Monster and Horror Movies looks at the high - and low - points of one of film's most enduring genres with humour, insight and imagination. Although monster and horror movies don't win many awards, people have been flocking to see them since films began. And filmmakers have outdone themselves in coming up with an ever-changing array of man-made, self-made, diabolical or weirdly mutated creatures that all have one thing in common - they scare people out of their wits.
The man-made monsters stalk through such films as Frankenstein and its numerous offspring, The Golem, The Hands of Orlac, Homunculus and The Swamp Thing. Equally frightening is the self-made monster like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, a timeless horror story that speaks to the dark side of the human psyche. In this same tradition we find movies as disparate as The Werewolf and The Fly.Then there is the human fiend, epitomized by H.G. Wells' Dr Moreau in Island of Lost Souls, whose earliest film prototype was The Cabinet of Dr Caligari. Back-from-the-dead monsters take various eerie forms, including that of The Mummy in all its incarnations, the zombie, as in pictures from Dracula to Blacula. Not to forget creatures from another realm like King Kong and Godzilla.
As if nature and man himself didn't cause enough trouble, we also have a horrified fascination with the supernatural in the form of satanism, ghosts and witchcraft. Such classics as Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, The Omen, The Innocents and The Shining, plus many others are also covered in this entertaining book, which no monster-movie enthusiast will want to miss. Over 200 fright-full illustrations, both colour and black-and-white, add to the atmosphere created with the author's invitation: 'Come With Me To The Theatre'. - from inside jacket.
Condition: some tears to back of dust jacket (pictured) otherwise excellent.
ISBN: 0 86124 285 8
Hardback: 30.8cm x 23.8cm x 1.7cm
Publisher: Bison Books 1986
