Damn, who knew there were so many Z-budget found-footage films and direct-to-sewage shark movies? Kim Newman, obvs. Culled from the pages of his long-running column in Empire, the UK movie magazine, Kim Newman’s Video Dungeon: The Collected Reviews gives the what’s-what on 500-plus what-the-fuck flicks you’re better off not watching (at least those from The Asylum, the quality-deprived suppliers of Sharknado and other shit shows). Ever the professional, Newman calls ’em like he sees ’em — and he has seen a lot of ’em. Although the real pleasure of time spent in the Dungeon is witnessing the author’s wit of evisceration, that’s not to say good films are not to be found. Thanks to sections on dangerous games, serial killers and spies, I emerged with a healthy to-see list I’ll likely never complete, making this 2-pound guide essential. Note that the subtitle’s operative word of “collected,” not “complete”; here’s hoping Titan Books issues an equally meaty sequel posthaste!

From Radley Metzger to Russ Meyer, Elena Gorfinkel recounts how economic and legal shifts (among others) permitted the emergence of Lewd Looks: American Sexploitation Cinema in the 1960s. Initially, the book is an interesting recounting of court cases involving such now-quaint films as The Garden of Eden; Not Tonite, Henry!; Barry Mahon’s faux compilation doc, Censored; and Meyer’s own Vixen, which attracted the hypocritical wrath of future federal fraudster Charles Keating. Ironically, these legal victories eventually snowballed into an avalanche that allowed for the hardcore likes of Deep Throat to put the soft stuff out of business. Dry in parts (no pun intended), the University of Minnesota Press release nonetheless proves to be a crucial sexploitation study for what no longer is a short shelf.

Following other recent radiated-and-related McFarland & Company texts as Giant Creatures in Our World and The Kaiju Film to shelves is Apocalypse Then: American and Japanese Atomic Cinema, 1951-1967. Penned by Mike Bogue, the paperback is a fond critical review of genre pics that exploited Cold War fears, directly or otherwise, from AIP to Zero (as in Panic in Year). Separated into alliterative-friendly sections on mutants, monsters and mushroom clouds, the films are covered chronologically and dived into with a surprising amount of depth. Just as you don’t have to be a member of the “Duck and Cover” crowd to appreciate those films, same goes for Bogue’s judiciously illustrated book. (But it sure as hell won’t hurt!) —Rod Lott

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In 2013, Dave Jay, Torsten Dewi and Nathan Shumate chronicled the long, strange trip of schlock-movie purveyor Charles Band in Empire of the ‘B’s. The only thing “wrong” with that book is that it ended with the collapse of Band’s Empire International Pictures studio, thus denying us the rest of the story: the indie legend’s pivot to the home-video biz under his Full Moon banner.

Turns out they had a great reason for ignoring that second chapter: because it demanded its own book — and one even larger than the first. Now we have it in It Came from the Video Aisle!: Inside Charles Band’s Full Moon Entertainment Studio. From Schiffer Publishing, the hefty trade paperback is co-written by Jay, Dewi and William S. Wilson — the latter in for Shumate, who nonetheless provides occasional assistance as one of several other contributors.

While a sequel to the previous volume, Video Aisle approaches things a little differently, eschewing the title-by-title chronology in favor of divvying up its history lesson by whichever entity Band had convinced to fund his endeavors, from the highs of Paramount Pictures to the current lows of Band’s own wallet. It is a story of Hollywood-outsider hubris (or something close to it), with the rubber Band bouncing back from the theatrical detritus of his crumbled Empire Pictures by blazing a trail to direct-to-VHS product. Birthing the Puppet Master series, Trancers sequels and Stuart Gordon lit-horror adaptations, the results were — for a time — quite golden. Low in budget yet high (enough) in production value, these genre pictures found favor in the Blockbuster age and, in tacking VideoZone featurettes at the tape’s end to show how the sausage was made, Band built a fervent fan base as he presaged the bonuses appeal of the DVD format.

But the man’s title-and-a-poster development process could generate solid returns for only so long, and his quest to deliver more quantity than quality took its toll. Luckily, Jay, Dewi and Wilson do not shy away from being critical of the movies that demand and/or deserve it. Although their affection for the Full Moon brand clearly makes them more receptive to, say, Seedpeople or Shrunken Heads than the average bear, they don’t hesitate to call a turd a turd, and neither do the subjects they interviewed. The deeper into the page count (480!) the reader dives, the more of a lashing Band takes, particularly in his “personal penchant for minuscule monsters.”

Perhaps putting it best is effects man Tom Devlin (Unlucky Charms, Reel Evil, et al.): “Sometimes Charlie makes these decisions, most recently with the Gingerdead Man vs. Evil Bong movie, where he just won’t let some of the worst ideas go.”

