A Cut Below: A Celebration of B Horror Movies, 1950s-1980s

February 19th, 2024

Daily Dead columnist Scott Drebit’s first book can be summed up in one sentence from its 33rd page: “Sometimes you just want to see children have their hands cut off with a samurai sword.” Hear, hear!

No, not in real life, Karen — just at the movies! Specifically, the four decades’ worth Drebit covers in said book, A Cut Below: A Celebration of B Horror Movies, 1950s-1980s, from McFarland & Company.

For the paperback, the author champions 60 films — not all horror, despite the subtitle, with sci-fi running a distant second. Like preschoolers, the movies featured are grouped tidily into fives to ensure a semblance of control; Drebit’s themed chapters include such terrors as zombies, satanists, animals and — yikes! — Canadians. Yes, there’s something for everyone … assuming someone out there is into “hookers in weird masks, slimy alien babies, interdimensional traveling, cheap beer, and plastic chainsaws.”

That quote describes one movie — 1989’s shot-on-video Things — and you better believe someone is into it: Drebit, for starters, then hopefully, the adventurous readers swayed by his passionate plead to give it a try, glacier-sized flaws and all.

Three times out of four, the sheer randomness of his picks works in A Cut Below’s favor, lifting it well above a “Horror 101”-style text. For example, I like that the slashers chapter tiptoes into thrillers for the Charles Bronson vehicle 10 to Midnight. I love seeing something as anti-mainstream as Japan’s Evil Dead Trap chosen to represent amusements from other countries. And I really love that the aforementioned chapter of the undead doesn’t invite a certain Mr. Romero to play — no offense meant, George.

As for the other 25% of the time, does Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space need even more ink? Although Drebit’s stated purpose is to commemorate, not unearth, I got more pleasure reading about the titles I haven’t seen. That’s not to say the book is bad when the subject is familiar — not at all, thanks to his folksy, chummy writing style always on duty as a safeguard. You won’t encounter a page not worth your time. If a follow-up is in the cards, I’m hoping for at least 60 more reviews. Is 600 too much to ask? —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon or McFarland.

Mummy Movies: A Comprehensive Guide

January 24th, 2024

To, ahem, wrap things up from the outset: With Mummy Movies: A Comprehensive Guide, Bryan Senn does it again!

Fresh from the slopes of 2022’s Ski Films, the prolific author unearths 138 mummy films in total after the applying all his filters: no shorts, no TV episodes, no hardcore porn, no fleeting appearances and no fakes. While that last qualifier smothers my hopes of reading Senn tear into The Mummy Theme Park, what’s left (read: a lot!) is sure to delight any fan of the subgenre. Horror naturally makes up a good chunk of that, but is hardly the stopping point.

After a brief introduction getting into the history of mummies in real life and popular culture (breakfast cereal included), Senn gets into the good stuff: excavating the films one by one. In Senn’s usual style for such guides, the entries provide a proper balance of plot summary, behind-the-scenes information and critical review — explored in such depth and fully researched, each practically inches toward monograph status.

From Boris Karloff and Brendan Fraser to Christopher Lee and, um, Tom Cruise, all the highlights and their sequels are covered, exactly as you’d expect. But anyone could do that. What makes Mummy Movies worth your investment are all the other titles he takes great pains to incorporate, ranging from Mexploitation (Santo!) to animation (Yu-Gi-Oh!?), and from comedy to kung fu. The only thing crazier than the cheap cartoons is the bulging sack of erotica, movies that bring boredom along with a most anachronistic element: silicone.

Noting that a mummy is more than a “zombie wrapped in toilet paper,” Senn holds a lot of love for his subject. As do I. That’s why the book is useful as a reference work, too, because he calls ’em as he sees ’em. For example, should you spend your time with:
• the wrestling spoof Monster Brawl? Yes.
• the collegian-made The University of Illinois vs a Mummy? No.
• the John Carradine paycheck The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals? Hell, no.

