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BIOGRAPHIES - FILM / VIDEO GUIDES
- GENERAL
REFERENCES - HAMMER STUDIOS
PSYCHO-BABBLE - SPECIAL INTERESTS
GENERAL REFERENCE
BOOKS
(Just click on the book cover to get to the review)
THE DEAD THAT WALK
By Leslie Halliwell. Published by Continuum
Publishing Company. 1986
262 Pages.
Well,
the main thing I really learned from this book is that the author Halliwell
doesn’t seem to like most of the movies that he writes about here. So
I’m not really sure why he would have spent the time writing a book on movies
that he doesn’t like.
There are multiple occasions
where he points out the plot point mistakes of several of the Universal films of
the 30’s and 40’s, where the sequels don’t start up where the last one left off
exactly. I don’t think Universal was that worried about too much, since
most of their audiences were probably young kids anyway. But he makes this
point with just about every movie sequel, including the Hammer films as well.
There's a quote on the back
calling Halliwell "The world's foremost
encyclopedist". Well, I found several times where there was incorrect
information in this book. While some of these psycho-babble books see more
hidden messages in the movie, Halliwell also sees visual things in the movie
that isn't there. For example, he states that in the beginning of Hammer's
DRACULA HAS RISEN FROM THE GRAVE, that the girl stuffed into the bell is naked.
Sorry folks, as much as I'd would have preferred that, she's not naked.
But there are other errors. In his synopsis of BRIDES OF DRACULA, he
describes the original ending, where Van Helsing uses black magic to kill the
vampire Baron Meinster. But this was never filmed, mainly due to Peter
Cushing. But no where does Halliwell state that this is from a screenplay
or original storyline,
but describes it as if it was actually filmed. Then when talking about
Hammer's KISS OF THE VAMPIRE, he describes the ending, he says that it's a
"virtual reprise of THE BRIDES OF DRACULA". That's because that original
ending for BRIDES was finally used for KISS, not re-used like Halliwell
suggests.
But there's more. In
FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL, he says that Peter Cushing's Dr.
Frankenstein is the director the asylum where Shane Briant is sentenced.
Wrong again. He is the resident doctor after blackmailing the director.
When Halliwell talks about the 1972 film TALES FROM THE CRYPT, he says that
Cushing "came back from the grave on Valentine's Day to give his wife a
unexpected present." Obviously he's never seen the film. And while
on the subject, there is a photo of him from the movie. The caption reads,
"Peter Cushing returns for vengeance after some months underground. Some
audiences wished that he had phoned in his message." So we know first of
all that he's most likely never seen the film, but yet is going to criticize
Cushing performance? I think most fans agree that is probably one of the
best segments from that movie.
He states that Hammer's first jump into the 'muddy pool of female
vampirism" was with COUNTESS DRACULA. Actually, that would have been
VAMPIRE LOVERS...that came first. And speaking of that film, Halliwell
says VAMPIRE LOVERS was "found by most audiences to be too distasteful." Then
the part
that really lost me was when he says "where was the fun in women loving women?
Only a very small percentage of the audience could get any vicarious enjoyment
out of that." At first, I thought he was joking. But since the tone
of the review was somewhat negative, I think he was serious. How could 14
and 15 year old boys get any enjoyment out of women loving women??? Good
Lord.
Most of the book is filled
with either plot synopses, or large chunks of literary stories that are
reprinted. To me, this seems to waste a lot of space. But I will say
that there are some screenplay text that is re-printed, showing parts that were
never filmed. This is interesting since it shows us what was originally
written, but never made it to the final print.
So overall, I really didn't
come away from this book learning any new, other than Halliwell needs to pay
attention to more of what he's watching. The missing screenplay bits were
the only thing that were interesting here, but not enough to read through the
rest of the text.
SPLATTER MOVIES: BREAKING THE LAST TABOO OF
THE SCREEN
By John McCarty. Published by St. Martin's
Press. 1984.
Original Price $24.95 197 Pages.
"Splatter movies,
offshoots of the horror genre, aim not to scare their audiences, necessarily,
nor to drive them to the edges of their seats in suspense, but to mortify them
with scenes of explicit gore. In splatter movies, mutilation is indeed the
message - many times the only one."
And so starts off
McCarty in his book defining what splatter movies are. Once again, I found
it difficult to agree with McCarty in many degrees with this book. The
first example came right away, on page 6 as a matter of fact.
"Despite its
pretensions to being about the 'mysteries of faith', William Friedlin's THE
EXORCIST was little more than a very posh splatter movie, utilizing every trick
in the book to pulverize audiences into a single gagging mass."
I would never of
considered THE EXORCIST as a splatter movie. Yes, I do think there are
some heavy meanings going on in that film, letting the viewer start to question
their faith, or at least question something. I do think that there was a
message meant to come across in this film. It wasn't made just to shock
you with cheap effects, otherwise there would have been many more of those in
the film.
But in any case,
no matter what one might choose to believe about that film, when it comes to
writing about films, it is a must to know what your talking about. When
talking about the Lucio Fulci film ZOMBIE, McCarty makes this comment:
"His most
successful film as of this writing is ZOMBIE, a rip-off of Romero's DAWN OF THE
DEAD in which a mad doctor (Richard Johnson) sets up shop on a remote tropical
island in order to conduct a series of bizarre experiments in secret. To
preserve this secrecy, he has his island hideaway guarded by an army of killer
zombies."
Well, if you've seen
ZOMBIE, you know that is not the movie that McCarty is describing. It's
sounds more like ZOMBIE HOLOCAUST (aka DOCTOR BUTCHER M.D.). Once again,
something that I've said many times, when you come across a incorrect fact like
that in a book, it really makes you doubt everything else you might read.
If he didn't know the right movie he was talking about, then how can we believe
the other stuff he's telling us.
So in that
regards, I wouldn't recommend this book to a novice. Educated fans may
see through the errors and interpretations that McCarty comes up with, but a
novice might start to believe some of this stuff. And come on, does
anybody else think that THE EXORCIST or THE OMEN was nothing more than just a
splatter film?
 WHO'S
WHO OF THE HORRORS and OTHER FANTASY FILMS
By David J. Hogan. Published by A.S. Barnes
& Company, Inc. 1980
Original Price: $19.95 HB.
With a listing of over 1100 people who worked in the horror /
sci-fi film genres, this book comes in pretty handy as a quick reference
guide. It does list quite a few people, who only be known for one or two
movies, as well as the more familiar names from the genre. The book not
only lists actors and directors, but screenwriters, makeup effect artist and the
likes.
The only problems that I have with the book are that some
subjects only have a line or two about them. But this is mainly for the
more obscure people, so that really shouldn't be a complaint, being that at
least they are in the book.
There are also a couple of mis-information errors, such as
stating that Susan Denberg was American, as opposed to be Austrian. While
that it's that big of deal, every time I find an error in a reference book, it
makes me wonder if there might be more that I just don't know about.
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