Movie Guides, Movie Guides, Movie Guides!
Amazing Trivia and
Those Universal Monsters Unearthed
by James Reyome
A brief disclaimer:
In some of my past reviews I may have come off sounding educated, intelligent
and knowledgeable on the horror genre. The fact is, I am neither educated
nor am I particularly intelligent or even very well read, though I certainly
have read quite a few books in my life. So: from now on, I'm approaching
these things the way I speak, which is as a just-plain-person who happens
to enjoy the genre. Got that? Okay. With the legalese out of the way, we
shall proceed...
It's Spring, and Spring is AWESOME! Not just for the weather, which is spectacular here in Tennessee, but for the highly anticipated movie releases. Mind you, I'm finding the pickins are a bit thin for us horror enthusiasts. Sci-fi and action fans will be enjoying Spiderman (Spiderman, Spiderman, does whatever a spider can) and the second (or is it the fifth? I can never remember) episode of Star Wars of course, while Panic Room might satisfy you (I found the premise at least reminiscent of Wait Until Dark, and if you haven't seen that, shame on you!) and slasher fans will probably have enjoyed Jason Voorhies' latest escapades in Jason X by now. But where's the beef? Or at least the entrails? They're nowhere to be seen. There's hardly any drive-in fare to be found.
There's video, of course. Or DVD, as you prefer. But how do you separate the wheat from the chaff, the meat from the drippings? Well, there's some good sources: Leonard Maltin's video guides (Signet, 2002) are pretty comprehensive and downright addictive, and he doesn't look down his nose at genre films as some reviewers are prone to do. Heck, he even gave Tobe Hooper's Lifeforce (1985) a decent mention. But my personal choice is John Stanley's Creature Features guides. So far as I'm concerned, these huge tomes are the horror genre's equivalent to the Maltin guides (and YOU MUST BUY A COPY RIGHT NOW OR YOUR BRAIN WILL IMPLODE). My (not very) current copy--the 4th edition, vintage 1994--is hardly up to date, but like the legendary Trouser Press Record Guides, it's just as valid and entertaining as it was the day it was printed. Better still, it was recently updated (Creatures At Large Press, 2001) and hopefully I will have a copy to review for the next issue. I doubt very seriously if you'll read anything negative about this book. Not from me anyway. John Stanley, autograph my copy before you send it, and remember: imploding brain BAD, Creature Features Guide GOOD.
Then there is Joe Bob Briggs, he of the late lamented MonsterVision and still the Drive-In Critic of the Stars. Well, my web browser starts up with his website, and both of his superb volumes (Joe Bob Goes To The Drive-In, Delacorte 1987 and Joe Bob Goes Back To The Drive-In, Delacorte 1990) are out of print but still very obtainable if you're willing to look for 'em. If you're lucky enough to run across them, as I was, snag them while you've got the chance. Not only are they excellent film commentary; they're more often than not a laugh riot and provide a perfect counterpart to Stanley's somewhat more serious reviews. Joe Bob's social commentary and satire can be found in his other books, like Iron Joe Bob (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1992) or The Cosmic Wisdom of Joe Bob Briggs (Random House, 1991...no, I'm not making this stuff up). You may or may not agree with him, but I find him ceaselessly amusing and more often than not, thought provoking. Really.
I'm still not to the meat yet. Patience, patience. Another book I enjoyed lately was John Brosnan's The Horror People (Plume, 1976) which is also out of print and rather dated, but hey, who cares? It's loads of fun with some great pictures and insights, particularly on the Hammer films. A must-have. Cruise your local used bookstores till you find a copy.
Winner of the Best Title award goes to How I Made A Hundred Movies
In Hollywood And Never Lost A Dime (Di Capo, 1998) by--you guessed
it--Roger Corman. This one is NOT out of print yet and is very much worth
the dinky price of admission, more so than most of Corman's movies! The
man who introduced us to Nicholson, Coppola, Bogdonavich, and Scorsese,
the man who gave us Little Shop Of Horrors, Vincent Price's wonderfully
cheesy Poe films, The Terror, Targets (another nifty little
chiller featuring one of Karloff's last performances) not to mention those
Nurse flicks--and plenty more--tells all, and it's amazing how much he
really accomplished with so little. Another must-have for your genre
library and one you'll pick up and read again and again.
Now then. On to the books I was actually SUPPOSED to be reviewing.
Really, there was a point to all this.
