Meat eaters

Something happened to Ashley in the woods. She remembers some snippets, but while the key details are murky, the ultimate result is not: she's now a ghoul, with an insatiable hunger for raw flesh. McClaren's dusky, cinematic artwork features lots of body-horror vibes with disemboweled animals while simultaneously folding in a healthy helping of comedy as Ashley tries to figure out why she doesn't have a heartbeat anymore. A regular at a local haunt for "creepies" helps her puzzle out her new reality, and that's where she runs into classmates Motley and Harrison, who are also werewolves. As rumors of a monster bubble up alongside reports of mangled forest animals, Ashley's sure it's her new lupine friends--but could it be something bigger? While the mystery of what's eviscerating critters drives the plot, the buddy-comedy among Ashley, Motley, and Harrison is the heart of the story as Ashley figures out how to be herself in a new context and finds friends who appreciate her for the undead craver of flesh that she is. A strong comedy-horror pick for those who liked IZombie (2011).

The new ghoul in town discovers the secret nightlife of monsters in this rollicking, blood-spattered horror comedy from McClaren (the Black Cloak series). Ashley Moore, a community college student, wakes up in the woods with no pulse, no memory of the past several hours, and a craving for raw meat. "Dear diary, am I a freaking zombie?" she asks herself. Googling "How do you know when someone is clinically dead?" proves unhelpful, but soon she discovers a rough-and-tumble underworld of fellow "creepies" in her backwater town. After getting tangled up in drama at a monster bar, she forms a found family with her lycanthrope classmates Motley and Harrison. Meanwhile, a fearsome creature stalks the forest at night--and Ashley fears it might be her. McClaren's cute, funny-faced characters and slapstick action provide an offbeat contrast to the scares, and she adeptly depicts Ashley's trauma as she processes her new supernatural status. In a clever visual touch, the monster characters shift subtly between human and inhuman in response to their situation, with Ashley growing more gnarly as the story progresses. This mash-up of mumblecore dramedy and gorehound horror slays. Agent: Jessica Mileo, InkWell Management. (July)