Houses of the Unholy
Writer: Ed Brubaker
Artist: Sean Phillips
Colorist: Jacob Phillips
Publisher: Image Comics
Publication Date: August 2024
This has been a big year for Satanic Panic in media. In film, we’ve had Longlegs, Late Night with the Devil, Immaculate, The First Omen and Maxxxine just to name a few. Perhaps the slow decline in a shared, stable reality has forced us to focus on isolated narratives that give rhyme or reason to unspeakable suffering and trauma. Maybe a collective appreciation of Satanic influence is a benchmark for just how close to the end we all feel. Or, on the other hand, it could just be that the imagery and scares make for a fun ride.
All-Star Comic duo Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, along with colorish Jacob Phillips, are back this year with another original graphic novel, Houses of the Unholy. The book follows the investigation of FBI Agent West and a woman named Natalie Burns as they track down a group of people who were used in childhood to advance conspiracy theories about devil worship and Satanism. The book alternates between the present day investigation and flashbacks to Natalie’s childhood that helps establish the mystery and demonic activity in question.
The book sets the tone well before the story starts. As soon as you’re past the cover, the interior of the book starts with a very 80s wallpaper pattern. The floral arrangements and garish shade of yellow then move into “HOUSES OF THE UNHOLY” written in a font that resembles blood on the walls, with little splashes of red near the bottom of the page. It’s a promising start that’s consistent with the tone of the rest of the story. As you move between chapters, a pentagram slowly drips blood, moving towards the bottom of the page, as well. The whole presentation sells the slow decline into horror.
These stylistic choices aid the book immensely, and Jacob Phillips takes full advantage of the excessive blood and 80s aesthetics with his color choice. The alternating flashback chapters are all washed in red, giving the scenes a sense of foreboding. When you’re looking at little kids talking about being led down dark halls and touched by demons, you’re already on edge. But when the whole world is shades of red, there’s a nice extra push towards the evil lurking at the heart of the story.
But then the book drops the ball for me.
Ever since Pulp, Brubaker and Phillips have shifted towards an original graphic novel format. For books like Reckless, this really worked, replacing the monthly floppies with much nicer looking hardcovers and complete stories available upon release. But a lifetime of monthly comics writing is not a habit anyone can easily break, and Brubaker’s script here feels like it was designed with the intention of being in a regular comic book issue format. The opening of the book where we meet Natailie has two major beats: her having a kid in her trunk, and her being arrested and meeting Agent West. The fact that she’s a PI and that she’s looking for a missing kid are all essentially red herrings, familiar trappings of a Brubaker script to be subverted later when the nature of the real mystery takes shape. Except that the events are so truncated that these moments don’t have the proper impact. It felt to me like this was supposed to be set up with a full 22 page issue. The structure of the book also supports this, as each present day scene and its corresponding flashback form natural issues, or chapter breaks.
As I was reading, I started considering all the elements I imagined Brubaker would somehow wrap up by the end, but much of the book feels like it’s rushing to the ending and not giving you proper time to understand every section for what it truly is. Nataile’s brother, for example, just feels thrown into the story at a random point and his presence doesn’t improve much from there. Twists and turns are compounded after the halfway mark but we never live in the emotions of the scene.
At the core, this is a story about Satanism as a cultural byproduct of political unrest and evolving technology. The internet abyss of conspiracy theories, as well as the religious narratives that bind communities, all contribute to a desire to believe in something monstrous, or the embodiment of evil. A lot of these ideas represent interesting subversions of satanic fiction. It’s not so much that we take the devil as a given, as a monkey’s paw style supernatural karma for our evil desires. But rather, how our response to an unjust world animates a desire for this sort of belief in the first place. Houses of the Unholy is unique in that it takes the historical connection between late 80s interest in Satanism and the birth of the internet as co-constitutive forces. One drive enables the other in a vicious cycle that’s more sad than evil. I wish the book had the proper space to explore that idea, but instead it feels undercooked.
Sean Phillips, while being practiced in occult style art and horror, also feels ill suited to the material. The book is never particularly scary, nor does it use its artistic real estate to build any sense of dread. Much like Where the Body Was, this is a story that is explicitly going for a certain genre and tone outside of what we normally see from the paid, but the artistic choices, the paneling and the character designs, don’t stand out in a way that compliments the narrative. Phillips is an experienced pro at keeping the action clear, and the pace tight. But with so much resting on mounting dread, the images are almost too clear, like a camera left idle as events happen rather than moving with the point-of-view in the scene.
Houses of the Unholy is a fun ride with interesting ideas to work with. Jacob Phillips contributes solid color work and is key to the tone of the book. But the script feels like it’s rushing to the end without much time to live with the ideas Brubaker wants to discuss. While Sean Phillips is a versatile artist, there simply isn’t any proper horror or scares in the book. Much like Where the Body Was, this is another shot at experimentation from the comics duo but it doesn’t hit the mark it’s aiming for.
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