Dark Ride #1: The Devil Went Down to Disney World

Lest the uninitiated forget that Joshua Williamson is more than just “that DC guy,” Dark Ride arrives to remind us all that he cut his teeth in the horror genre with books like Nailbiter (and its sequel) and Ghosted. Dark Ride leans a bit more into cheeky, grindhouse-adjacent horror (minus the splatter, for now at least) than either of those books, but don’t be fooled: it’s the perfect comic for kicking off Spooky Season.

At first glance, a theme park might seem like an odd place to stage a horror story, but upon closer inspection, it works: the larger-than-life personas in the oversized characters, the reliance on thrills, the cheap gimmickry. The allure of winning against the odds that could easily be the beckoning of a demon at a crossroads, bartering for souls. One small turn of the wheel, and these sometimes-kitschy elements become outsized nightmare fuel. And that’s exactly what Dark Ride plays at, and does so with unreserved manic glee.

There’s a ton of atmosphere oozing out of everyone of Andrei Bressan’s panels in Dark Ride, capably emboldened by Adriano Lucas’ taut color palette, which includes a fantastically eerie black-and-white opening sequence worthy of Romero. Then, switching to present-day, the narrative catches up to wide-eyed Devil Land aficionado Owen on his first (last?) day working at the theme park, where naturally, all is not as it seems.

There’s more at stake than just Owen’s safety as he learns the ropes as a park janitor at Devil Land, of course. There’s a generational struggle for control of the park’s future between its designer and his children Sam(hain) and Halloween, one who’s in over his head behind closed doors and the other who’s just there to get more Instagram followers. And then, of course, there’s the dark secret lurking at the heart of Devil Land’s success, which, judging by the shocking final page, is a lot gnarlier than earlier pages lead readers to believe.

There’s a lot to love about Dark Ride, and little to disparage: sometimes it’s a bit too on-the-nose, such as the adult kids’ names Samhain and Halloween. But that’s part of the fun: as a winking homage to horror schlockfests past that Joe Bob Briggs would have been proud to emcee into the late night hours of Halloweens of yore. There’s also a lot of little details that come from the simple day-in-day-out maintenance that goes into running a theme park: cleaning up after guests, private naughtiness caught on camera, vomit. It’s pretty clear that Williamson has a soft spot for theme parks, whether they’re creepy and murderous or some backwater county fair. In this way, Dark Ride is a spooky homage to theme parks themselves that comes from a place of love, despite the horrific (terrific) thrills within. Don’t miss out!