot of fun. As a mini series with a definite story to tell and only a certain number of pages to do it in, it's been an engaging month. Trying to guess how exactly Fahey and Napton were going to play elements of a story that from the outset, like most shlocky horror films,  I could guess how it they would conclude pretty early on.

After the events of last issue, which found our main character locked up in jail and suspected of murder. After pleading for his loved ones to run away before the Cutter claims them too, he drifts off into a sleep, only to awake and find that the Cutter has other plans...

Like all the prior issues, the plotting of Cutter is pretty tight, barely wasting a panel unnecessarily. The moody shading DiBari uses this issue are particularly effecting, as the shadows slowly close in on our main character, slowing his creeping sense of helplessness.

I suppose the only real problem I have with the issue is the reveal of who the Cutter is. Whilst it makes sense in context, (and I'll try to avoid spoilers so I'm being vague in my description) I wish the Cutter's motivation wasn't so stereotyped. Though the event that lead to the creation of the Cutter character (and if you've seen any films about small towns that have secrets to hide you will have guessed what that an issue or so ago) is handled with the delicacy it is so rarely afforded in modern media, what it results in is just another hackneyed ending with an resolution left deliberately open. No doubt in case the writers get asked to come back for a follow up comic. 

In the end, the resolution wasn't too upsetting (as I said, I saw it coming an issue or so ago so had prepared myself), but for a comic that seemed to be having so much fun using and playing with traditional slasher tropes, it was a shame it couldn't pull one final suprise twist.

Still, I'll be getting the collected volume of this when its out, to see what it reads like as a whole. Those who want a contained and compact horror comic need look no further.

Cover image courtesy of Top Cow.

Cutter #4 is available from Comixology and your local comic retailer.


Geek-o-Rama received a copy of this book for the purpose of this review. All thoughts, comments and opinions are those of the individual reviewer.

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