STARRING SONYA DEVEREAUX: SCREAM QUEEN SUMMER CAMP MASSACRE, from American Mythology on December 22, 2021, finds Sonya Devereaux in a meta mystery as she and her scream queen pals watch a late night slasher movie with themselves as the stars.
The Details
- Written By: Todd Livingston, Nick Capetanakis
- Art By: Brendon Fraim, Brian Fraim
- Colors By: Matt Webb
- Letters By: Brendon Fraim, Brian Fraim
- Cover Art By: Brendon Fraim, Brian Fraim
- Cover Price: $3.99
- Release Date: December 22, 2021
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Was It Good?
There’s a refreshing charm about a comic when it knows what it is, doesn’t try to be something it’s not, and just has fun with itself. STARRING SONYA DEVEREAUX: SCREAM QUEEN SUMMER CAMP MASSACRE has lots of fun with itself… *cough*.
The setup is sorta meta but not exactly. Sonya Devereaux and her bevy of beautiful scream queen actors get together to watch a movie they all starred in together. The hook is that Devereaux’s friends are all real life scream queens, from the legendary Brinke Stevens to the memorable Michelle Bauer. Adding depth to this comic is the concept of a movie within a movie within a movie. For a story starring the actresses from the heyday of direct-to-video schlock slasher films, the story is surprisingly layered and meta.
That’s not to say the plot is super deep or mind-bending in any way. Livingston and Capetanakis, to their credit, create the layers in a fun and easy-to-digest structure so that the average reader gets it without burning out any brain cells in the process.
A comic like this wouldn’t work if the art didn’t reflect the silliness of the situation with each actor prancing though deadly scenarios and titillating the audience, all in the spirit of entertainment and fun. The character designs are not a spot-on reproduction of the real life actors but it’s close enough for fans of the scream queens to get the general gist, particularly with good use of hairstyles to tell each actor apart.
What’s It About?
[SPOILERS AHEAD – Click here if you just want the score without spoilers]
We begin with Sonya Devereaux welcoming into her home Brinke Stevens, Tiffany Shepis, Linnea Quigley, Michelle Bauer, and famed movie producer Fred Olen Ray for a movie night. The gang settles in to watch Scream Queen Summer Camp Massacre starring themselves. Right off, the movie within a movie concept is set up cleanly.
In the film, the gang heads to a summer camp to host a scream queen convention where all sorts of cosplayers and movie fans have come to get up-close-and-personal time with the scream queens for photo ops, autographs, activities, and more. Unfortunately for Fred, one of the stage shows gets too real and it appears one of the killers from their film is on the loose.
The summer camp is (conveniently) cut off due to a mudslide, and the queens spend the rest of the film figuring out who’s killing the convention attendees with deadly and complicated traps. We conclude the issue with a bait-and-switch, suspects getting eliminated in more ways than one, and a happy ending.
Final Thoughts
STARRING SONYA DEVEREAUX: SCREAM QUEEN SUMMER CAMP MASSACRE takes all the schlocky, silly fun of the scream queen era and creates an equally silly and fun late-night movie party. The writing is surprisingly layered with a murder mystery that fits within the genre but has enough amusing twists and turns as a movie within a movie plot to keep you guessing. The art is generally good and portrays the real life actors close enough to pick each one out of a crowd. In all, this is a comic that doesn’t take itself too seriously and squarely focuses on having fun.
Score: 8.5/10
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