Hino Horror - The Red Snake
After being impressed with ‘The Gallery of Horrors’ I snapped up the first Hino Horror from Amazon.
Now, I thought ‘Gallery’ was weird. To say ‘The Red Snake’ is disturbing would be like saying Everest is slightly tall. This little graphic novel, again with a similar cartoon-like style, is one of the twisted things I’ve read in a long time.
It centres around a cute, but terrified, boy who lives with his freak-show of a family is a house that’s so sprawling that he’s never been able to walk all the way around it. How on earth the little lad managed to be in the slightest way normal living with this family is a question that is never answered. His Gran thinks she’s a chicken and tries to lay eggs all day in her home-made nest while her retarded son happily butchers the real chickens that he breeds to feed her delusion. Meanwhile the boy’s beautiful mother lives to massage the grapefruit size growth on the side of Grandfather’s face with her feet. If that wasn’t weird enough our unnamed hero also has a sister who loves nothing better than grabbing a bunch of creepy-crawlies so they can crawl all over her body as she moans in pleasure.
Messed up yet? Well don’t worry – it’s only just starting.
At the middle of the house sits a mirror, which according to Grandfather holds back the forces of hell. Bet they didn’t get that in IKEA. Before you know it, of course, the mirror is cracked and an infernal snake crawls through bringing death, destruction and dismemberment to the household. If you thought the family was slightly on the strange side before you ain’t seen nothing yet.
This atmospheric and downright disturbing tale forces you to keep turning the pages just so you can scream ‘what the hell,’ at every bizarre, and increasingly gory, turn. It’s all a bit sick really but what do you expect from Japanese horror.
And yes, reading it before going to sleep actually did give me nightmares.
If the rest of the series is as extreme and off-the-wall as this I know I’m going to love it.
Now, I thought ‘Gallery’ was weird. To say ‘The Red Snake’ is disturbing would be like saying Everest is slightly tall. This little graphic novel, again with a similar cartoon-like style, is one of the twisted things I’ve read in a long time.
It centres around a cute, but terrified, boy who lives with his freak-show of a family is a house that’s so sprawling that he’s never been able to walk all the way around it. How on earth the little lad managed to be in the slightest way normal living with this family is a question that is never answered. His Gran thinks she’s a chicken and tries to lay eggs all day in her home-made nest while her retarded son happily butchers the real chickens that he breeds to feed her delusion. Meanwhile the boy’s beautiful mother lives to massage the grapefruit size growth on the side of Grandfather’s face with her feet. If that wasn’t weird enough our unnamed hero also has a sister who loves nothing better than grabbing a bunch of creepy-crawlies so they can crawl all over her body as she moans in pleasure.
Messed up yet? Well don’t worry – it’s only just starting.
At the middle of the house sits a mirror, which according to Grandfather holds back the forces of hell. Bet they didn’t get that in IKEA. Before you know it, of course, the mirror is cracked and an infernal snake crawls through bringing death, destruction and dismemberment to the household. If you thought the family was slightly on the strange side before you ain’t seen nothing yet.
This atmospheric and downright disturbing tale forces you to keep turning the pages just so you can scream ‘what the hell,’ at every bizarre, and increasingly gory, turn. It’s all a bit sick really but what do you expect from Japanese horror.
And yes, reading it before going to sleep actually did give me nightmares.
If the rest of the series is as extreme and off-the-wall as this I know I’m going to love it.
posted by Cav at
1:56 PM
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