Bookgasm

What differentiates The Satanic Screen: An Illustrated Guide to the Devil in Cinema is author Nikolas Schreck used to practice the Black Arts. That granted the original 2001 edition a seal of credibility, but this new, considerable update — courtesy of Headpress — allows him to cover dozens of titles that didn’t exist, like Megiddo: The Omega Code 2, in a hilarious review that alone is worth the price of purchase. In his intro, Schreck asks, “Who the hell is the Devil anyway?” then answers with a thorough history lesson spanning the life of cinema. Yes, horror films abound, but Satan pops up in costumed dramas, British comedies, kiddie matinees, mondo docs, animation, pornography and even an “all-Negro musical” from Vincente Minnelli. From Kenneth Anger to Irwin Allen, Ingmar Bergman to Ed Wood, our writer proves to be the authority of the evil one’s vast filmography. Surrender!

Another year means another McFarland & Company publication from Roberto Curti. As prolific as he is, his subject this time makes him look lazy by comparison: cult icon Jess Franco. Co-authored by Francesco Cesari, The Films of Jesus Franco, 1953-1966 examines the works of the Spanish director from his start — his pre-OB/GYN cinema, one might say. As is Curti’s wont, each pic — from puffery like Attack of the Robots to artistic triumphs like The Diabolical Dr. Z — reliably devotes coverage so in-depth, they may as well be a submersible. What really makes this Jesús text special is how heavily it goes into Franco films we’ll never see, from his university short Theory of Sunrise, a debut “ignored” by other Franco texts, to Treasure Island, an abandoned ’64 adaptation/collaboration with Orson Welles. One Yank’s quibble: The movies are listed in Spanish, so unless you know your Red Lips from your Labios rojos, keep the index bookmarked.

I thought my own book did a decent job of mining some obscurities … then along comes Lowest Common Denominator: The Amateurish Writings of a Failed Film Critic to show everybody up on that front. Written by David John Koenig, aka “A Fiend on Film,” the self-published paperback might review as many movies I’ve never heard of as it has pages! That’s because Koenig’s tastes lean toward the Asian, underground, microindie and black-and-white crime pics as old as my grandparents. Needless to say, my Tubi list grew exponentially as I read. And read. And read! From A to Z, I didn’t miss a word and, as a result, got exposed to a whole new world.

When a movie gains a fervent, coast-to-coast cult, multiple books on it inevitably follow. That’s certainly the case with Tommy Wiseau’s The Room. I reviewed two of them a decade ago, and now it’s time to add a third with BearManor Media’s release of Accidental Genius: An Oral History of The Room. Think the world doesn’t need another? Think again. Andrew J. Rausch, whose work I love, goes deeper on the topic than any medium before him. With dozens of people weighing in, his task as curator and craftsman couldn’t have been easy, but as a read, it sure is. The anecdotes are as crazy as a Room viewer could hope for, from using Greg Sestero’s facial hair as a guide for editing the nonsensical scenes into something watchable to Wiseau’s desire to perform his sex scenes unsimulated. On purpose, Accidental’s a lot of fun, as entertaining as it is thorough — enough to make you want to exclaim in joy, “Hai, doggy!”

Enjoyed the historical aspect of Vincent A. Albarano’s recent Aesthetic Deviations: A Critical View of American Shot-on-Video Horror, but wish it also had room for reviews and interviews? Then you’re going to love Justin Burning’s Hand-Held Hell: The Outbreak of Homemade Horror. With a title like that, how could you not? Well, quite easily, were we in the hands of a poor writer, but that, Burning is not. Covering a mind-boggling 40 years’ worth of SOV projects, he gives great insight about movies I’ve not only seen (Video Violence), but seen more than once (Black Devil Doll from Hell), wish I could unsee (The Burning Moon) and absolutely never will see (August Underground). Interspersed among these 44 movies are interviews with nearly two dozen directors — including such household Hanekes as Tim Ritter, Bret McCormick and Donald Farmer — and full-color photos, all in a trade-paperback package heavy enough to challenge your wrists’ strength. For the right type of person (like you and me), this trip through Hell feels like heaven.

