Basketful of Heads #7 Review

Writers: Joe Hill
Artist: Leomacs
Colorist: Dave Stewart
Letterer: Deron Bennet
Editors: Mark Doyle & Amedeo Turturro
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: May 26th, 2020

Basketful of Heads is over??? Oh no! THIS IS IT? The beginning of the end! Hey DC, I'm still waiting on a Hill House round 2 announcements here, guys! JUST LET ME KNOW!

The first installment of Hill House is the first to conclude, so it's time to see what happens to June, her precious boy toy Liam, and her basketful of undead heads. After you watch some legendary Huey Lewis and The News, of course.

June is sinking into the water and actually drops right onto the bodies of the four convicts that were killed by the police earlier that day. They're chained up to an anchor and the fish have already done some serious damage to their flesh. She sees the ax land on the ocean floor next to her, lighting up in red, so she rolls off of them and uses the ax to cut her bindings. Then she swims up to the boat, cuts it loose, sneaks up behind the sheriff, and cuts his torso through diagonally. This part... damn it's so satisfying!!!

The sheriff was still trying to get information out of Liam, who is still insisting he doesn't know a damn thing. He even talks about the ax that June was using and its origins. The tree that is engraved on the ax (the part that turns red) is Yggdrasil, "the tree from which all life springs", and the ax is said to bring life instead of death. After being chopped in half, the sheriff freaks out (as they always do) and wonders why he's not dead. June just laughs at that. This is old hat for her.

She goes to comfort Liam, but the sheriff keeps yapping his trap. Liam tells her that the thing he was keeping secret was a wedding ring, and he even tells her where to find it. It's an actual wedding ring! But the sheriff tells her what Liam did to earn that wedding ring. The money in Emily's backpack was real, and he kept it. She also wasn't dead when he found her. So truths about scumbaggery come out everywhere, June ends up chopping off Liam's head too, and she lights the boat on fire.

June swims to the shore and gets in Liam's buggy. When she turns it on, The Police (the band) start playing. So she takes out the tape and it's labeled "The Police - Vital Evidence". So Liam wasn't the spy after all! The spy is the person we see in the pickup truck in the very first issue. I'm not going to tell you who that is. But before June finds out that this person was the spy and gets the REAL story of what happened to Emily, as she accepts the ride to a hospital for her thumb, she throws the basketful of heads and the ax down over the bridge into the water.

Bits and Pieces

Man, this was a fun series and I can't wait to read it all together in one sitting. There were things in the mysteries that I got right and other things that I completely missed the mark on, but on those things I'm glad that I was right or wrong. The weird thing about "Baskets" is variety among its layers. Police corruption, God-fearing drug dealers, spoiled entitled rich boys, a magical Norse ax. Emily's story is really rough and hard-hitting and uncomfortable, while (even though June doesn't have it easy either by any means) June's story is fun for us readers and very very satisfying in the end. This is just a well-told and entertaining short horror story expressed through some pretty awesome art.

8.5/10