Horror is a genre that has, for a long time now, found itself in desperate need of a shot in the arm. For a better part of the last twenty years, western horror has simmered with lukewarm novels, predictable cliche-ridden movies and that period where they just remade everything the far east had made the year before. Horror was dying, and didn't look like there was much of a way out.
However, in recent times we're seeing an unexpected sub-genre growing that could save horror as a whole. The emergence of ethnic horror in the public eye is a much needed breath of fresh air, and is introducing wildly new and unexplored viewpoints to the genre. Films like Get Out give us terror from an angle never before seen on the silver screen, and comics like Pornsak Pichetshote's new Infidel, continues in this exciting new branching out of a once tired genre.
Infidel tells the story of a young American Muslim woman living in an apartment seemingly filled with the grisly echoes of murderous hate crimes. The shadow of awful events lingers within her nightmares, and these demonic visitations seem to begin leaking into waking life.
Infidel explores not only the supernatural terrors, but shows us the true fears of the world this young woman is now a part of. The suspicious stares of neighbors hide unspoken words, and what could be a loving family is cracked by the echoes of old prejudices never forgotten. In Infidel, seemingly benevolent faces hide terrible secrets, and it seems whatever haunts this young woman is just around the corner at any moment.
Infidel has an atmospheric first issue, with a lot of thorough attention to character found therein. It's an unnerving experience in horror, with both a slow burn uneasy feeling to its pages as well as boasting a few panels that are truly ghoulish to behold. I'm excited to see where our protagonist is taken, and what awful secrets she uncovers in the shadows of her apartment, as well as the shadows of the family she finds herself a part of.
Written by Pornsak Pichetshote, with art by Aaron Campbell and Jose Villarruba, Infidel #1 is out now.
