DC Comics' new, horror-oriented publishing imprint, Hill House Comics has already launched an impressive line of horror comic book miniseries and its latest addition, The Low, Low Woods, continues the imprint's winning streak with another slow-burning horror title. Created by prose horror writer, Carmen Maria Machado, and artist Dani, the miniseries comes out the gate intentionally leaving readers a bit disoriented as it weaves its unsettling coming-of-age tale within an increasingly nightmarish setting.

Taking place in a former coal town in Pennsylvania in the 1990s, two teenage friends awaken in their local movie theater to discover the world around them feels noticeably darker and more sinister than ever. Navigating the trials and tribulations of high school and the legacy of the generations of coal mining that left a stain on the community, it is clear that things have taken a turn for the more terrifying, from familiar faces suddenly taking on malevolent appearances to disturbing monstrosities lurking in the eponymous woods at night. And, with the creeping horror linked to the old mines, an insidious evil may already be festering within the characters as the story continues.

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Machado has previously written novelettes and short stories to critical acclaim and she transitions to the comic book format without a hitch. The scripting moves at a deliberate pace; establishing the various characters in town and even providing a quick history of the fictional setting and the physical consequences of the being in such close proximity to a coal mine for decades. However, the issue never feels particularly bogged down by an overuse of exposition, with Machado knowing when to pull back and let the visuals do the talking for the story.

What especially elevates The Low, Low Woods is that it's largely a coming-of-age story that happens to veer into horror rather than comedy, or a more traditional drama. High school and one's teenage years can be terrifying all on their own and Machado wisely uses this as a backdrop for the greater horrors to inevitably follow. The approach also keeps the narrative grounded and the readers invested in the newly introduced characters, especially the two young leads El and Octavia, as their social and family lives are developed before things eventually begin to take a turn for the worse.

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Joining Machado is Dani on pencils and inks, with Tamra Bonvillain on colors. The art team's vision of small-town Pennsylvania is a haunting, sinister one where every shadow could conceal its own deadly secret. The monsters glimpsed in the first issue are genuinely unsettling, with hints at even more gruesome, graphic things to come. The heavy use of blacks and oranges in the color palette certainly gives the book an autumnal atmosphere and, coupled with the period setting, it feels like a horror story that could be found right alongside Stephen King's '80s offerings or scary movies of the era.

Even though the first issue moves at a world-building pace, The Low, Low Woods is off to a strong start. Set in a familiar, Stranger Things-adjacent era, Carmen Maria Machado and Dani are weaving a dangerous world where the only thing more terrifying than growing up into a flawed world is the monsters borne from the sins of the father, the coal mines' festering legacy bearing unexpected, unnatural fruit.

The creative team has already built an immersive setting deep within coal country and, with evil coming for the impressionable, young protagonists, they are poised to burn it all down as the miniseries picks up the pace.

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