Serial killer Sam is on the run with her small town in Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees #5, finding out she’s been hiding body parts in paint cans. A rival killer has let it be known she’s a killer, and now her whole world is upended. In the penultimate issue, can writer and artist Patrick Horvath get Sam on a path to redemption, or will justice prevail? In a series about the dark underbelly of suburban tranquility, all answers point to probably not!
Picking up from where we left off in the fourth issue, Sam is speeding away from her hometown in her car. Captions relay the frantic nature of her thoughts as she escapes custody. We soon get another glimpse of the city and all its dwellers as Horvath draws us into Sam’s frantic thinking. What will she do, and can she do anything besides hide? That is the main struggle Sam faces in the issue, with some truths about herself revealing themselves later on.
As the story progresses, Sam sees her past victims cut up and walking about. She’s losing it, and the visuals convey the dark and twisted things she’s done. She’s not afraid of them but just annoyed. One wonders if Sam always saw her past victims cut up with holes in them like a jigsaw puzzle.
It’s interesting Sam isn’t frightened by the bodies.
Credit: IDW
The story here takes a turn when Sam enters a cave. The idea of Sam being a bear and real wild bears living in this world comes to a head. Horvath seems to be connecting her true nature to what she is at a primal level. She may wear clothes and can speak, but she is still a carnivorous predator. Horvath beautifully draws out this idea in a key scene.
One might argue Horvath is saying there’s a base animal inside all of us, and in some way, seems to suggest we must embody that identity to be our true selves. It just happens to mean Sam is a killer, and that is okay.
Once again, Horvath’s cute anthropomorphic animals juxtapose well with gore and violence. There are a few twisted visuals here that may even make your stomach turn. It all reads like a metaphor for humanity, which is aided by the realism in the city scenes and the wild bear scene.
Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou continues to show why he’s the best letterer in the business. A caption tucked behind a sea of umbrellas as Sam walks is a great example. Some of the words are actually covered by umbrellas, such as in a caption that reads, “Mother Nature does her best to hide you from your enemies.” The letters themselves are hidden a bit here. Word balloons and captions tend to have a life of their own as needed. Otsmane-Elhaou’s choices are always thoughtful.
The story of primal animalism and domestication comes to a head in Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees #5, where Sam must choose how to respond to evidence she’s a killer. A sociopath and killer by all accounts, this story continues to show what a killer is at their most primal.
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