4 out of 5

A prequel to an upcoming horror movie, Beast No More the comic will – I suspect – be much better than that movie, as it allows for the type of background and buildup that I can only imagine a horror movie glossing over for the sake of shocks and blood.  And don’t get me wrong – shocks and blood can be good things in horror, but Jennifer Van Gessel’s book suggests this flick will be more serious than camp, and that tone would benefit from a slowburn approach.  I just don’t see it happening.

But we’ll get to that when we get to it.

What’s important for the comic is how well Van Gessel steps through quite a large chunk of time and cast effectively, hitting the right beats to make the plight of Blanch and her growing gaggle of sisters an affecting one, and more importantly, to make her eventual turn toward twisted matriarch – presumably the film’s focus – believable.  (Y’know, in context.)

The gist: Blanch’s father goes off to war and comes back diseased and with an ignited passion – whatever the cost – to produce a male heir.  But daughters keep a’comin’, sharing their father’s disease.  Blanch eventually leaves home but finds herself drawn back… and inspired to carry on her father’s quest.  Joan Marin’s loose figures capture emotion well, although both Gessel and Marin neglect to make the sisters unique enough to keep them all distinct in the tale.  Leticia Morgado’s colors really shine, selling the rural, muddy setting, especially when juxtaposed against Blanch’s short time away from home in the bright city.

I’m glad to see Van Gessel prove herself here, as her previous book, Unleash, was a mess; female protagonist horror (where they’re not just Final Girls) is a genre that needs to grow, and Unleash’s potential made its failure unfortunate.  Beast No More’s film prologue thankfully succeeds, despite a character-stuffed setup and pretty complicated premise.