By Loka Kanarp & C/M Edenborg, translated by C/M Edenborg & Martin Tistedt (Borderline Press)
ISBN: 978-0-99269-724-2
If you thought “Scandi-Crime†was an impressive tweak on an old genre, you should see what our northern cousins can do with horror…
This is an imported and translated classic of supernatural suspense that went largely unremarked when it was first released in English, but it’s still one of the most powerful phantom menace tales I’ve ever seen and is long overdue for rediscovery and greater renown.
Resurrecting and refining the classical ghost story with this seductive and compellingly lavish two-colour hardback tome, husband-&-wife team Carl-Michael Edenborg and Loka Kanarp concocted a sharp, sweet and sour compote of dark desire and chilling craving in this account of a slumbering supernatural force and its irresistibly appalling allure for two troubled and unhappy girls…
Deep in the woods, a ramshackle edifice stands and waits. Closer to selfish, facile, judgemental modern civilisation, young sisters Elsa and Fredrike grow increasingly uncomfortable with their new foster parents.
Those smugly sanctimonious old poseurs are delighted with the idea and their new roles as guardians – and especially in the politely-stifled reactions of their equally shallow friends and neighbours – but really don’t seem that emotionally invested in the recently-bereft children now in their charge…
Unhappy to be the prize exhibit at a stuffy garden party, the girls soon sneak off and wander into the wilds on the edge of town. They’re heading for a strange place Elsa heard about at school. They really shouldn’t go in. All the kids say it’s haunted…
The deserted domicile is vast: a procession of bleak and empty rooms where the previous inhabitants seemingly disappeared in the middle of a smart soiree…
As the girls idly roam together, the bare boards suddenly break beneath them and Elsa falls into a darkness far deeper and longer than the mere gap between floors. The hole is bigger than the house itself and, even after climbing down on a rope, Fredrike cannot touch the bottom…
Dejectedly returning alone to her foster parents’ home she tries to explain what has happened but is cut short when calmly Elsa saunters in. The returnee is not the same as she was…
For one thing, she is cruel and mean and bullying, but the real kicker is at supper when a cutlery mishap proves the elder sister is no longer even human…
Of course, the pompous, self-opinionated adults notice nothing and later, as Fredrike cowers in bed looking at photos of happier times, the thing that looks like Elsa creeps in and offers to reveal secrets and surprises if she will return to the ruined house with her…
Author, publisher and editor Edenborg (My Cruel Fate) runs his own publishing house РVertigo Forlag Рand co-wrote Hungerhuset with graphic novelist Kanarp (another sterling alumnus of the Comics Art School of Malm̦ whose previous works include Pearls and Bullets and To My Friends and Enemies) to satisfy their own love of suspense-horror movies.
Their passion is our happy windfall as this sublimely seductive and truly beguiling mystery unfolds in ways both uneasily familiar and intensely original…
If being simultaneously unsettled and delightfully satiated is your particular meat, Hunger House is a dish you will never regret ordering. A disquieting terror tome worth every moment it takes to track down and acquire…
© 2014 Loka Kanarp & C/M Edenborg.