There’s a very specific kind of horror that feels like it belongs to another era. The kind soaked in rainwater and neon motel signs. The kind where coastal towns feel rotten beneath the surface, where every sheriff looks exhausted, every road disappears into fog, and every bad decision is followed by thunder cracking somewhere overhead. Basketful of Heads is exactly that kind of horror.
This week’s Panel To Panel isn’t really a review so much as me grabbing you by the shoulders and insisting you experience this comic for yourself. Because from the moment it opens with a raincoat-clad girl carrying a wicker basket full of still-talking severed heads across a storm-drenched bridge, I was all in. And somehow, impossibly, it only gets weirder from there.
Set in 1983 on the isolated Brody Island off the coast of Maine, the story follows June Branch, a college student visiting her boyfriend Liam while he finishes his last few days working as a sheriff’s deputy for the summer. They’re supposed to be heading toward one final peaceful weekend together before university starts again.
Instead, a group of escaped convicts arrives during a violent storm, and what begins as a tense survival story quickly mutates into supernatural horror chaos involving an ancient Viking axe that can decapitate people while leaving their heads very much alive. Yes. Alive. And talking. Constantly.
What makes the comic work so well, though, is that it understands exactly what it wants to be. This is unapologetic pulp horror. Joe Hill leans fully into the DNA of late 70s and early 80s horror cinema, and the entire book feels like it was discovered on a battered VHS tape hidden at the back of a rental store that no longer exists.
You can practically smell the wet wood, sea salt, cigarette smoke, and old carpet while reading it. The island itself feels heavily inspired by films like Jaws, right down to the sleepy coastal atmosphere and the little visual nods hidden throughout the story.
Brody Island feels lived in despite the relatively small scope of the comic, and that sense of place becomes incredibly important once the storm traps everyone inside this spiralling nightmare. And honestly? The storm deserves its own credit at this point.
The weather in this comic is phenomenal. Rain lashes windows endlessly, power lines sway, waves crash against the coast, and every panel feels cold and soaked through. The atmosphere becomes suffocating in the best possible way. It creates this constant tension where even before the supernatural axe enters the picture, you already feel like something terrible is waiting just outside the door.
Artist Leomacs absolutely nails the cinematic energy of the book. The panels feel staged like shots from a horror film, balancing brutal gore with exaggerated camp in a way that somehow never undercuts the tension. When the violence happens, it’s messy and explosive, but it never slips into misery. The comic always remembers that horror can be fun. And it really is fun.
The severed heads themselves become this bizarre chorus of manipulative, terrified, angry men all trying to lie, bargain, threaten, or talk their way out of their situation while sitting inside a wicker basket. It’s grotesque, funny, uncomfortable, and weirdly charming all at once. The comic constantly dances between horror and dark comedy without ever losing momentum. At the centre of all of it is June, who I absolutely adored.
One of the easiest traps in stories like this is turning the protagonist into an unstoppable “badass” archetype stripped of personality the moment violence starts. June never becomes that. She’s smart, frightened, determined, and deeply human throughout the entire ordeal. Even while she’s quite literally chopping through criminals to survive, she still feels grounded. She has ambitions, insecurities, intelligence, and emotional depth beyond simply being “the final girl.”
Joe Hill has always been excellent at writing women who feel like actual people rather than horror archetypes, and June joins a long list of memorable Hill protagonists because of it. The comic also carries that unmistakable Hill flavour where the horror is entertaining on the surface but threaded with commentary underneath.
There’s anger running through the story about violent men, power, corruption, and the way certain people believe they can simply take whatever they want from the world. But thankfully, the comic never gets so tangled in its themes that it forgets to entertain you. Because first and foremost, this thing absolutely rips.
It’s bloody. It’s tense. It’s funny. It’s dramatic. It’s campy in the exact right ways. And every issue ends with the kind of momentum that makes you immediately need the next one.
There are also plenty of little nods for fans of Stephen King scattered throughout the book, from references to The Shawshank Redemption to mentions of Derry County and other familiar King mythology. None of it feels forced either. It just adds to the sense that this comic exists inside this wonderfully grimy corner of supernatural Americana. And visually? It’s gorgeous in the ugliest possible way.
Colourist Dave Stewart gives the entire comic this faded, washed-out palette that makes it feel like an old horror movie left too long in the sun. Early scenes glow with warm yellows and oranges before slowly draining into stormy blues and sickly greens as the story spirals deeper into chaos. By the end, the comic feels like it’s drowning in rainwater and blood. Exactly as it should.
The thing I keep coming back to, though, is how readable it all is. This is one of those comics you accidentally devour in one sitting because every reveal pulls you further in. You keep telling yourself “just one more issue,” and then suddenly it’s two in the morning, and you’re emotionally invested in a basket full of decapitated criminals arguing with each other. Which honestly feels like the highest praise I can give it.
Basketful of Heads feels like discovering a lost horror classic from another timeline. The kind of comic that understands horror doesn’t always need to be elegant or subtle to be effective. Sometimes it just needs atmosphere, heart, tension, a supernatural Viking axe, and a basket full of screaming heads.
And somehow, against all odds, it turns that ridiculous premise into something unforgettable. If you love storm-soaked horror stories, Stephen King-style small town dread, campy splatterpunk energy, or comics that feel like midnight cult movies brought to life on paper, then you owe it to yourself to pick this one up.
