In this review of I Was A Fashion School Serial Killer #4, Rennie goes on a rampage, and uncovers a conspiracy sinister enough to give her a run for her money.
I Was A Fashion School Serial Killer #4
Written by Doug Wagner
Art and Main Cover: Daniel Hillyard
Variant Covers: Daniel Hillyard, Doug Dabbs
Page Count: 32 pages
Release Date: July 16, 2025
This Review Contains Spoilers
I Was A Fashion School Serial Killer #4 opens on Rennie in the middle of another bloodbath, having gone on a bit of a killing spree. The itch is still there, but she needed this…
Sofie hasn’t been in class for a while (or so much as speaking to Rennie), and Constance is rubbing that fact in. Rennie tracks Sofie down to talk to her, but Sofie’s still upset with her over Bodhi. But Rennie explains what really happened, and how she’d never do that to her best friend. They make up, Sofie plans to be in school the next day (having just made enough for tuition), and Sofie mentions never wanting to see Bodhi again.
Taking that as the go-ahead, Rennie pays a little visit to Bodhi’s place. Not only is he unrepentant about playing with Sofie’s emotions, but he has the audacity to claim that he’s in love with both of them. At that point, Rennie takes that heartless bastard out.
The next day, Ms. Porschia claims that Sofie had dropped out, and Constance makes one last taunt about her…Rennie does not take this well.
Ms. Porschia returns home later that night to find Rennie (and the skinless corpses of Constance and her girl posse) waiting for her. She wants to know why Sofie’s phone was in her house. Porschia breaks into tears, claiming that she had to go along with this plan to keep the school open. This plan? Target the poorest of the students, break them down, sell them into a human trafficking ring.
Despite offering to help retrieve Sofie, Rennie kills Porschia and gets in touch with the Dean/the ringleader of this operation. She offers to exchange the phone on which she’d recorded Porschia’s confession for Sofie, the planned meeting happening in a couple of hours.
So, if the last issue was mostly pretty chill, with Rennie starting to feel pretty good about life and her future, I Was A Fashion School Serial Killer #4 rips out the freaking brakes. Both Rennie and the narrative are done playing it safe now, and we got a few payoffs in this penultimate chapter.
Constance’s murder was telegraphed from the beginning, as soon as Rennie complimented her skin. At first, there was that question of if she’d turn out to be as horrible as she let on…and then she did. And it’s hard to feel bad for what happened to this classist witch.
With Bodhi, I remember how Rennie was initially apprehensive about him. And it turned out she was right to be suspicious of him, after what he did to her and Sofie. His last words, about him just having a big heart…yep, definitely Famous Last Words. In this type of story, one doesn’t make such a statement without that playing a part in their demise.
The conspiracy aspect was honestly a bit of a surprise. That said, there are a few clues throughout the first few issues that something isn’t quite right at the school. Whenever someone “dropped out of class” before, it was handled like a death announcement, and Porschia seemed to be upset while making said announcements. At first blush, that could be chalked up to feeling that she failed as a teacher, but with the reveal as of this issue, it could just as easily be her regret for her role in their less-than-desirable futures.
Given how Constance had always won contests such as the one they had at the middle of the term, how far involved was she in all of it? She definitely had nothing to lose from it, being from money. But would she have been part of the conspiracy itself, or just rubbing in the fact that she had nothing to worry about?
At this point, it feels like the most innocent characters overall are Sofie and Betts, given how everyone else either has an escalating body count, is involved in a human trafficking ring, or has earned the wrath of Rennie.
On a visual level, I especially love how one of the kills in particular was carried out: namely that of Ms. Porschia. Both figures are rendered in silhouette, with the only visible color being the background, the blood, and the bone chopsticks that Porschia had noticeably admired a couple issues ago. With the on-page kills that Rennie enjoyed, those have close-ups with some of the detail, more color…but in this case, it was an instance of a favorite student killing her favorite teacher…the one who stated that she believed in her.
Final Thoughts
The narrative in I Was A Fashion School Serial Killer #4 takes a definite turn here, bringing in a conspiracy of class and plenty of bloody payoff for the gorehounds out there. I’m definitely looking forward to seeing how this story wraps up. If only because so much happened, it might have benefited from being somewhat longer.
