Hello, my friends. Everything that’s creepy, spiritual and festive about All Hallow’s Eve is slowing rolling in like the chilliest of ominous ground-based clouds. For a certain Golden State-based town, the terrifying nightmares that loom within it are making their horrifying return to this ever-cursed community. On that note, I welcome you back to another entry of…
Last time, we began our look at Sumerian Comics’ four-part follow-up to John Carpenter’s 1980 cult horror movie about a township being haunted by the otherwordly beings who were initially murdered in order for their gold to get plundered and be used to create Antonio Bay. Taking place 42 years after said events in 2022, a few familiar faces from the film along with some new ones such as a podcast group led by the daughter of Nick Castle & Elizabeth Solley make their presence here while new details from the town’s past come to light concerning the familiar seaside campfire storyteller Mr. Machen. Specifically, Charles met a woman named Samantha Loomis before he found a disheveled young boy over at a landmark known as Devil’s Mark who was ultimately brought into their personal care and was named John. With a shadowy figure also briefly making its presence known on the local DJ’s cell phone before it exploded, it becomes ever-more prevalent that the town’s grim past is not only looming, but also looking to once again come back to haunt the small community. While our featured terror continues to grow, let’s resume our narrative trek with our next chapter.
Published in April 2024, we continue to have the writing & artistic duo of Steve Ekstrom and Marco Foderà. As for the kind of terror that’s about to make its presence felt upon our core cast, let’s resume our critical sights upon the waterline horizons and sail back in.
Issue 2 begins outside of the abandoned church in the middle of a thunderous downpour as the mystery man makes his way into the nearby graveyard in order to dig up Father Malone’s corpse. Meanwhile, Stevie and Bennett are driving their way through the storm in order to make sure that the local radio station is properly secure from the constantly pouring rain as she mentions that she’s not being out in inclement weather, to which he mentions that it wouldn’t have helped much due to the poor reception over at the lighthouse. She then asks him if he ever felt like fate was out of his hands, to which he essentially tells her that fate ultimately never changes. They ultimately arrive at KAB as she says that she’ll check up on the windows and the back-up generator, while he tells her that he’ll head over to the storage unit in order to make sure that the fuel that powers the generator is secure. After telling him to be careful, she notices that the power inside the lighthouse is out as she heads inside and reaches the switch-breaker for she’s suddenly met upon by a shadowy figure who’s armed with a sword. Back with Trammer, he tries to remind himself that he’s helping “the cute broad with the great cans” before he’s suddenly approached by two mysterious beings with one of them carrying its own head while the other figure says that it’s been a long time. Not only that, but said figure intends to complete something before telling that he has something that’s needed. From there, Bennett plummets off the cliffside just as Wayne emerges from the lighthouse and catches the end of his scream. With her feeling that something’s off and with not able to find Trammer, she climbs into the truck and speeds off shortly after a “Ba-Da-Rum” sound is made.
Over at Andrew’s house, he’s looking outside a window while being worried for his own mother. Just as his wife Jamie begins to cuddle up with him, their daughter Casey arrives back before she asks her parents if they were able to talk to her Nana. Her parents then assure her that she’s fine before promising to go check up on her in the morning. Meanwhile, Annie and her podcast team have driven over to the abandoned church for some work as they discover that the building has been broken into. Kirk gets nervous and wants them to return the next day, yet Castle refuses to give up since she feels like she’s on to something big. She then mentions that the Devil’s Mark isn’t far from their location and that they can reach it via a hiking path behind the church. Despite Pierce’s own doubts about this, Travis reminds him that they’ve been in worse weather as they all proceed to head out, especially since the rain has just let up while a certain “Ba-Da-Rum” sound is heard.
