These collections seem to be offering diminishing returns. By the way, the Goodreads description is completely inaccurate. The Midnight Meat Train was in the previous collection, #3).

For this one, it likely has the best cover of the five, with an elaborate die-cut cover and a horrifying illustration behind it. And it's the best thing going for this collection.

The first story, Hell's Event always struck me a bit silly, but now it's just a chore to work through the absolutely terrible Johnson/Okamoto/Pearson artwork. This is a story involving runners in a marathon, for chrissakes, so get an artist that can show human bodies in motion. Artists that have some fluidity to their style. This art looked like it was done by recent graduates of a not-so-great night school art course. Terrible.

The second story, The Madonna, with its Lovecraftian undertones, should be an artist's dream job. Instead, the Woch/Farmer/Von Tobel art is so wildly inconsistent and yes, again, so stiff, that it completely detracts from the story. The villain of the piece, Garvey, at times looks like he's in his early 30s, in his mid-40s, and sometimes late 60s. This one, it seems to me, was chosen just so the artists could draw a bunch of naked women.

My least favourite of the collections so far. One more to go... ( )