The only piece of Mummy Movies giving me pause is the author’s use of the capital-M “Mummy” when referring to onscreen characters, and lowercase when not. It’s hardly worth bringing up … unlike, say, Ouija Mummy or The Sex Files: Ancient Desires, Senn’s lively entertaining pans of which already have outlived the flicks themselves. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon or McFarland.

Watching the World Die: Nuclear Threat Films of the 1980s

January 21st, 2024

On the cusp on turning 12, I was floored by the March 20, 1983, broadcast of Special Bulletin, the NBC made-for-TV movie designed to look like a real-time news broadcast of a nuclear incident on the East Coast, courtesy of domestic terrorists. Although I knew it was fake, the effect was so chilling that exactly eight months later, my mom forbade us from watching ABC’s highly contentious The Day After, in which the threat — and eventual nukes — came not from our own, but the Soviet Union.

We American kids grew up with the fear, worry and anxiety of nuclear war as all too tangible. U.S.-Soviet relations were so bad, the mushroom clouds were not a question of if, but when.

You had to be there. Be glad you weren’t.

Not to say 2024 is all wine and roses; despite the Cold War in our collective rearview mirror, we’re inching closer to That 1983 Feeling than we’ve ever been. At least today, we have Mike Bogue’s Watching the World Die: Nuclear Threat Films of the 1980s to keep us company. Just hopefully not in a bunker.

Something of a companion to Bogue’s previous tome, 2017’s Apocalypse Then (which focused on 1950s atomic cinema and shares McFarland & Company as publisher), Watching the World Die is, rather surprisingly, not the grim, doom-and-gloom read I expected. Documentaries aside, which the author purposely doesn’t include, the decade’s movies on the topic were largely escapist, thereby taking the edge off. Having characters like Yor, C.H.U.D., Hulk and Godzilla romping around will do that.

In all, Bogue casts his critical eye on 121 films in detail, from populist blockbusters (WarGames), well-intentioned flops (Superman IV: The Quest for Peace) and indie darlings (Miracle Mile) to three James Bond entries and many more Italian SFers. However, where Watching the World Die most excels is in rummaging through the junk drawer of VHS obscurities — not because Bogue’s writing differs in these essays (it doesn’t), but because the flicks get bonkers.

You may have heard about the Steve Barkett ego project The Aftermath, but what about Thomas A. Cohen’s survivalist family saga, Massive Retaliation? The Dack Rambo vehicle Ultra Warrior? Or Canada’s Survival 1990 with its dog-eating mutants? Giving attention to such forgotten B- and C-level genre productions is something of an archeological dig of unpopular culture; that Bogue’s shovel dug that deep into oblivion is enough to forgive his book’s exclusion of comedies — the intentional kind, I mean. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon or McFarland.

Superheroes Smash the Box Office: A Cinema History from the Serials to 21st Century Blockbusters

October 29th, 2023

And now for a new book Martin Scorsese won’t be reading: Canadian journalist Shawn Conner’s Superheroes Smash the Box Office: A Cinema History from the Serials to 21st Century Blockbusters, from McFarland & Company. If you have any interest in the subject, though, I recommend it.

As a child of the 1970s, this voracious comics reader wondered why Superman was the only true four-color do-gooder at a theater near me; I longed for more. As a new adult of the 1990s, I couldn’t believe the studios finally caught up. Now, as an older adult of the 2020s, I honestly want the mighty Marvel movie machine to break into an irreparable state. How did we get from there to here? Film by film (more or less), Conner charts the answer.

