Sleazoid Express: A Mind-Twisting Tour Through the Grindhouse Cinema of Times Square


Bill Landis - 2002
    If the gore epics, women-in-prison films, and shockumentaries showcased within their mildewed walls didn't live up to their outrageous billing, the audience shouted, threw food, and even vandalized the theaters. For dedicated lovers of extreme cinema, buying a movie ticket on the Deuce meant putting your life on the line. Authors Bill Landis and Michelle Clifford came to know those grindhouses better than anyone else, and although the theaters were gone by the mid-1980s, the films remained. In Sleazoid Express, Landis and Clifford reproduce what no home video can -- the experience of watching an exploitation film in its original fight-for-your-life Deuce setting. Both a travelogue of the infamous grindhouses of yore and a comprehensive overview of the sleaze canon, Sleazoid Express offers detailed reviews of landmark exploitation classics and paints intimate portraits of directors whose notorious creations played the back end of triple bills for years on end. With wit, intelligence, and an unflinching eye, Landis and Clifford offer the definitive document of cinema's most intense and shocking moments as they came to life at a legendary place.

The Man with the Golden Touch: How The Bond Films Conquered the World


Sinclair McKay - 2008
    This is the story of how, with the odd misstep along the way, the owners of the Bond franchise, Eon Productions, have contrived to keep James Bond abreast of the zeitgeist and at the top of the charts for 45 years, through 21 films featuring six Bonds, three M’s, two Q’s and three Moneypennies. Thanks to the films, Fleming’s original creation has been transformed from a black sheep of the post-war English upper classes into a figure with universal appeal, constantly evolving to keep pace with changing social and political circumstances. Having interviewed people concerned with all aspects of the films, Sinclair McKay is ideally placed to describe how the Bond ‘brand’ has been managed over the years as well as to give us the inside stories of the supporting cast of Bond girls, Bond villains, Bond cars and Bond gadgetry. Sinclair McKay, formerly assistant features editor of the Daily Telegraph, works as a freelance writer and journalist. He is also the author of A Thing of Unspeakable Horror: The History of Hammer Films, which the Guardian called ‘A splendid history’ and the Independent on Sunday described as ‘Brisk, cheerful and enthusiastic.’

Keep Watching the Skies!: American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties


Bill Warren - 1982
    With new entries on several films, it also revisits, revises and expands the commentary on every film in the 1982 and 1986 two-volume edition. In addition to a detailed plot synopsis, cast and credit listings, and an overview of each film's critical reception, Warren delivers richly informative assessments of the films and a wealth of insights and anecdotes about their making, often drawing on remarks by the filmmakers that have emerged in the quarter century since the original edition. The book is arranged by film title, contains 273 photographs (many rare, some in color), has seven useful appendices, and concludes with an enormous index.

Let the Right One In


Anne Billson - 2010
    "Twilight," "True Blood," "Being Human," "The Vampire Diaries," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Blade," "Underworld," and the novels of Anne Rice and Darren Shan--against this glut of bloodsuckers, it takes an incredible film to make a name for itself. Directed by Tomas Alfredson and adapted for the screen by John Ajvide Lindqvist, The Swedish film "L't den r?tte komma in" (2008), known to American audiences as "Let the Right One In," is the most exciting, subversive, and original horror production since the genre's best-known works of the 1970s. Like "Twilight," "Let the Right One In" is a love story between a human and a vampire--but that is where the resemblance ends. Set in a snowy, surburban housing estate in 1980s Stockholm, the film combines supernatural elements with social realism. It features Oskar, a lonely, bullied child, and Eli, the girl next door. "Oskar, I'm not a girl," she tells him, and she's not kidding--she's a vampire. The two forge an intense relationship that is at once innocent and disturbing. Two outsiders against the world, one of these outsiders is, essentially, a serial killer. What does Eli want from Oskar? Simple companionship, or something else? While startlingly original, "Let the Right One In" could not have existed without the near century of vampire cinema that preceded it. Anne Billson reviews this history and the film's inheritence of (and new twists on) such classics as "Nosferatu" (1979) and "Dracula" (1931). She discusses the genre's early fliration with social realism in films such as "Martin" (1977) and "Near Dark" (1987), along with its adaptation of mythology to the modern world, and she examines the changing relationship between vampires and humans, the role of the vampire's assistant, and the enduring figure of vampires in popular culture.