First, there is The Amazing, Colossal Book of Horror Trivia (Cumberland House, 1999) by Jonathan Malcolm Lampley (with a name like that he ought to be IN the movies, not writing about them!) Ken Beck and Jim Clark. Now this, this is one of those rare items that actually delivers what it promises, and if you're a true genre buff (and if you're not, what are you doing reading this?) you'll have hours upon hours of fun with this one. Some sample questions:
1. True of false: "Horror of Dracula" is the first vampire movie
filmed in color.
2. In "The Haunting", what room is the "cold, rotten heart of the
house"?
3. To whose memory is "Halloween: H20" dedicated?
4. What is the name of Linda Harrison's character in "Planet Of
The Apes"?
5. What chases Karen Black in the "Prey" episode of "Trilogy of
Terror"?
(Answers: True; the library; Donald Pleasance; Nova; a Zuni fetish doll)
Hopefully you knew a couple of those. They're among the fairly easy ones, really. And if you didn't, fear not, there's more that 1800 others to be had in the book. Yow! This collection of trivia ought to keep you guessing a while. Probably you'll end up like me, admitting that perhaps you didn't know quite as much about the business as you might've thought, and as such it's almost educational. It is indeed rather addictive.
Not quite as highly recommended but still very entertaining is The Horror Movie Survival Guide (Berkeley, 2001) by Matteo Molinari and Jim Kamm. This oversized pulp would probably get the Joe Bob Briggs seal of approval for the body counts alone. It's presented as--what else--a survival guide should you be so unfortunate as to encounter the situations seen in these films. It's broken down into categories like Aliens, Parasites, Doppelgangers, Plants, Alter Egos, Religious Zealots, etc. and then into subcategories. Take Religious Zealots (please, take them.) Here's Children of the Corn. This group is given a classification of Wekill 'nsync, which I reckon is supposed to be clever along the lines of Wyle E. Coyote being Famishus Famishus and the Road-Runner Speedipus Rex. Then comes a listing of all connected films, various trivial info, and, eventually, how to kill the little tykes should you cross paths with them. It's all a bit silly, but when you get down to it, so are most of the movies mentioned--and the photos are excellent and humorously captioned. It's all in fun, so just don't try to take it too seriously.
For the serious student, the "Recommended Study" movie list in the back is terribly comprehensive, and if you've seen all the movies in that list, I want nothing to do with you, you psycho. In the summing up, this is suitable for bathroom reading, keeping next to the easy chair, or as a companion to the Stanley guides. Recommended.
Finally, there's a pair of books for which I had high hopes, The Devil's Brood (Berkeley, 2000) and The Devil's Night (Berkeley, 2001), both by David Jacobs. They're based on a shared world in which the Universal films monsters are real: Dracula; Frankenstein; Wilfred Glendon, the Werewolf of London; and Marya Zaleska, Dracula's Daughter. It's a neat concept that should work, could work...but in the end they're sunk by uneven writing, awful editing, and occasionally laughable dialogue. A few examples:
"Those who try to take a bite out of Dracula usually find me hard to swallow." I'm not kidding. Even Bela Lugosi would howl with laughter.
"You were only supposed to bring the chemicals, not Frankenstein!" followed immediately by, "He's a party crasher!" Umm, yeah.
"I want that brain kept alive and functioning." Now there's an apt concern.
"Wait till you're wearing my brand, bitch." This from the Countess Zaleska. A classy wench, no doubt. Seriously, can anyone picture Gloria Holden uttering that line? I certainly can't. It seems to me that if you're going to feature these characters, they should remain IN character. Marya Zaleska should not be uttering such 20th century tripe, and old Vlad should most assuredly not be saddled with clichés.
And then there's the editing. Berkeley is a pretty big publisher; you would think they would vet their material with a little more thoroughness than they display here, the dialogue in particular. It's just awful and is a terrible distraction from the story. I am no grammar grouch, to be sure, but to take a line of dialogue and break it into two separate paragraphs? Regularly, even? It's pointless and annoying, even if the dialogue was written well. Which as a rule, it isn't. Style is one thing, bad editing is another. But then I can barely struggle through Kathe Koja's stuff. Maybe it's just me.
Given all that, how can I possibly recommend these books? Well, I
can't, except as guilty pleasures, perhaps, and taken as such they're really
not that bad. I will confess that I was even entertained by both books,
even though Night had a pretty abrupt and rather anti-climactic
ending. Chances are I'll even read the first installment, Return of
the Wolfman should I happen to run across it used. But I won't be dashing to
the stores to look for it. Universal's monsters deserve a better legacy.