House of Fear: Attack of the Killer Snowmen and Other Spooky Stories TPG Review: Fun

Parents may try all they might to not expose their kids to horror, but there are plenty of kids who’ll eat it up, especially horror made for kids (just look at the success of “Goosebumps.”) One of the more recent ones is James Powell’s “House of Fear” with artist Jethro Morales and their newest TPB is “House of Fear: Attack of the Killer Snowmen and Other Spooky Stories” and kids will enjoy these stories.

In the first story, the titular “Attack of the Killer Snowmen,” is about a group of kids playing in the snow when they bump into someone’s snowman. Apparently that someone knows magic and brings a bunch of snowmen to life to attack these kids. It’s a fun story where the way the kids fight off the snowmen is rather creative and pretty obvious since the weapon is brought in early on. In “Dead Lake,” a group of boys is camping/fishing when one of them tells the story of a monster that attacked campers and was never found. One of them even plays tricks on them thinking that he was under attack by it. The boys slowly find out more about the monster and what it’s doing.

This is another interesting story with a great payoff and another obvious weakness. “The Leaving” is the weakest story and shortest story. It’s about two kids who were told to rake leaves, make a pile and then jump into it and never return. That’s basically the entire comic. It’s short and sour. Not worth your time. “Teeth” is about a girl who decides to play a prank on her brother by stealing and hiding the tooth her brother put under his bed for the tooth fairy. The tooth fairy is not at all happy about what the girl did and now wants all of the girl’s teeth. This is one of the super rare times the tooth fairy is portrayed as a villain and it’s done well here. The ending is a bit predictable, but the overall story is great. 

Finally, there’s “The Curse of Cottonwood Court,” the only story not illustrated by Jethro Morales (Adrian Bago Gonzalez.)  A girl and her family have moved into a new neighborhood where there is a scary looking abandoned house. She finds out that his house has the previous owner haunting it who wants nothing more than to chop down the tree that is on the property. The story is decent, but it does pick up by the end. The overall art by Morales is fine with bits and pieces of greatness strewn around. For example, the snowmen and the tooth fairy are absolutely terrifying. The same can be said for Gonzalez’s art only this time it’s the tree.    

“House of Fear: Attack of the Killer Snowmen and Other Spooky Stories” has some great stories with mediocre art that has some bouts of greatness that any horror loving kid will eat up. While one story is a dud, the rest of the stories are well worth reading even if you’re an adult with a kid’s heart.