Earlier this month we took a look at classic horror comic Misty. Tonight we look at another British horror anthology comic, Scream. Its original run was only 15 issues in 1984 — a weekly title, the first of which even came with those plastic vampire teeth.
I can imagine that being a selling point back then. Because in the eighties, fake teeth and a bin liner would make a decent enough Halloween costume. I digress.
At the time of writing I’m five issues in. Unlike the Misty collection, these issues are in their original form, not collected. Each issue offers a new chapter continuing from the one before.
Much like any anthology, there’s a lot to like and a lot that wasn’t for me. The strongest story so far is The Thirteenth Floor. It plays on those superstitions around the number 13 (as the recent American Horror Story series has). Maxwell is the computer in charge of Maxwell Towers. The AI goes rogue (well, didn’t that age well?) and Max will protect his — I guess — residents at any cost. The stories so far (a thief in one, a school bully in another) end with the culprit trapped on the building’s thirteenth floor, where Max has various horrors waiting for them.
Elsewhere, The Dracula File (those teeth had to be relevant somehow) sees Dracula return to England. Rushed to a military hospital from behind the Iron Curtain, a patient riddled with bullet holes is somehow still alive. Dracula escapes the hospital and goes on a spree of terror. This one has a very “Hammer Horror” feeling about it.
Other stories range from one where a boy’s uncle is a monster living in the basement, to one where all the cats have turned into killers.
They’re interesting takes on monsters, and here’s where I think it differs from Misty. The fears in that comic were about being the outsider and not fitting in — school bullies, pressure, social anxiety. Scream is more about the monsters. It doesn’t shy away from that. Much like Misty, most of the stories here aren’t colourised.
By today’s standards the stories are tame. But in 1984 IPC already had already had Mary Whitehouse on their back about their action titles in the mid 70s. Horror comics in the era of the video nasty didn’t last long. Scream’s tagline “not for the nervous” seemed to apply more to its publisher than its audience.
What we’re left with is an interesting time capsule — a kind of “Twilight Zone” for kids. Perhaps even a predecessor to things like Are You Afraid of the Dark? or Goosebumps.