There have been many films throughout the years that focused on women being tortured and assaulted in numerous horrid ways, which is followed by either the woman or someone close to her giving Old Testament-style punishment to the people committing the brutality. From 1960’s The Virgin Spring to the recent female revenge flick They Call Her Death, these films are the ultimate contradiction, because even though they show women being brutalized in sickening ways, the second act always “makes up for it” as we watch her get her revenge. But is the second act worth seeing the nauseating first act?
In the case of Dark Horse’s new book Devil on My Shoulder #1, written by Kyle Starks with art by Piotr Kowalski and Brad Simpson, the answer’s unfortunately a resounding no.
Anyone reading this review will see that there are no previews of the pages inside the issue. Why? Because 90% of the content of the book consists of main character Tee being brutally tortured by five men in a barn. The issue’s so relentless, with the five abusers inflicting one torture or shame after another on Tee, that by the end of the issue you feel dazed and exhausted. It’s way too much. By the halfway point I was reluctant to turn the page and “OKAY, I GET IT ALREADY!” was booming in my mind.
The whole thing felt reminiscent of Wes Craven’s 1972 film The Last House on the Left, which spends most of its run time showing two women being tortured. I watched the film once and it made me want to take a dozen showers to erase the stink of it.
Dark Horse
This miniseries is classified as “horror”, but showing someone being tortured to the limit of their existence isn’t horror, it’s insidious. It fetishizes callousness and dehumanization, and appeals to those who revel in other people’s suffering and anguish. What’s worse is that we learn nothing about Tee before she’s kidnapped. All we see are a couple of pages with a bit of dialogue between her and a workmate and that’s it. Had there been a few pages delving into her life, her personality and who she is as a person, the violent scenes that come later would have carried more weight. Instead, she’s a blank slate. Hopefully throughout the remaining issues of the miniseries, there will be at least be some flashbacks so we can see what Tee was like before the assault happened.
Piotr Kowalski and Brad Simpson’s artwork elevates the book a bit, giving the book a cinematic look and feel.
I imagine the remainder of the miniseries will feature Tee getting demonic revenge on the five men, possibly saving the most extreme punishment for the most twisted of them. Which one of them is that? It’s a tough call – they’re all monsters, but the worst part is that through it all, we won’t be invested in Tee, a one-dimensional character who could have been so much more.
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