Over at Andrew’s house, Casey is taking dishes out of the dishwasher while the familiar “Ba-Da-Rum” noise is made. Suddenly, she spots a mysterious figure in the window and gets spooked by it which causes her to drop a dish which shatters on the floor. Andrew goes to check up on his daughter as she admits that she’s been somewhat tired due to her having some weird dreams about her great-grandfather John Machen. Andy finds it bizarre since he mentions that John had been deceased before Jamie was even before while he barely remembers Mr. Machen telling him seaside fire-based ghost stories over at Spivey Point when he was a kid. Casey then says that in her dreams, John is a young man who tells her that not only does he have a story to share but that he’s returning to Antonio Bay. Over in the woods, Annie and her team continue their trek as Travis says that it’ll be too dark for them to shoot any kind of “reasonable footage” while Kirk is eager for them to head back. Fortunately, they manage to reach the Devil’s Mark as Castle says that there isn’t anything there that would’ve indicated any kind of natural rock formation like this. Peace then informs her that he’s heard about indigenous tribes possibly placing them here as ceremonial markers way before any kind of explorer managed to reach this continent. Mathew then adds that there’s some conflicting information that theorizes about trappers places setting those rocks there for guiding purposes due to the treacherous terrain that people would encounter as they get closer to the town. He even mentions some accounts of furriers (fur dealers) stumbling around in the dark and accidentally slipping off the cliffs before meeting their demise in the rocky waters below. Just as Annie is satisfied with what they’ve shot and says that they can return in the morning in order for them to get a clearer look, Kirk notices something wrapped up in a sheet and wedged within a marker. To their surprise, they discover that it’s the golden cross. Castle then realizes that it’s the genuine article, to which she tells her team that they must immediately leave since it’s cursed and that they risk invoking the wrath of Captain Blake’s ghost. Travis says that he doesn’t believe in curses and that the gold cross will financially help them, but they’re then approached by Blake and his undead group as they manage to run away.
We then intercut with a past seaside ghost story session as Mr. Machen tells a young Andrew and some fellow kids that it was wrong for some townspeople to lead Blake and his crew to their demise solely because of their leprosy before stealing their wealth. He then says that the captain and his group are now out somewhere “stuck between the land of the living and the dead” forever haunting the town with their never-ending need for revenge, yet their bloody desires will only be satisfied when the souls of their assailants will be “justly reaped for the devil himself” or maybe their own eternal punishment is beyond what anyone can imagine. With the familiar fog rolling over the lighthouse, it catches up to Stevie due to the truck being out of gas. She then gets out and calls out for help before she runs into the eerie smoke and trips where she’s then met upon by someone whom she’s horridly familiar with.
From there, the fog proceeds to engulf the town as Andrew and Casey spot it from inside their home. Despite his daughter not fully understanding how sinister this smoke can be, Andy tells her to go to her parents’ bedroom along her mother and lock that door before they lock themselves inside their bathroom to which they can then hide inside the walk-in closet. From there, he heads down into the basement and turns on a lantern before he preps a shotgun for the potential terror looming outside. Over with our podcast group, they’re driving through a rainstorm before they come across the headless being who’s also dragging Bennett’s lifeless body. The team then drives past said figure while they’re stunned by what they’re just seen. Over within the center of town, the fog has engulfed Antonio Bay as a truck crashes into an electric pole which shorts out a transformer and causes a blackout. From there, the mysterious hooded man appears alongside Blake and his undead crew while mentioning how good it is to be back before mentioning that he misses his “old girl”.
