I think “Companion” books for RPGs are always more miss than hit and Chill Companion (1991) reinforces that belief. It certainly has the weakest cover art.

Like most companion books, this one is a bit of a potpourri. There are new rules for magic and psionics, piles of new skills, a lengthy section on building scenarios and about ten pages of filler giving stats for famous horror characters. Meh.  

The best part of the book in the introductory overview to the horror genre, its history, major aesthetic touchstones, the various themes it employs and how best to translate them to a tabletop RPG. This isn’t Chill-specific and has a lot of good information for any horror game. It is pretty much the reason I still own the book.

The art director on this one wasn’t even trying. Most of the art consists of portraits of various cartoony creeps by Joe DeVelasco, which are fun but overall feel like filler. The book feels kind of empty overall, art-wise. Worse, lots of art is warped and stretched to fill the boxes (nearly all the famous NPC art is sadly smooshed), a common amateur misstep in the early days of digital publishing. Some of the stuff wasn’t even scanned at high-res, so you can see the pixelized edges. Ugh.