31 days of Horror 2012 day 16

Orphan
2009
Warner Brothers DVD

A young couple adopt a 9 year old Russian girl. Hoping this will help them cope with the stillborn child they just had. At first everything seems ok. But slowly we realize that Esther,the orphan,isn't all that she seems. She always dresses in old period clothing. She also seems to know more about sex than a kid her age should. The mother does some detective work and discovers Esther comes from a nut house in Estonia.

It is revealed that Esther is actually Leena Klammer a 33 year old woman that suffers from hypopituitarism, a condition that stunted her physical growth. She has spent most of her life posing as a young child.

I got lucky and didn't have the big reveal of this film spoiled for me before I saw it. The actress playing Esther is great. And all the FX work is well done. The dvd has very few extra features. The main one is a alternative ending. But I found this cheap,want to say I paid $5. Orphan gets a B-.

31 days of Horror 2012 Extra 11

Essential Marvel Horror volume 1
 2006
Various artists and writers

This is a collection of pretty much all of the solo appearances of Daimon Hellstorm AKA the Son of Satan and his sister Satanna. It starts off reprinting Hellstorm's appearances in the first two issues of the 70s Ghost Rider comic. Then his 13 issue run in Marvel Spotlight.All 8 issues of the Son of Satan solo series. Plus his appearances in Marvel Two in One and Marvel Team Up. For Satanna we get her appearances in Vampire Tales 2 and 3,Haunt of Horror 2,4, and 5,Marvel Premiere 27 and Marvel Preview 7.

I actually can remember reading some of the Son of Satan issues of Marvel Spotlight when I was little. Which is strange when I consider how religious my mom was at the time. I have always liked the Daimon Hellstorm character. Him being the son of Satan,but also being a exorcist and even becoming a monk at one time is a nice parallel. Now some of these comics reprinted here are kind of cheesy,but even then they are still a fun read. The artwork is never anything amazing but it also doesn't flat out suck. So if you have an interest in Hellstorm this is the trade to pick up cause outside of his time in the Defenders this reprints pretty much every comic he was in.

Now before reading this all I knew about Satanna was what I had read about her in the Marvel handbook. The stories reprinted in here all have gorgeous artwork. And some of them are text only stories. It seems she mainly appeared in the various Marvel B/W magazines. Which makes sense cause those magazines didn't fall under the Comic code. So the writers and artist could do stuff in these stories that wasn't allowed in normal comics at the time.

Now this trade has a cover price of about 17 bucks. But it is easy to find it for much less than that. I got my copy from Instocktrades.com for a little under 10 bucks. And it is worth more than that. Essential Marvel Horror volume 1 gets a B.