4 out of 5

Collecting ten zombie / vampire / cannibal / etc. -stocked horror tales, culled from the giant back catalogue of the (as I’ve noted elsewhere, every time…) inexhaustible Mort Todd, Weird Menace absolutely satisfies our own inexhaustible creepy / eerie needs.  And thanks to Mort’s insane ability to take 9 out of any 10 generic ideas and add that little tweak that makes them fresh and his own, the collection earns a permanent, rereadable spot in any horror fan’s collection.

7 out of the 10 shorts here are drawn by Todd as well – with the remainder by Gray Morrow, Cliff Mott and John Severin – and it’s a lot of fun to see Morty and the others cycle through visual styles appropriate to different horror classics.  Mort’s consistency in wringing fun and complete stories out of only two or three pages is impressive, and though a couple of these are clunky in their setup or lay on the Tales From the Crypt twist a bit too heavy-handedly, the overwhelming majority are super smart, twisted, amd tons of fun.