REVIEW: Secrets of Haunted House #1

Cover Artist: Mike Kaluta

“Beware of 13”
Story: Carl Wessler
Art: Tenny Henson
Colors: Jerry Serpe

“An Ice-Cold Corpse”
Story: Al Case
Art: Lee Elias

“Water, Water Every Fear”
Story: Tom Defalco
Art: J. Jodloman
Review: Madman

Horror has always been a thing for me, no matter in what medium it is presented. I guess I would give all the credit to my sister, who was 13 years older than me to the exact day.
She was also fascinated by the horror genre and introduced me to Jason Voorhees, Freddy Kurger, the Crypt Keeper, Michael Myers, and on and on. She also enjoyed scaring the crap out of me when I was too young to know better…
Back when I still believed monsters lived under my bed, alligators would come up through the toilet and bite my ass while I shat if I didn’t periodically check, and demons would get me if I didn’t run up the stairs fast enough after I turned out the lights.

But nothing, and I mean nothing, scared me more than watching Bruce Banner turn into the Hulk on the old television program. My sister would wait until the climax of the theme music just before Banner changed, and then she would start screaming, “Dogs and llamas! Dogs and llamas! Dogs and llamas!”.

To this day I have no idea why that terrified me so much. I spent many an hour hiding in the closet in my parents den waiting out those damn dogs and llamas. I don’t believe I watched a full episode of that show until I reached high school and my parents joined the 21st century and got a satellite dish ( I lived in a small village in rural Indiana).

I miss being scared like that. It seems as a guy grows older they find chainsaw massacres, dolls with knives, and little girls getting sucked into television sets just aren’t scary anymore.
Instead, we fear the mortgage, doctor bills, and pissing off the wife (Hell hath no fury), and that’s a damn shame.

I obviously knew this book wouldn’t actually be scary. In truth, most of the random back issues I buy just because I love the old covers, and this cover by Mike Kaluta is stunning. The actual writing is pretty cheesy as one would expect from a ‘70s mainstream horror book. I mean, they could only do so much.
I don’t think they’d have had younger me barricading myself in any closets even when I didn’t know any better.
I mean, how scary can a comic book really be?

The first story, “ Beware of 13”, is all about this jack-wagon who isn’t scared of the number 13. He names his racing airplane #13 to tempt fate, and, well, fate kicks him in the junk when he crashes #13 into the 13th floor of a hotel and dies a horrible death. Not scary and beyond cheesy.

“An Ice-cold Corpse” is all about this weapons developer who has some crazy disease that would force his doctors to amputate his arms and legs. The man spends millions to be cryogenically frozen until they find a cure so as to not lose his arms and legs. The guy is frozen for decades until one day doctors thaw him out. When he comes to he learns that they woke him up in order to cut off his arms and legs in order to donate them to people who met the wrong side of the weapons he had developed. This story was pretty disturbing when you actually think about it.

The last story was about a cat-burgler who steals a large gem, but ends up dying of thirst in the desert. Super lame and pointless story, really.

The issue was still a fun read and, as usual, the advertisements were fun to look at.
The oddest thing in the book, however, was in the letters page. There were two letters that stood out from the rest, one written by Clark Kent and the other from Bruce Wayne…and DC thought I wouldn’t notice.