Review by Frank Plowright

Summer’s ending in 1980 and June has come to Brody Island to stay with her boyfriend who’s just finished working there assisting the local Sheriff. The plan had been to attend a barbecue, but that was before four convicts escaped from work duty. Their criminal records don’t suggest a danger to the public, but then how often has that been announced in the real world? A storm’s coming in, and will temporarily cut the island off from the mainland, so setting the scene for a location where people are trapped with danger on the loose.

Basketful of Heads is gruesome title, and what’s the reckoning that phrase was Joe Hill’s starting point? Fair play to him, a basket full of heads is duly delivered, although not entirely in the way you might expect. For a start they’re collected by June, who’s been earmarked as a victim, and Hill’s method of ensuring they’re even more sinister than the title suggests is slipped in surreptitiously, as if it’s just passing colour.

Gruesome moments occur, but Hill’s form of horror is more cerebral than the easily created stalk and slash material, and it doesn’t depend on violence to shock, although the threat of it certainly inflates the suspense. Artist Leomacs (Massimo Leonardi) buys into this by keeping things threatening without being too explicit, although he’s not shy of a decapitated body or two. He’s an old fashioned storyteller who leaves no doubt as to what’s happening, and in combination with Dave Stewart’s colours creates an atmospheric set of locations at night in a storm.

Having concocted a forbidding location and set the dogs loose, Hill then sets a quandry for June. Who should she believe? Almost everyone she talks to tries to convince her she’s wrong about one certainty or another, but the joyful aspect as people reveal their intentions is none of them know June’s discovered something for herself. It’s bleakly funny, and Hill has a nice way with small touches making people convincing, sometimes delivered via the art contradicting the dialogue.

There’s a title to grab anyone, constant tension, a viable explanation for everyone’s behaviour and Hill ensures a great pay-off as well. What’s not to like?