His book is a zippy run through eight decades of examples — sometimes too zippy. Example: While 2004’s The Punisher isn’t a good movie, it seems odd to not mention its megastar antagonist, John Travolta. On the other hand, the author has a lot of ground to cover; luckily, he doesn’t waste time with scene-by-scene retellings like other books on this subject often do, instead focusing on development, production and reception

As the chapters progress into our current times of Avengers ad infinitum, either he was rushed or simply less enthusiastic; either way, I don’t blame him. Every now and again, you’ll run across an egregious error — James Gunn didn’t direct The Specials, just as screenwriter Scott Frank has never won an Oscar — but not so many to question his credibility. I’ve encountered far worse offenders just among those writing about caped-crusader cinema.

With a surfeit of similar texts, what really kept me invested in Superheroes Smash the Box Office was Conner’s sense of humor about the whole enterprise. Fanboys may bristle for him for refusing to kneel at their false idols. For instance, CBS’ Incredible Hulk pilot is “a great show if you want to watch Bill Bixby change a tire in the rain.” And of Todd McFarlane’s stated quest for “integrity” and “dignity” in shepherding Spawn to the screen, Conner writes, “Strong words from a man with creative control over a film with a dwarf clown who emits green farts.” I’m still laughing over that one. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Warner Bros.: 100 Years of Storytelling

September 27th, 2023

To tell the history of the Warner Bros. studio is to tell the history of the movies. Reading Warner Bros.: 100 Years of Storytelling makes this apparent. Written by Forbidden Hollywood’s Mark A. Vieira, the hefty Running Press hardcover is an all-gloss affair, but in an impressive way, as the presentation matches its subject’s prestige.

Decade by decade, Vieira covers the WB releases as it transitions from silents to sound, from Technicolor epics to New Hollywood shake-ups, from blockbuster cinema to the franchise-driven today. This being a coffee-table book, Vieira’s text can’t go in depth, so he weaves as big a coverage blanket as possible, knowing the poster art and still photos are the project’s true stars. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

We’re back … finally

September 18th, 2023

So we got hacked months ago. Long story short, I fought a constant battle between my
URL registrant, site host and site security provider, all pointing fingers at one another, some promising multiple times it would be up within 24 hours.

The bad news: The old reviews aren’t accessible at the moment. The good news: They’re not gone; I can click into them on the back end and all the content is there.

The next step: Figure out how to fix that. I’m not highly skilled at this thing, nor do I have the allotted free time to devote I did when I started this site two decades ago! Bear with me as I get this thing rebuilt. —Rod

The Incredibly Strange Features of Ray Dennis Steckler

February 19th, 2023

After covering the filmographies of Herschell Gordon Lewis and Ted V. Mikels, Christopher Wayne Curry turns his completist’s eye to a more difficult subject with The Incredibly Strange Features of Ray Dennis Steckler. Certainly this is the only text to draw a dotted line between the director of Rat Pfink a Boo Boo and Luis Buñuel. After all, Steckler was the kind of low-low-budget filmmaker who thought nothing of ending a movie “with three characters the viewer knows and five they do not.”

Published by McFarland & Co., the book is a thorough examination of the man’s nearly 50-year outré oeuvre in — but mostly on the fringes of — Hollywood. As Curry puts it, “Hollywood was not answering and Steckler was tired of calling.”

Those aware of the psychotronic legend largely do so for his early pictures, including the Arch Hall Jr. vehicle Wild Guitar, the aforementioned accidental superhero spoof Rat Pfink a Boo Boo and the mouthful-titled, monster-musical madness from which Curry’s book takes the most opportune pun, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?

The author takes readers through each in an amazing amount of detail, essentially scene by scene. This would be frustrating if not for Curry using the opportunity to weave in behind-the-scenes stories and facts, historical context, interview quotes and related minutiae all the while; thus, the effect is akin to listening to a solid DVD commentary, both informative and lively. Naturally, his own opinions play a great part. While Curry sees many of Steckler’s deficiencies as a plus, it’s hilarious when he doesn’t, as in his coverage of the padded slasher Blood Shack (aka The Chooper): “Simply put, there should never be protracted conversations about irrigation and filtered water in a horror film.”

