Cozy horror with anthropomorphic animals? Sounds like I can handle that just fine.

Oh, how wrong I was.

Starting out as a whimsical look at the life of animals in a small, Richard Scarry-esque town where everyone dresses like a human, lives in a house and has a job (or goes to school, if they’re still children!), the first issue of Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees introduces us to Samantha, a helpful bear who owns a hardware store, and helps the locals out with their DIY needs.

Yet there’s something very dark underneath Sam’s kindly exterior; she has a very twisted, macabre secret. And it seems that, when very similar activities to hers come to very public light in the town, she’s going to have to find out who’s responsible.

The juxtaposition between the cute, cozy artwork, the every day lives of the anthropomorphic townspeople and Sam’s frankly horrific secret is superb, and really helps to push the horror aspect of the story even further.

As well as that, it’s worth noting that Sam’s initially homely narration starts to waver at points, and she corrects certain words she uses before continuing to narrate the story, adding a further interesting element to the delivery of the more horrific moments.

Horrific they are, too. There’s a further juxtaposition here; Sam’s calm manner, despite the self-correcting, alongside the vividly graphic gore makes things even more unsettling, just at the point when you don’t think that things can’t escalate any further.

It’s a brilliant concept, and very well executed (pun not intentional there) indeed; even just after this first issue, you can see why this series has become such a huge hit.

It’s a daringly bold exercise in unsettling the reader, and it’s hugely effective, especially for how matter-of-factly everything is delivered. I can’t wait to see how the series develops at this point, particularly after the confession, and demonstration, of such horrific actions as we see here.

Hi! I’m Jason, and I write for midlifegamergeek.com, every single day. If you’re interested in supporting original, regularly published, human created content (which has never been plagiarised or otherwise copied from the hard work of other writers), you can donate and help me to keep this site running.

Not only do I earn no income from my writing here (though I may earn small fees from affiliate links posted on my pages; as an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases from these links), but it seems that my work has, at times, been stolen and re-used by lazy, morally bankrupt idiots.

There’s no pressure of course, but I’d be truly grateful for any support that you could offer – and it’s easy to do so at either of these links: Ko-Fi.com/geekmid or PayPal.

Any donations are truly appreciated – and I also appreciate you taking the time to read my articles. Remember: this whole article was by Jason Brown, and appeared on midlifegamergeek.com. Take that, Skynet!