GRIMM TALES OF TERROR QUARTERLY: BACHELORETTE PARTY – Review

In GRIMM TALES OF TERROR QUARTERLY: BACHELORETTE PARTY, available from Zenescope Entertainment on November 10th, 2021, it’s one last party in Vegas for a bride-to-be and her circle of friends when a bad choice leads the group down a path of demonic damnation.

The Details

• Written By: Jenna Lyn Wright
• Art By: Vicente Cifuentes, Rodrigo Xavier
• Colors By: Maxflan Araujo
• Letters By: Taylor Esposito
• Cover Art By: Igor Vitorino (cover A)
• Cover Price: $8.99
• Release Date: November 10, 2021

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Was It Good?

This was an okay quarterly issue for Zenescope. Not super great. Not terrible. Just okay.

Zenescope’s quarterly offerings tend to be hit-or-miss because 72 pages are a lot of real estate to fill, and sometimes there’s too much story, not enough story, or it feels about right. Here, there’s simply not enough story to fill the pages, and it feels like you have to wade through too much fluff to get to the meat of the issue.

To be fair, Wright does an admirable job telling a complete story about an eclectic group of friends gathered for a bachelorette party when events spiral out of control. Each character has a distinct voice, and there’s tons of backstory on each character to motivate the way they each react to the same situation. The character work is great in this issue.

That said, most of the character work is unnecessary when you break down what actually happens (read through to the next section for details about the plot). All that’s really needed is a setup for the party, bad things start happening, a reveal that the bad things are a result of a mistake, and the resolution. All the extra details about “this one resents that one, and that other one dated this one’s current boyfriend” wind up as white noise.

Thankfully, the quarterly picks up once we get to the central conflict, the reason behind it, and the effort to make things right. Once you get past all the fluff, there’s a decent little horror story at the heart of it, and the meatier parts were fun to read.

The art is decent enough in this issue. Zenescope has effectively two types of house styles. There’s the action-adventure, superhero-style you’ll see in Robyn Hood, and then you have these gritty and grounded horror titles. The latter tends to be heavily referenced to the point of looking like traced photos of models. It’s not bad but it feels less like art and more like photoshop. It’s a matter of personal taste whether you’ll like it or not.

What’s It About?

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

We begin with a looooooong introduction to a group of ladies who’ve assembled in Vegas for a bachelorette party for the bride-to-be, Megan. Each of the friends is a “type”, from the dippy Wiccan to the Type-A planner. All goes according to plan when they get to Vegas, starting with a group tattoo.

The festivities get wilder as the night goes on. The group hops from bar to strip club to a palm reader. The next morning, a few of the ladies wake up in their hotel suite after blacking out. With the bride and two of their friends missing, the ladies are forced to follow clues ala The Hangover to retrace their steps and locate the bride before the wedding. They soon discover the trail is littered with bodies.

When the trio eventually lands at the palm reader who has some actual experience with the occult, we learn the group tattoo is a black magic symbol used to summon a demon. A demon who feeds on the life force of wedding parties. We conclude the issue with a race to find the bride before it’s too late, a desperate attempt to break the spell, and a very large and hungry demon.

Final Thoughts

GRIMM TALES OF TERROR QUARTERLY: BACHELORETTE PARTY explores what happens when the excesses and vices of a Vegas-style bachelorette party take an accidental turn into the supernatural. The art is good, the kernel of the story is better, but there’s just not enough substance to fill 72 pages.

Score: 7/10

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