The Pull List – Hungry Ghosts #4
In the fourth and final issue, the last two cooks beginning to share their stories. As the last candles are lit and the game of Hyakumonogatari Kaidankai reaches it’s most suspenseful tales. who will be brave or wise enough to be left standing. The first tale is The Snow Woman, a chilling story about a Japanese cook in the Nigata Prefecture that encounters a ghost woman in the frozen mountains. Her presences is surrounded by a freezing cold aura and her haunting beauty leaves the cook in a spell. Can he survive long enough to tell his tale or will the snow woman calm her prize? The second and last tale is The Cow Head, a story about a doomed village that under goes a famine. Crops have stopped growing, food is gone and bellies growl with displeasure. A stranger with a cow head arrives at the villagers most desperate moment. When hunger turns everything into a meal, but can the villagers fight back their most feverish instincts?
The last two chapters deliver fun and ominous stories that shows how people can fail to do the right thing, and the terrible consequences that follow. The Snow Woman written by Anthony Bourdain and Joel Rose and illustrated by Irene Koh, has a exciting premise of a ghostly woman that challenges the desires of men. It’s a fun commentary of not trying to hook up with any beautiful spirit you encounter. The Cow Head written by Anthony Bourdain and Joel Rose and illustrated by Francesco Francavilla, starts with a grim decline of a village suffering from a famine, something that is actually devastating in reality. For most of the story, there is no super natural element. It’s human hunger and primal instincts that can be terrifying. When a cow headed person appears, will the villagers try to overcome their instincts or give in to be monsters? These last two stories show off some of the twisted moments in humans more than super natural creatures.
Overall, the complete series of Hungry Ghosts has a great blend of comical and horrifying elements to keep the readers engage. The stories never extend too dark being a graphically gore fest and are not too cartoonish to be giggling at every panel. Fans of such pulp style horror anthology series like Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, and Creepshow will enjoy this additional of quick and ghastly tales of horror.