Dark Entries

I'm a sucker for haunted house stories, if only because they're such a challenge for modern horror writers to pull off. I also love Blair Witch Project-style narratives, supposedly unfiltered media that catalogues horror without artifice and just presents terror in all its messy glory. So the plot behind Constantine's latest jaunt into the unknown, a reality show about a haunted house, piqued my interest.

Like so many Alan Moore characters, John Constantine is arrogant, wily, grungy, hails from the lower class, and the world pretty much hates him. Constantine and his ilk defined a whole generation of trench-coat wearing bastards that provided a much-needed dose of reality to the comic genre. So it's interesting to insert someone like Constantine in what is an undeniably modern format; that of the narcissistic, relentlessly self-promotional Generation Y-world of reality television.

Constantine shifts very quickly from paranormal investigator of a haunted house to reality show contestant, a shift that isn't entirely believable. We're led to believe it's because Constantine is attracted to a woman on the show who reminds him of someone he once knew. Which is all fine and good, but seems entirely out of character for a drifter who brings bad luck to everyone he meets.

And here's the first problem: it's never realistically explained why all the contestants stay there. The house is a virtual fortress, with no windows or doors. All of the contestants are suffering from grisly, realistic hallucinations. And not one of them cracks enough under the pressure to opt out of the game.

Constantine's arrival mucks up this somewhat delicate balance of greed and paranoia. His sole contribution is sleeping with the woman he was attracted to and asking them all to remember their pasts. In a comic all about Constantine, he barely lifts a finger.

About mid-way through, there's a surprised twist involving demons and hell. I figured it out several pages prior and was actually pleased with the direction the book was going in. In the style of the remake of 13 Ghosts, the book's true premise promised a really dark foray into the human condition as the various contestants realize the hopelessness of their situation and…

But alas, that's for a different book. Once the Big Surprise is revealed, Dark Entries begins a downward spiral into parody. Here's a hint: it includes demons wearing headsets, televisions from hell, and an infernal cannibal who still hears the voice of Sawney Bean.

In other words, instead of continuing the dark noir tone of the first half, or the Gen-Y ironic sensibilities of the second half, it chooses a third route: utter ludicrousness. The infernal forces come off as absurd. When the dismembered head of one of the contestants asks if he'll ever play the piano again, it's clear that Dark Entries has given up.

Rankin seems uncomfortable with the graphic novel format, vacillating between Constantine's noir-style narrative sensibilities, the relentless navel-gazing of modern media, and a bad eighties slasher flick. The result is an uneven installment of the Constantine universe.