The Horror of Collier County HC Review: Interesting

That feeling of someone is stalking you is horrifying. It’s worse when you’re in a new town and nobody knows you. “The Horror of Collier County HC,” Which collects all five issues of the titular comic along with its two sequels, written and drawn by Rich Tommaso, is an OK cult classic.   

The first story, “the titular The Horror of Collier County,” is about single mom Fran DeCarlo has moved from New York City to Naples, Florida to live with her mom and get away from big city life. However, the locals seem a bit strange, stalkerish in fact which causes Fran to fear for her, her daughter’s and her mom’s life. It’s an interesting setup with a mediocre payoff. While the idea of a bunch of people you don’t know is stalking you is creepy the comic only concentrates a little bit of time on that. The rest if just developing the (weak) relationship between Fran and the weirdo Mel. They have no chemistry together that it feels more awkward than anything else. The only other positive is that the comic does make you wonder if all this was real or all in Fran’s head. That open-ended storytelling works great here. Until the next two comics, that is. 

The second story, “King Blood,” shows the origin of Fran’s husband, who is Dracula. Now this series has become silly. What went from this “Fran may be crazy” story to “she’s Dracula’s wife, who became a metal head in the 1990s.” It’s super silly and the story is only used to set up to the next story. “Don’t Look Back” sees Fran returning to Portland in order to confront Dracula after all these years. Another silly story that features a lot of action and just gets sillier as the story progresses. Read this if you only want a few laughs at an absurd story. The artwork is the best thing from this comic. It looks like one of those 1960s comics that have characters get into a lot of funny situations and are more aimed at kids. This is supposed to be horror. Using this style seems more like this type of story is not supposed to be taken seriously, especially the last two comics.    

“The Horror of Collier County HC” has three stories where one is meant to be serious and scary and then two super silly stories. The art works better with the last two, but not so much with the first one. Established fans will enjoy it, but it may not garner new ones unless they enjoy this type of humor.