Longbox of the Damned is a web review series hosted by Lewis Lovhaug, and serves as spin-off of his main series Atop the Fourth Wall. Inspired by Cinemassacre's Monster Madness, the series takes a look at horror comics during the month of October, with a new episode being released once-per-day.
The show is hosted by Moarte, an undead ghoul who guards the eponymous Longbox of the Damned and takes over Linkara's house whenever it gets close to Halloween. Moarte's reviews are short and brief, covering the basic plot points of each comic he covers while adding his own morbid commentary. Despite his ghoulish demeanour, Moarte is always courteous towards the viewers of his show, referring to them as his "children" as he shares his macabre comic collection with them. That being said, Moarte has shown that he is capable of living up to his monstrous reputation when he's pushed too far.
The show has occasionally aired episodes outside the Halloween season, with these batches of episodes being dubbed "A Midsummer's Nightmare". These episodes sometimes feature a new host and tend to focus on a single series or franchise, such as Marvel Zombies, The Twilight Zone, and Godzilla. Moarte himself has also made several appearances in episodes Atop the Fourth Wall. A script for a Longbox of the Damned movie has been written, but is currently stuck in Development Hell.
Comics reviewed on Longbox of the Damned
- 8-Bit Zombie
- 16-Bit Zombie
- 32-Bit Zombie
- Aleister Arcane
- Alien vs. Predator: War
- Animal Man: The Hunt
- Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth
- Baron Weirwulfs Haunted Library
- Batgirl
- Batman: Unseen
- Batman Vampire
- Bela Lugosis Tales From The Grave
- Birds of Prey
- Blackest Night
- Captain America
- Clive Barker's Hellraiser
- Creepy Magazine
- The Crow
- Deadpool
- Death Note
- Death Vigil
- Dracula Vs Zorro
- Eeek
- Eerie
- Exiles
- Fragments of Horror
- Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E.
- Frankenstein Mobster
- Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash
- Friday the 13th: Jason vs. Jason X
- Ghost Rider
- Goosebumps Graphix
- Gyo
- Hack/Slash
- Hell Girl
- Hellsing
- Horrorwood
- House of Mystery
- Howard Lovecraft And The Frozen Kingdom
- Howard Lovecraft And The Undersea Kingdom
- Ibitsu
- Immortal Hulk
- Infestation
- Jack Davis Tales From The Crypt
- Marvel Zombies
- Marvel Zombies: Resurrection
- Monster Men And Other Scary Stories
- The New Teen Titans
- The Night Owls
- The Nightmare Factory
- Petshop Of Horrors
- Poe
- Prometheus: Fire and Stone
- Puppet Master
- Reiko the Zombie Shop
- Rom: Spaceknight
- Route 666
- Saga of the Swamp Thing
- The Sandman
- Secret Six
- Severed
- Silent Hill
- Silver Surfer
- The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror
- Something Wicked This Way Comes
- Star Trek (Marvel 1979)
- Star Wars Tales
- Steven Universe
- Superman And Batman Vs Vampires And Werewolves
- Supernatural Law
- The Twilight Zone
- 30 Days of Night
- Uzumaki
- Vincent Prince Presents
- The Walking Dead
- We Kill Monsters
- Werewolves On The Moon Versus Vampires
- The Witching Hour
- Worlds Unknown
- Wrath of the Spectre
- Wytches
- ×××HOLiC
- Zombie Cop
Longbox of the Damned provides examples of:
- Affably Evil: For the most part, Moarte is an entertaining and jovial ghoul who just likes to share horror comics with anyone who will listen. However, that doesn't mean he's to be treated lightly, as he's still a demonic being capable of tearing souls apart and eating people's flesh.
- Companion Cube: Moarte affectionately refers to the skulls on his set as Huey, Dewey, and Louie.
- Crossover Punchline: During his review of A Nightmare on Elm Street: Freddy's War, Linkara randomly bursts onto his set out of nowhere before Moarte tells him to Get Out!. The context was revealed a few days later during the Atop the Fourth Wall review of Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash, as Linkara was in the middle of the fight against Freddy Krueger and stumbled onto Moarte's set by accident.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Moarte is a flesh-eating ghoul with a love of the macabre, but there's plenty of times he'll cover something in the comics he reviews that disturb even him. Generally speaking, he despises bigots and abusers of any kind, and takes extra enjoyment whenever he sees them meet their karmic demises.
- Evil Laugh: Moarte breaks out a loud, maniacal laugh to close out almost every episode of the show, with the only exceptions being the final review for each year.
- Friend to All Children: Moarte has a special fondness towards children, as he likes to share scary stories with the "children" in his audience. Some of Moarte's possible origin stories tend to depict him as a former children's entertainer who met some tragic fate, but one story suggests that he may be playing up the act so he can lure in children to eat them.
- Horror Host: Moarte basically serves the role of traditional horror hosts, covering horror comics from his Longbox and cracking grisly comments about the stories within.
- Hostile Show Take Over: For the 2018 "Midsummer's Nightmare" reviews, Dr. Linksano took over the role of the show's host from Moarte so he could showcase Godzilla comics, which leaned more into sci-fi territory than horror comics that were usually featured. Moarte eventually returned by the end of the month and sternly tells Linksano to leave when he suggests becoming the show's permanent host.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Moarte has made references to eating human flesh before, even suggesting that he actually ate Mirrorkara after he stumbled into his supply closet.
- Large Ham: Moarte is boisterous ghoul who laughs maniacally and revels in the macabre.
- Looks Like Cesare: Moarte dresses like a 19th century magician, and has pale white skin, black lips, and dark circles beneath his eyes. The entire ensemble helps sell his corpse-like appearance.
- Mad Libs Catchphrase: Every episode of the show opens with some variation of "Hello, my children", with "Hello" usually being replaced with some other phrase associate with the comic he's reviewing.
- Meaningful Name: Moarte's name is Romanian for death, enforcing his connection to the macabre
- Multiple-Choice Past: For the tenth anniversary of the show, some episodes would end with Linkara sitting around a campfire telling the many stories that have surrounded Moarte over the years. Just a few examples include a former comic artist who made a Deal with the Devil, a horror host who died an a fire, a demon of stories who wishes to elevate humanity to the same level as himself, and a monster who lures children in with stories to eat them.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Moarte's name is the Romanian word for "death".
- Our Ghouls Are Creepier: Moarte is a flesh-eating, undead ghoul who reviews horror comics and dresses up like an old-timey magician. It's implied he used to be human at one point, but how he became a ghoul in the first place is left vague. It's sometimes been implied he might not even be a ghoul at all, but rather demonic in origin.
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: Moarte and Linkara often get into petty squabbles with each other, most of them stemming from Linkara getting frustrated with Moarte taking over entire rooms of his house to host his show every year. Moarte tends to take all of Linkara's jabs in good humour. Although, as the "Be All My Sins Remembered" arc from Atop the Fourth Wall showed, Moarte only spared Linkara's life in exchange for lending him space to host his show. Moarte makes it very clear that while he'll let a lot of Linkara's insults slide, he can revoke their deal anytime he so chooses.
- What the Hell Is That Accent?: Moarte's accent can best be described as "Eastern European", but it tends to slip into different dialects as he speaks. At times, Moarte speaks with a thick Romanian accent, but it can sound more Russian whenever he raises his voice.
