You ever have one of those half-remembered, unexplained moments from your childhood where you’re not sure if it’s something that happened or something you dreamed? Imagine if that moment kept coming back to haunt you, even now, and it won’t stop until you’re dead.
Colin Lorimer’s “The Hunt” is a horror comic that brings a decidedly modern and horrific twist to Irish folklore and this spoiler free review is here to delve into its twisted world.
Written & Illustrated by Colin Lorimer
Dream or reality? For a long time, teenager Orla Roche couldn’t tell them apart, and now THE HUNT is coming with its nightmare world of the restless dead. An intense story of survival, THE HUNT is a supernatural horror tale that will give Irish mythology a distinctly modern twist.
Despite having such a rich well of inspiration to tap, it’s always been a shame that Celtic folklore has been so underrepresented in horror comics these days. Looking at the recent revival of horror comics, you’re likely to find the inspiration for the story to be rooted in American lives and fears. There’s nothing wrong with that, mind you, but every so often it’s nice to have a story that preys on the fears of a people from an all together different part of the world. Writer and artist Colin Lorimer is looking to do exactly that with “The Hunt”, the story of Orla Roche, a teenage girl who saw a glimpse of a deadly other world when she was younger. Lorimer has teamed up with colourist Joana Lafuente and letterer Jim Campbell to create a horror comic that’s bone-chillingly effective and unlike anything you’re going to read these days.
“The Hunt” #1 is a surprisingly slow burn of a comic. It edges closer towards psychological horror than anything else, focusing on the day-to-day life of Orla Roche and the torment she faces from her peers over what she experienced as a child. Lorimer only shows a glimpse of what actually occured, piecing it together throughout the issue, which creates the suspense in two different ways. As a reader, we know something happened and that it was somehow supernatural and the vague details surrounding it allow our imagination to run wild as to what actually happened.
On top of that, seemingly every around Orla seems to know what happened and the teases and jabs from her peers make it seem like whatever happened was something that fundamentally changed who Orla was. That weaves a sense of intrigue and suspense into the very fabric of the story as Lorimer gives no quarter in explaining what Orla saw, simply hinting that it was something with ramifications much wider than anyone realises. It’s a fantastic hook that builds more on character than scares as you end up wanting to know just what happened to Orla even though you know you probably shouldn’t.
With his work of “Burning Fields”, Colin Lorimer showed he could blend the harshest of realities with the most fantastical of the supernatural and here he brings that to an all new levels. In “Burning Fields”, the juxtaposition of harsh deserts and military gear with the Eldritch horrors abound brought those horrors a sense of grounded reality.
In “The Hunt”, the very domestic nature of the setting — a small town in Ireland filled with very simple streets and terraced housing — brings an unsettling sense of familiarity to the comic that makes the quick flashes of the supernatural feel like an invading force, bursting into where we feel the most safe. Lorimer does this throughout the comic, keeping the settings real and familiar; childhood homes, high schools, coffee shops and house parties pepper the very real adolescence of Orla Roche, but at every turn she is hounded by this unnatural force.
Lorimer’s realistic art style, all scratchy lines and heavy inks, reinforce this notion through the dirt and grittiness of the world. This isn’t some clean, idealised version of Ireland. This is overcast weather, low income housing and roaming, sinister woods. Lorimer does a fantastic job of making this world feel so real that the underlying supernatural forces don’t seem out of place and, in fact, feel all the more dangerous. This is helped immensely by the colours from Joana Lafuente.
Continued belowLafuente keeps the palette pretty muted and naturalistic, enforcing the sense of reality in Lorimer’s linework. It would become almost slice-of-life in some pages if it weren’t for the harsh black shadows that seem to remind you on every page that there is something sinister lurking in this world. An interesting colouring trick Lafuente uses is highlighting the piercing blue of Orla’s eyes, something that seems just for effect at first, but later comes back in one of the most haunting scenes in the comic.
This comic isn’t strictly scary in the very base use of the word. Horror has largely become synonymous in comics with throwing as much gore and body horror on the page per issue as the reader can handle. While there are creators who can make that work, Colin Lorimer and Joana Lafuente use their art to create something more subtle, more menacing. It may keep the issue from having the sense of shock factor as some other horror comics, but this is an issue that’s going to stay with you thanks to how it instills a sense of dread in the reader.
It’s not all strictly dread and suspense, though. I mean, it mostly is, but Lorimer and letterer Jim Campbell still knows how to have some fun while creating that sense of authenticity to the real world. Comics have a long and terrible history of trying to phonetically letter Irish and Scottish accents (thanks for that, Chris Claremont), but Lorimer and Campbell have finally been able to exactly that without it feeling cringeworthy. It’s just another layer of this comic that makes it feel like it was created out of love for life in Ireland and it’s history and it’s rare to see something like that in comics these days.
All in all, “The Hunt” #1 was a surprising read for how slow and deliberate it builds suspense and dread only to leave the reader on a note that is sure to bring back any fan of horror for more. Colin Lorimer clearly knows what he’s doing when it comes to instilling a spine-tingling edge to his comics and collaborating with Joana Lafuente and Jim Campbell has brought this comic to life. It’s a niche comic in a niche genre and I’m probably only connecting with it as much as I am because of my working class Scottish upbringing, but that doesn’t undermine how much love clearly went into this comic and how much these creators are owning their craft.
Final Verdict: 8.9 – A must read, especially for fans of psychological horror.