A shameless self-promoter, Steckler (who died in 2009) would no doubt be overjoyed with being the focus of an entire book. But no doubt he’d be livid over the chapter devoted to the roughly 75% of his directorial career he not merely disowned, but denied: the dozens and dozens of hardcore pornos. Curry covers them all, but only in brief, because they’re so bad, they don’t merit, er, probing. (And considering how bad Steckler’s legit pics could get, that says a lot.)

Curry’s all-encompassing description of the X-rated fare says it best: “These films contain the usual humping, bumping and pumping, all of this augmented by mounds of unkempt curlys, arcing ropes of reproductive fluids, pimples, cold sores, in-grown hairs and lots of sweat. … The viewer’s sense of smell is spared, but for the eyes and earls it is an all-out assault.”

The book would not be complete without looking at this sordid bulk of Steckler’s work. Same goes for his oft-leading lady, the beautiful Carolyn Brandt (Body Fever), detailing Steckler’s marriage-wrecking infidelities. Without venom, Brandt sheds a light on their personal life to a degree of candidness I’ve not seen reported (not to mention shares a curious tidbit about Ilsa star Dyanne Thorne’s nipples). Curry deserves commendation for telling the whole story, proving a writer can show reverence without being disingenuous.

The only knock against the book is one of unavoidable timing: Severin Films’ recent Steckler box set, in which Curry participated, renders some of the contents out of date, in that projects regarded as lost no longer are. However, these are few and minor.

If you’ve never experienced the uniqueness of a Steckler film, you’re not ready for Incredibly Strange Features. For everyone else, it’s fascinating and fun. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Desert Star

January 28th, 2023

Popular and prolific author Michael Connelly reunites his two best know detectives, Renee Ballard and Harry Bosh, in his latest novel, DESERT STAR. It is a complicated story of murder and obsession and pits the two detectives against each other, as well as pursuing their own obsessions.

A year ago, LAPD detective Renee Ballard quit the force during a rage of controversy. Now the chief of police has invited Ballard back to head up a new cold case unit with the promise that she can write her own ticket.

One of Ballard’s first moves is to bring aboard the long-retired LAPD detective Harry Bosch as a volunteer. Ballard promised Bosch he can work on his own selected cases, now with the backing of the Robbery-Homicide Division. So Bosch once again takes up his “white whale” case: the murder of an entire family by a psychopath who still walks free.

At the same time, Ballard investigates the rape and murder of a 16-year-old girl – a case essential to the councilman who rehired Ballard. But when she hits a snag, Ballard pulls Bosch off his own case to assist with her. The two detectives must put aside their resentments and anxieties to find the two killers who have escaped capture.

Connelly shifts the narrative focus back and forth between Ballard and Bosch in alternating chapters. Information and details are hard to follow as they pile up. The difficulty is made even more intense by other cases that the detective pick up along the way. Yet through all these problems, Connelly’s assured narrative voice keeps the pages turning to the eventual resolution.

This is the fourth pairing of Ballard and Bosch. Fans will need no bullying to add this to their reading pile. Newcomers will benefit by first seeking out one of the earlier Ballard/Bosch novels before enjoying DESERT STAR. And Connelly proves yet again why he is considered one of the best crime fiction authors working today.—Alan Cranis

Get it at Amazon.

Love and Let Die: James Bond, The Beatles, and the British Psyche

January 24th, 2023

On Oct. 5, 1962, two titans of popular culture were unleashed to an unsuspecting public: Beatles records and James Bond movies, in the respective form of “Love Me Do” and Dr. No. Whether the result of kismet, fate, dumb luck or preordained from the heavens, this much is incontestable: Although born in Great Britain, these fraternal twins today belong to the world.

Brighton-based author John Higgs tracks how both were able to achieve the near-impossible — on often-perpendicular paths, no less — in the wonderful new book Love and Let Die: James Bond, The Beatles, and the British Psyche.

