I actually thought this volume of Ghost Hunt was the best yet, though I too would advise people to wait for vol 7 before reading this one. The cliffhanger is a killer.
The reason I liked this is because I think that ghost stories are all in the setup, not the payoff. It's so much more effective in building up tension when the monster is not seen, only imagined.
You know what this volume reminds me of, the classic horror movie from the 60s, The Haunting (and I do not mean the terrible remake). Of course it's not on par with that movie or Jackson's novel, but some of the same elements are being used to slowly let the reader build up his or her version of what's causing the bad things that are happening: the odd house that's a character in and of itself, the unsure psychic who can't tell if she's going mad, the disturbing glimpses of things that aren't explained but left for the reader to fill in. It's all pychological, and the amount of horror produced is only restricted by the imagination.
Now, I don't think this volume succeeds completely. The throwaway characters are so throwaway that you don't care for them at all, and it isn't until the core group starts being pulled in that the tension jumps. But once that happened I was on the edge of my seat. This manga actually started feeling like a horror manga to me. I'll not say it's Spiral, but it's refreshing in a series which to this point has been more about style than scariness. |
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