As someone whose film knowledge began on watching movies on UHF channels and read the Sunday paper’s TV listings supplement in full, Armchair Cinema: A History of Feature Films on British Television, 1929-1981 stirred nostalgia in this American. It’s a shame the Edinburgh University Press title costs such a pretty penny, because I suspect like minds would find it catnippy, too. Leslie Halliwell (he of the Halliwell’s Film Guide) emerges as a hidden hero as Sheldon Hall looks back at when the tube saw movies as wasted space, then slowly changed their minds. Yes, the book contains numerous data tables of airdates and whatnot you might find useless, but Hall packs his pages with so many compelling stories. Learn how the Carry On comedies doubled box office after broadcast, how sneaky U.S. distributors passed off Edgar Wallace and Sherlock Holmes flicks as TV shows to get around a limit, and why a UK exec was “utterly revolted” by 1933’s King Kong. King Kong! —Rod Lott

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I don’t recall a time in which I wasn’t aware of ’70s porn sensation Marilyn Chambers; growing up watching Johnny Carson’s monologue from the foot of your parents’ bed will do that to a kid. Let’s put aside whether a child should even understand what Behind the Green Door was, much less what went on there. The fact is, Chambers’ name was everywhere, even if her work wasn’t as accessible as the three network TV channels. 

To this day, I’ve never seen her appear in anything other than David Cronenberg’s Rabid, which, being rated R, kneels a level below the style of films for which she became famous and/or infamous. I hold neither either affection nor attachment (nor ire, it should be noted.) 

All that to say, for 2024, Jared Stearns’ Pure: The Sexual Revolutions of Marilyn Chambers is the biography I didn’t know I needed. 

Given the subject matter, I was concerned Pure might reveal itself as hackwork. I can’t tell you how many fringe-culture bios read like public records, even beginning with, “[Name] was born on [date] in [city and state].” My worries were unfounded; like his subject, Stearns is determined to defy expectations from the outset. 

You wouldn’t know this was his first rodeo. He’s a gifted writer who knows how to tell a story, and it would be difficult to imagine a tale with as many ups and downs (and ins and outs) as Chambers’. From his own interviews and extensive research, he relays her modest beginnings as a “show-off” among in an emotionally cold Connecticut family to a high school model wholesome enough to be selected for the Ivory Snow detergent box. 

By the time that packaging hit grocery shelves, Chambers had accidentally leapt into the career that forever defined her: porn star. She thought no one would see Behind the Green Door; instead, it rode the Deep Throat wave into a cultural behemoth of “porn chic,” making the actress an instant icon. 

Most of the remainder of Pure, published by Headpress and named after Ivory’s “99 44/100th pure” slogan, details her attempts to use porn as a stepping stone, only to be shoved aside every time. Whatever she reached for — Hollywood legitimacy, a recording contract, a loving spouse — was removed from her grasp. Although Chambers could be her own worst enemy, many of her setbacks can be blamed on husband No. 2, Chuck Traynor, the former Mr. Linda Lovelace and professional piece of shit. (Not for nothing does “Dog Fucker (short)” appear atop “domestic violence” in the index.) 

It’s a hell of a survival story — and one without a happy ending, as Chambers died in 2009 at the tragically young age of 56. 

Stearns’ portrait is mostly sympathetic. Clearly, he holds magnificent reverence for her, yet does not shy away from sharing incidents that place her in a negative light. In total, the point of Pure is granting Chambers the credit and acceptance she deserves, which the author argues go beyond acts captured on celluloid. She was, after all, what most of America refused to see her as in her lifetime: human. —Rod Lott

Get it at Headpress.

As George Lazenby’s 007 opined in 0n Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the world is not enough. Neither is the new book James Bond and the Sixties Spy Craze, although it gets close.

Written by Thom Shubilla (Primetime 1966-1967), the handsome hardback from Applause tracks the wannabes, never-weres, knockoffs, one-offs and other Bondy-come-latelys proliferating after the worldwide moviegoing public gave a hearty “yes” to 1962’s Dr. No.