From the acrimonious Phil Spector to the acronymous SPECTRE, the similarities along the way are mind-blowing. But this is hardly some Lincoln/Kennedy-style listicle. Rather than merely drawing parallels between his two subjects, the author seems more interested in examining their differences on such stances as class structure and racism.

Even topics that hardly shake the earth are considered — including sports, hairstyles, intoxicants and transcendental meditation — as Higgs chronologically mines history, showing how Bond and The Beatles influenced this ever-changing world in which we live in.

Although Love and Let Die is not a salacious book, sex plays a large part in the story. How could it not? It’s present from the start, revealing the BDSM proclivities of 007 creator/virulent racist Ian Fleming. Higgs even notes Fleming’s first novel, 1953’s Casino Royale, referring to a potential tryst of Bond’s as possessing “the sweet tang of rape.”

With that style of misogyny galore, George Lazenby’s final test for securing the Bond role in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service shouldn’t come as a shock, and yet it does: Producers watched him have sex with several hired hookers “to make sure that he wasn’t gay.”

On The Beatles’ side, I certainly knew each member had his womanizing ways. But I didn’t know — or need to know — about their early-days group masturbation sessions. (Fap Four, anyone?) If Paul McCartney’s candor there is outrageous, miserable asshole John Lennon later outdoes him by sharing regret in not balling his own mother after grabbing her breast as a teenager. (Imagine!)

With more than a little help from that story and others, Higgs succeeds in explaining why Lennon’s reputation as the “genius” Beatle wasn’t exactly well-earned, while restoring the luster of the others. He does several things right throughout Love and Let Die‘s pages, including not ignoring Operation Kid Brother (although many would) or 1967’s ill-fated all-star “comedy” version of Casino Royale (although many should). —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Chuck Berry: An American Life

January 22nd, 2023

In CHUCK BERRY: AN AMERICAN LIFE, editor and author RJ Smith details the legacy, work and contradictions of the iconic singer/songwriter and traces the influence of Berry’s hometown.

Born Oct. 18, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, Charles Edward Anderson Berry was attracted to music at an early age. He eventually learned to play the guitar and began channeling his various influences into original songs. He recorded for the Chess Brothers label in Chicago. After years of touring and performing, Berry’s songs were covered by The Beatles, the Rolling Stones and many others rock sensations whose popularity outshone his own.

But that did not stop Berry from his often-grueling performance schedule. Although he toured the world over, he always returned and eventually settled in Berry Park, the location he founded in St. Louis County. He died March 18, 2017.

Smith’s research quotes extensively from Berry – including Berry’s 1989 AUTOBIOGRAPHY and other interviews, as well as from the numerous sidemen, business partners, family members and associates who guided his life and career. Smith believes Berry’s life is tied to the history and development of St. Louis, but several long passages about the town detract from his subject.

Smith is at his best when he traces the origins and interprets Berry’s songs – which include “Maybellene,” “Roll Over Beethoven,” “Johnny B. Goode” and many others. Yet ironically, the musician’s only No. 1 chart-topper was the silly and suggestive “My Ding-A-Ling (1972).

Smith also includes the many problems and troubles that also defined Berry’s life – most notably his prison stint for violation of the Mann Act by transporting a 14-year-old girl across state lines for “immoral purposes.”

Through it all, it remains the music we remember – and cherish – most about Chuck Berry.

In 2011, an 8-foot-tall stature of Berry, guitar in hand, was erected in University City (St. Louis County) across from the Blueberry Hill Club, where he often performed. It’s a reminder of the ongoing permanence and influence of the man and his music.

Smith’s biography is a must-read for Berry fans, of course. But it should also be read by anyone interested in the history of rock music. Smith’s book include several publicity and other photos, as well as a full discography.

Chuck Berry may not have “single-handedly invented rock and roll,” as many believe. But his songs continue to define what rock and roll is. —Alan Cranis

Get it at Amazon.