I got caught up in my own little world yesterday and completely forgot about posting our new topic until late last night when I was in bed. I apologize for my tardiness. @LaserPuff and I have finally selected the The Dollhouse Family. This is the last Hill House title that we haven’t read. Hopefully, more Hill House books will come, I know Refrigerator Full of Heads was a surprise. Also, one more thing about The Dollhouse Family. This is available on normal DCUI but the omnibus is available on Ultra. If you are an Ultra subscriber you have your pick of what version you want to read!!!
Are you interested in all things horror? If you answered yes, House of Horror has you covered! You can join House of Horror to never miss a reading topic! If you missed a House of Horror event have no fear! Here is a list of every HoH topic! Feel free to jump into the conversation no matter how old the topic is!
This was an interesting series. I always enjoy a story where there is a curse tied to a particular bloodline. The genesis of the dollhouse was original, at least I haven’t read an origin like that before. All in all, I enjoyed this.
I really liked it. Somewhere along the way I let all the Hill House titles pile up and never got back to them. I already feel like I’ve read way more in 2023 than I did in 2022 put together. Anyway, Dollhouse Family was some really great horror and it was excellent to see Mike Carey and Peter Gross back together. I think a lot of stuff I end up reading tends to go a certain way, but this one didn’t and that made it all the more enjoyable. I guess I am probably just kind of ranting now, so I’ll stop, but all in all, very glad to give this one a read. Will have to try and make some time to get back around to the other Hill House titles.
Most of the Hill House books are excellent. There was one that I was kind of cold on as it seemed to drag but that happens and you might really like it!
I really enjoyed The Dollhouse Family. The first issue lead me to think this was a horror retelling of Alice in Wonderland for a brief moment. I couldn’t be more wrong. This goes in a direction that I was not expecting and the book is better for it! I am very much in agreement with @chintzybeatnik on that front.
I haven’t either! I have seen many horror movies with random origins and read many horror comics with random origins but none are like this.
There is an episode of Creepshow (on Shudder or AMC+) that featured a haunted house and while that was a good episode I prefer The Dollhouse Family’s story.
I absolutely loved the Dollhouse Family. I saw you picked it but I wasn’t able to be on long enough to react that day. That was the 1st one (besides major titles like JLD or Swamp Thing etc) that I’d read in its entirety b4 this site opened.
Just finished this one up, and really, really enjoyed it. Like others have said, I was surprised in how it kept me on my toes and surprised me with twists and turns. I enjoyed how it didn’t try to go with cheap jump scares all the time and it created it’s horror more from the characters and their struggles. In that sense, it reminded me of another amazing horror story, The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix. There’s a particular panel when Alice is tucking Una in and we see a sliver of Alice’s old orphanage bully in the shadows that feels just like a callback to that series.
I also really liked the climax and in that sense, it felt like something you only see in horror comics. I feel like low-budget horror movies wouldn’t be able to pull it off, and high-budget horror movies are only high-budget because it’ll reach the lowest common denominator if that makes sense.
In any event, great book, definitely a highlight of the Hill House Comics line.
This is a good, if weird, story. The good comes from the atmosphere and the mystery surrounding the dollhouse itself. Even the flashbacks work to add to that atmosphere and sense of confusion. It has solid pacing, even if the brief time jumps through Alice’s life are noticeable as well as the random inclusion of the white supremacist, despite his role being very brief.
I will say it starts off on a weird note with the cosmic being falling to Earth. And for a while, the comic didn’t really bother to explain why these two seemingly supernatural beings are involved in this manner. But as the comic goes along, it does eventually reveal their roles and how they are connected to the dollhouse and the events being played out. While this specific story isn’t written by Joe Hill, you can tell this was inspired by how Stephen King approaches these kinds of Horror stories. And the odd/weird elements of the comic aren’t really weaknesses, just peculiar and…there. Overall, I thought this was a pretty good story. Part of me wonders how I would feel if the “angel” and “demon” were kept more hidden before arriving at the end, but it does work well as is.
Greetings, Horror Hounds! 
