ELVIRA IN HORRORLAND #2 – Review

ELVIRA IN HORRORLAND #2, from Dynamite Comics on June 22nd, 2022, transports Elvira to the pocket dimension of The Shining to find Fellini’s remote and leap home. Has Jack been a dull boy? Can Elvira handle the truth? How many film references and puns can you fit in one comic? Let’s find out.

The Details

• Written By: David Avallone
• Art By: Silvia Califano
• Colors By: Walter Pereyra
• Letters By: Taylor Esposito
• Cover Art By: Dave Acosta (cover A)
• Cover Price: $3.99
• Release Date: June 22, 2022

Was It Good?

We love Elvira. We love Dynamite’s commitment to bringing more Elvira content to comics. And we love humor. In theory, putting all those pieces should make for a Grade A+ comic. Does that mean this is a Grade A+ comic? Not quite. Let’s call it a Grade A-.

The difference between an A+ and an A- centers around the same mild criticism we had about the first issue. The puns, in-jokes, and humourous Easer Eggs barrage you mercilessly at 90 miles per hour from the first page to the last. Jokes are fun, but there’s almost no dialog that isn’t a joke or reference, so it almost becomes a task to figure out the story through the joke. If you don’t get the references, you may get lost in a few spots, so you don’t have to be a Kubrick or Nicholson film aficionado to read this comic, but it helps.

With that minor down point out of the way, yours truly happens to be a film aficionado-in-training, so the humor here lands beautifully. In fact, this was a more enjoyable read than the first issue. It almost becomes a game to figure out which quote came from which movie, and this issue turns into the world’s first comic version of Trivial Pursuit: Movie Edition. To Avallone’s credit, he gets the character of Elvira down to a tee, so you can picture this scenario playing out in live-action with the real-life actors, and it feels like everyone involved is having fun.

The success of this comic is due in part to Califano and Pereyra delivering “close enough” caricatures of the real-life celebrities to make the scenario work. The art team is pulling off a pleasingly passable homage to Mort Drucker’s film parodies in MAD Magazine, and it’s a real treat.

Keep scrolling for a closer look at the covers, or Click Here to jump right to the story description with some spoilers.

What’s It About?

[SPOILERS AHEAD – Click here if you just want the score without spoilers]

Remind yourself how Elvira got away from a particular PSYCHO in our ELVIRA IN HORRORLAND #1 review.

We begin with Elvira standing on a snowy hill fronting the Overcooked Hotel (get it?!? *wink*). This is the setting of the Stanley Kubrick film, The Shining, based on the Stephen King of the same name. (Author’s note: the book and the film are very different). The setting is different, but the mission is the same. Elvira has to find Frederico Fellini’s TV remote to zap herself out of here before she gets the axe.

At first, Elvira plays along with the progression of the film so she can search the Hotel, but as we learned in the last issue, the more she interacts with the film, the more the scenes spiral into chaos. It isn’t long before Kubrick intervenes to help move the murders along, and Nicholson starts spouting quotes from his other films.

We conclude the issue with a blood bath, guest cameos, and a leap that doesn’t send Elvira home.

Keep scrolling for a closer look at preview images of the internal pages, or Click Here to jump right to the score.

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