As for the podcast team, they’re met upon by Andrew who’s stunned by the fact that they’re not at their rental cabin. From there, he brings them into his house as Annie asks him why he’s holding up within his home instead of fleeing. Just as they head inside, Andy is annoyed by his own family not hiding out yet Jamie says that she’s hated his idea ever since he brought this up from a prior drunken lecture. Andrew then tells Castle and her team to cover up the windows with some blankets as Casey proceeds to help them out. Afterwards, Issue 2 ends with Andy telling his wife that he has to go check up on his mother and her boyfriend. Despite Jamie and Annie objecting to his idea, Andrew says that they have to survive the night since he fears that they all won’t survive if Captain Blake and his undead crew have truly returned. From there, the comic ends with a transcript for a May 11, 2021 episode of a podcast called Northwestern Mysteries. The program’s host named Dave Schibner proceeds to interview Castle and her teammates about their highly-successful podcast before he then brings up a past piece that covered the mysterious disappearances of more than 100 people within the greater Antonio Bay area since the start of the 21st Century. Not only that, but not a single California official has done anything to look into any kind of pattern between the victims and where they’re vanishing. Annie says that she’s never heard of this, yet she’s eager to finally visit the town where her parents met and that she along with her team are eager to look into said situation. While Kirk mentions that they’re already investigating Captain Blake and his crew, Travis says that those figures could be tied into the Curse of Antonio Bay incident that claimed some key lives on that night. Castle then mentions how there were seven total deaths from that particular night since within the aftermath of said supernatural attack, the bodies of two prominent townspeople were discovered in Father Malone and John Machen. David then asks if this upends the whole mythology surrounding Captain Blake, to which Annie says that it really wouldn’t since there isn’t a complete understanding as to how malevolent spirits operate which has led to so much divisiveness with the believers and the skeptics. Mathew then chimes in by saying that every single person on their team brings their own experiences to their job before he then explains that he shares a particular experience with Pearce within college. Specifically, they shared a house with a roommate who was being constantly pestered by several paranormal activities being caused by a single malevolent spirit. Kirk elaborates on how he and Travis thought that the guy was joking at first, yet he became convinced when he came home and saw the man standing up on their couch asleep. Not only that, but every single cabinet within the entire house was open before they all slammed shut at the same time to scare the guy up from his slumber. Pearce and Mathew then conclude their account by mentioning how a couple of months after they had graduated from college, the guy got some new roommates before they found him dead of a heart attack. Kirk & Travis will learn about this from the coroner’s note as they suspected that the man died of fright, yet the coroner only mentions said possibility as some speculation. From there, the transcript ends with Castle saying that she and her team had collected hundreds of stories like this from all across the nation.
Overall, this is a nice escalation of familiar and unfamiliar terror. For those who’re already well-aware of what went down within the initial movie, it should be clear who two of the three central figures within the hauntingly opposing group are. As for the identity of the new hooded figure who seems to be either joining equal forces with Captain Blake or is actually leading the undead charge here (as well as who Stevie came across during her fog-filled flee attempt), it’s been left up to the second half of this series for the narrative to explain. In a moment of history repeating itself, a guy that’s romantically attracted to Stevie has been murdered and thus causes her to be separated from anyone else while she’s within the vicinity of her radio station. Not only that, but her son is with the rest of our central cast while they also come under attack. In terms of development, it’s pretty light for the most part aside from how the Devil’s Mark came to be in the first place. It does add some historical backstory to that key site, but the characters themselves don’t seem to receive any further detail of any kind. Now that Andrew is older and has already gone through this similar situation when he was a child, he’s also set up to become a opposing figure for the otherworldly adversaries. Even though this chapter doesn’t have much in terms of personal development, at least the presented narrative was fairly paced with nothing overly egregious about it. In addition, the artwork continues to serve as a nice balance between horror-inspired scratchiness blended with a good color palette that bright enough to help important figures stand out while having enough cool colors to allow its creepy atmosphere to loom large over the proceedings. All-in-all, this entry is stronger with its own plot progression and escalating tension while lacking any further development for any of our principal players. Even though this isn’t the strongest entry in the entire series, it still continues to move things forward while raising the terror towards the absolute horror that can potentially come. It raises the reader’s engagement for the terrifying twists & turns to come and fills said audience with anticipation of how things will go down. As such, give this a watch once you roll in this far. As for how the second half will ultimately play out, come back next time to see what awaits our primary players and how it holds up in my critical weather report.
The Fog (created by John Carpenter & Debra Hill) is owned by StudioCanal, Amazon MGM Studios, Sony Pictures Television, Lionsgate Films and Scream Factory.