Rather admirably, the book gives overdue attention to those cinematic spies of comparatively short shrift — many colorful and comical — from Matt Helm and Derek Flint to Harry Palmer and Bulldog Drummond. Even better, Shubilla doesn’t stop there, devoting later chapters to the Mexican and European also-rans (including Sean Connery’s own sibling, Neil, in Operation Kid Brother), as well as television. It’s thorough enough, you may cry U.N.C.L.E.

But all this comes after the author spends nearly 50 pages introducing us to Bond, James Bond. While I get the need to set the table, 007 could be handled in the introduction, since we’re not told anything new — unless you count Lazenby’s aforementioned quote erroneously attributed to Connery.

Sixties Spy Craze reads like a Wikipedia page, for both good and ill, meaning it’s packed with facts, but lacks a narrative. For delivering pure production info, one could make the case nobody does it better. However, what’s sacrificed are Shubilla’s own viewpoint and assumed passion for this subgenre. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Damn you, Scream Queen filmmaker Brad Sykes. Damn you to hell! Do you expect anyone to ever get through your new book, Neon Nightmares: L.A. Thrillers of the 1980s? You’ve made so many of the movies sound so intriguing, one has to stop reading immediately to hunt down and watch the film under discussion before proceeding. Was this part of some master plan all along? Are you receiving a cut of royalties for every VOD stream of Richard Gere’s Breathless remake? Judd Nelson in Relentless? The computer-dating oddity Dangerous Love? Because this took me a month to finish reading, rather than my usual weekend. Do you not realize what that much lunch-hour viewing does to an iPhone battery in a day? I hope you and your addicting BearManor Media paperback, richly illustrated as it is, are happy for hijacking so much of my free time. Highly, highly recommended.

For Cloudland Revisited: A Misspent Youth in Books and Film, the venerable Library of America rounds up the late S.J. Perelman’s 22 New Yorker articles in which the literary rapscallion casts his adult eyes and poisoned pen on the pulpy paperbacks — and their flicker adaptations — of his boyhood. More often than not, the results allow Perelman to exercise — and exorcise — his considerable, even intimidating wit. The more familiar I was with the topic at hand, like Tarzan and Dr. Fu Manchu, the funnier the pieces struck. That said, I also drew heavy amusement from his discussions of then-“spicy” works, today as tame as Perelman is revered, after “greasing my face with butter to protect it from the burning prose.” One caveat: These pieces were written as early as 1937, when a learned vocabulary wasn’t an obstacle to readers; prepare yourself for “fantods,” “sachem,” “gravid” and more words Google’s ready to tackle. 

You may not believe me, kids, but before your fancy internet rolled around, we got information about new and upcoming movies from artifacts called “magazines” and “newspapers.” On-set articles and interviews for more than two dozen beloved genre movies are collected in companion volumes The Dreamweavers: Fantasy Filmmaking in the 1980s and Science Fiction Filmmaking in the 1980s: Interviews with Actors, Directors, Producers and Writers. To read them is to be transported back to the days of thumbing through issues of Starlog, Twilight Zone and Fangoria at the magazine rack while your mom shopped for groceries. As with 2022’s The Joy of Sets, both trade paperbacks come from Lee Goldberg‘s Cutting Edge imprint; unlike The Joy of Sets, Goldberg shares space with William Rabkin and spouses Randy and Jean-Marc Lofficier. Whether a movie qualifies as fantasy or sci-fi sometimes seems arbitrary, yet it hardly matters. In Dreamweavers‘ lineup, you’ll meet Buckaroo Banzai, James Bond and a few guys who ain’t ’fraid of no ghosts; in the other, Mad Max, RoboCop and the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Half the fun is seeing how prescient these journalists were. Case in point: Of Howard the Duck, Rabkin predicts, “There’s a chance that American audiences simply don’t want to see a duck starring in anything besides a plate of orange sauce.” —Rod Lott

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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.

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.

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.

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

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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.