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.
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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