Welcome to another installment of 31 Days of Halloween! This is our chance to set the mood for the spookiest and scariest month of the year as we focus our attention on horror and Halloween fun. For the month of October we’ll be sharing various pieces of underappreciated scary books, comics, movies, and television to help keep you terrified and entertained all the way up to Halloween.
There’s nothing quite like The Night Eaters: She Eats the Night, the first chapter in a horror story that mixes a haunted house, the secrets of a family, and demons. The first in a planned horror trilogy, writer Marjorie Liu and artist Sana Takeda join forces to tell a slow-burn story in this graphic novel that sneaks up on you. Once it has a hold of you, you’ll be wishing for more, as the series has the underpinnings of a superhero adventure mixed with supernatural weirdness.
“Slow burn” might be an understatement when it comes to The Night Eaters: She Eats the Night, although once it gets going, it speeds straight up until the end of the story. That’s because two of the main characters, Chinese-American twins Billy and Milly, have parents, Ipo and Keon, who aren’t very forthcoming with information. In fact, Ipo barely speaks and always seems to be in a bad mood. She’s a strict mother who isn’t happy with how her kids came out — Milly didn’t graduate college, and Billy seems stuck in a gamer lifestyle — but there’s something far deeper going on. The first half of this volume explores a strange house overgrown with weeds across the street from the family while crosscutting to Ipo and Keon’s earlier days.
As a relatively impatient person, I found myself unsure of what was taking so long to get to the scary bits or why we needed to uncover the truth about the house slowly. That said, once things kick into gear and the horror gets gruesome and violent, answers are around the corner. Once all is revealed, I found myself going back to the beginning as the new context changes how scenes play against your expectations and what you think you know about these characters.
Things start to get scary when Billy and Milly are forced to dig up a skeleton in the neighbor’s yard that doesn’t look human. Things get weirder from there, and with tough love, Milly and Billy learn the truth about the house and their parents.
Given this is a planned trilogy, you can see by the end a lot of stories to mine, not least of which is this supernatural family. I’ll say no more to avoid spoilers, but let’s say the story could go in various directions. It’s also cleverly thought out as Ipo being a quiet, seemingly stubborn, angry mother, plays into her true nature. There’s also a profoundly romantic story here between Ipo and Keon, as he truly adores her and his children. Meanwhile, the kids are easy to relate to, and given they are totally in the dark like the reader, they’re a good lead into this supernatural world.
The art by Takeda has an otherworldly quality, be it a creepy doll or the glow in the family kitchen with plants all around them. Layouts tend to be rather simple, with three or six panels per page which tend to slow the pace down, especially in the first half. Faces tend to be simpler, giving emotions and reaction shots a louder, more cartoonish feel. Once things turn to horror with blood and tentacles showing up you’ll be on the edge of your seat. Takeda does a great job with the creatures and horror visuals. There’s also a nice touch as far as atmosphere, using color that seems to hang around panels, be it a room made of tentacles or the shop the family runs.
The Night Eaters: She Eats the Night is a story that rewards readers who hang in till the end. I’d recommend going in blind, knowing full well truths aren’t revealed until halfway through but only get more satisfying from there. On top of all that, if you have an overbearing or uncommunicative parent, you’ll likely connect to this story and wonder if your parent has a dark secret. Read The Night Eaters: She Eats the Night for a unique twist on a haunted house tale and the dark secrets our parents hide to protect us from the dangers of the real world.
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