The Vault of Horror: A Collection of Nightmares (Webtoon) – Freaky Friday

Yep, another webtoon horror series – I really do love them! ‘The Vault of Horror: A Collection of Nightmares’ is a completed LINE webtoon series by a number of artists. Each chapter is done by a different person – which leads to a lot of variety in art and writing styles. Stories can be about any topic – from a  webtoon author and artist being haunted to friends getting lost in a creepy maze.

NOPE!

Not really a ‘collection’ of nightmares

I really did enjoy Vault of Horrors, many of the stories were quite spooky and creepy. One of my favourites was a story which was drawn in a traditional brush painting style. The art matched the story setting – in traditional times. The story was about a young woman, who with the help of a monk had ‘divided’ her husband into two mice – his regular (terrible) self and the way she wanted him to be . She then got a wild cat to eat the regular mouse and was left with her ideal husband. At the end of the story, her in-laws accidentally do the same ritual to her young child – and she faces a terrible decision.

While by itself, the series is quite interesting. I found it incredibly hard not to compare it to ‘Tales of the Unusual’, another LINE webtoon series. ‘Tales of the Unusual’ is much longer, with stories spanning many chapters. The plot and characters are incredibly well thought out and developed – leaving readers guessing until the very last panel.

 

Vault of Horrors on the other hand is a much short series, the longest a story will go for is 2 chapters, most last about one. While the changing art and story style is refreshing, it often does not work in the series’ favour. While some artists/writers are incredibly fantastic, others let the series down with bizarre or convoluted storylines. Other times the stories felt out of place – for example there was one story about a young girl trying to avoid a ghost so she could go to the toilet. She ends up beating the ghost up! Furthermore, I found with Vault of Horrors the main purpose was simply to ‘shock’ audiences. There was rarely anything of substance in each of the chapters. Many of the stories in Tales of the Unusual left readers wondering and reflecting on it long after they had finished reading it.

Really brave kid!

The series was interesting, but knowing that there was a ‘better’ series out there, I wasn’t as impressed as I should have been. The changing art and story styles were great, but I would have liked characters to be fleshed out a bit more, and stories to have a bit more depth rather then just trying to shock audiences. I give it a 6/10 

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