Incredibly Strange Films


V. Vale - 1986
    Mikels, Larry Cohen, and others who dared to make independent feature films their way, without bowing to a committee or focus group. This is an oblique how-to manual, covering everything from financing, distribution, lighting, camerawork and acting, to publicity, marketing and screenwriting. Would-be filmmakers as well as scholars will find much inspiration and enlightenment in this volume, which has been used in college film classes. In-depth interviews focus on philosophy, while anecdotes entertain as well as illuminate theory. Lists of recommended films, an A-Z directory, and quotations are also included.

The Immortal Count: The Life and Films of Bela Lugosi


Arthur Lennig - 1974
    While the role may have given him eternal life on the silver screen, it doomed him to a career plagued by typecasting. After a decade of trying vainly to broaden his range and secure parts to challenge his acting abilities, Lugosi finally resigned himself to a career as the world's most recognizable vampire. His last years were spent as a forgotten and rather tragic figure.

Shepperton Babylon


Matthew Sweet - 2006
    Here you'll meet, among many others, the 20s film idols snorting cocaine from an illuminated glass dance floor on the bank of the Thames, the model who escaped Soho's gangsters to become the queen of the nudie flicks and the genteel Scottish comedienne who, at the age of fifty-five, reinvented herself as a star of exploitation cinema, and fondly remembers 'the one where I drilled in people's heads and ate their brains'. Welcome to the lost worlds of British cinema.

The Art of Hammer: The Official Poster Collection From the Archive of Hammer Films


Marcus Hearn - 2010
    This lavish hardcover brings together rare artwork from around the world. Featuring Hammer’s greatest films, including The Curse of Frankenstein, the Dracula series, and many more.

A Critical History and Filmography of Toho's Godzilla Series


David Kalat - 1997
    This work also covers various political and social subtexts of the movies.

The Hollywood Scandal Almanac: 12 Months of Sinister, Salacious and Senseless History!


Jerry Roberts - 2012
      The real-life scandals of Hollywood’s personalities rival any drama they bring to life on the silver screen. This book provides 365 daily doses of high and low crimes, fraud and deceit, culled from Tinseltown’s checkered past.   Whether it’s the exploits of silent-era star Fatty Arbuckle, the midcentury misdeeds of Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe, or the modern excesses of Lindsay Lohan, this calendar of Hollywood transgressions has a sensational true tale for every day of the year. It’s an entertaining and sometimes shocking trip down memory lane filled with sneaky affairs, box-office bombs, and careers cut short—sometimes by murder. It shows that the drama doesn’t end when the credits roll.

Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film


Carol J. Clover - 1992
    Carol Clover argues, however, that these films work mainly to engage the viewer in the plight of the victim-hero - the figure, often a female, who suffers pain and fright but eventually rises to vanquish the forces of oppression.

Casablanca Companion: The Movie Classic and Its Place in History


Richard E. Osborne - 1997
    Whether you've watched "Casablanca" countless times or you're going to see it for the first time, "The Casablanca Companion" will both deepen your understanding and heighten your enjoyment.

On Kubrick


James Naremore - 2007
    This book argues that in several respects Kubrick was one of the cinema's last modernists.

Fright Favorites: 31 Movies to Haunt Your Halloween and Beyond


David J. Skal - 2020
    Featured titles:Nosferatu (1922)Phantom of the Opera (1925)Dracula (1931)Frankenstein (1931)Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (1931)The Mummy (1933)Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)The Wolf Man (1941)Cat People (1942)Them (1953)Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)Curse of Frankenstein (1957)Horror of Dracula (1958)House on Haunted Hill (1959)The Birds (1963)Black Sunday (1960)Pit and the Pendulum (1961)The Haunting (1963)Night of the Living Dead (1968)Rosemary's Baby (1968)The Exorcist (1972)Young Frankenstein (1976)Halloween (1978)The Shining (1980)The Thing (1982)A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)Beetlejuice (1988)Hocus Pocus (1993)Scream (1996)Get Out (2017)

Universal Studios Monsters: A Legacy of Horror


Michael Mallory - 2009
    Universal Studios Monsters: A Legacy of Horror explores all of these enduring characters, chronicling both the mythology behind the films and offering behind-the-scenes insights into how the films were created. Universal Studios Monsters is the most complete record of the horror films of this legendary studio, with biographies of major personalities who were responsible for the most notable monster melodramas in film history. The stories of these films and their creators are told through interviews with surviving actors and studio employees. A lavish photographic record, including many behind-the-scenes shots, completes the story of how these classics were made. This is a volume no fan of imaginative cinema will want to be without.