Candor like that helps mitigate the one true fault of the book: photos so small, they strain the eye. For a project on a man who presold flicks that existed only as colorful artwork, it’s a shame we can’t revel in those visuals. Then again, enlarging them beyond their postage-stamp size might result in having to lose some of the material, which I would not be willing to do. Bearing well-earned stripes for completeness, It Came from the Video Aisle! covers seemingly everything there is to cover among Full Moon’s many phases: the Moonbeam line of kiddie films; the Torchlight Entertainment/Surrender Cinema line of softcore porn; the short-lived, William Shatner-hosted Full Moon Fright Night TV series; and — from Puppet Wars to The Primevals — even the movies that never had a fighting chance to be completed. —Rod Lott

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Two years ago, editor Stephen Jones delivered a coffee-table book for the ages with The Art of Horror, and now he and his gang of talented writers and artists are back for another go-round, this time silver screen-cemented, with The Art of Horror Movies: An Illustrated History. Again published in a handsome hardback by Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, this full-color follow-up tackles its admittedly intimidating mission by slicing and dicing the subject matter into by-decade chapters, starting with a broader look at “The Sinister Silents.” In doing so, whether accidentally or purposefully, the book presents a compelling visual history of cinema’s bastard child, as we see its ad campaigns evolve before our very hungry eyes. While Jones and company primarily are focused on providing broad-stroke, bird’s-eye views, it’s also not unusual to see them get creative in themed pages that celebrate everything from Rondo Hatton and Sherlock Holmes to covers of fanzines and hand-painted flour sacks used in African villages!

With Kong: Skull Island a massive hit earlier this year and sequels to Godzilla and Pacific Rim already on deck, the oversized-creature feature is enjoying quite the colossal resurgence, and Giant Creatures in Our World: Essays on Kaiju and American Popular Culture is but one piece of the proof. The McFarland & Company release comes co-edited by Camille D.G. Mustachio and Jason Barr, and while the latter dealt with this subject all by his lonesome in last year’s The Kaiju Film, this unofficial (but worthy) companion widens the net to let its contributors dig into the niche. Thus, while Barr theorizes about the nostalgia drive of the adult toy collector, Se Young Kim examines how American superheroes like Spider-Man become enemies of justice when incorporated overseas, and Karen Joan Kohoutek wonders if all those Gamera episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000 aren’t maybe a wee bit racist. As Godzilla proved in his ’54 debut, rampaging monsters are to be taken seriously, and this collection does just that, examining these cultural giants with the gravity they deserve, but also the fun audiences expect.

If there will be a better encapsulation of the history and evolution of the medium than David Bianculli’s splendidly penned The Platinum Age of Television: From I Love Lucy to The Walking Dead, How TV Became Terrific … well, I doubt it will occur in my lifetime. A longtime TV critic for NPR, Bianculli takes what had to be a bear of a self-imposed assignment by foregoing the expected chronological route in favor of genre. For each of those — workplace sitcoms, medical dramas, Westerns, miniseries, et al. — he chooses five series that best represent the forwarding of the format and explains not only what they did and how they did it (and, in the case of something like The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, how they got away with it), but also how their DNA thrives in the programs of today, in the style of this-beget-that. It’s rather amazing how essays so compact yield so much fascinating material; even the chapters on genres I have no interest in (like war) proved unskippable. Interstitial interviews with/profiles of key players — such as Carol Burnett, Carl Reiner, Ken Burns and, um, Kevin Spacey and Louis C.K. — make an already excellent book that much more rewarding. Tune in immediately.

It is strange to remember a time when The X-Files was just another under-the-radar, possibly doomed-to-fail show on the fourth-ranked (and occasionally fourth-rate) Fox network, rather than the cultural touchstone it has been for, oh, two decades and counting. But Ireland-based critic Darren Mooney sure does, and lays out that progression in Opening The X-Files: A Critical History of the Original Series. From McFarland & Company, the book opens with a foreword from superfan Kumail Nanjiani (whose 2017 romcom The Big Sick practically gives the series a subplot) before a headfirst plunge. Admirably, rather than following an episode-by-episode formula, which would get dull, the author discusses each season largely in standalone terms, while weaving in the various spin-offs and 1998 feature film. I’m calling it a success because it made me eager to revisit the Blu-ray box set; in fact, if The X-Files studies were a college course (and I’m sure it is somewhere), Mooney’s book would have to be one of its essential texts. —Rod Lott

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Bart Beaty’s study of 1960s-era Archie Comics, Twelve-Cent Archie, came out two years ago, but with the squeaky-clean icons turned into the soapy hit TV series Riverdale, Rutgers University Press has reissued it with full-color illustrations, so anyone who ever enjoyed the comics no longer has an excuse against buying this milestone in pop-culture criticism. While my eyes appreciate the upgrade, my heart is certain that the book was fantastic even in black and white. Unlike, well, every other academic work I’ve read, Beaty has divided his into 100 tight, concise chapters, and then seemingly threw them into the air and let gravity decide the order. The genius of this approach is that it absolutely works. Whether dissecting the literal shape of panels or discussing whether Archie would be better off with Betty or Veronica (mathematics provides the answer, hilariously), Beaty never fails to enlighten as he charms. I haven’t so much as touched an Archie comic book since leaving grade school, yet every page held me rapt.

In Comic Book Film Style: Cinema at 24 Panels Per Second, Canada-based Dru Jeffries argues — rightly, successfully — that the media continues to misuse the term “comic book” as it relates to the movies, in part because it’s bandied about so carelessly, it’s applied even when the source material isn’t a comic book at all. So what is the comic book film, exactly? Jeffries is glad you asked! Per chapter one of his University of Texas Press paperback, the mostly forgotten 2010 actioner The Losers best represents the true definition, in translating the page to the screen as faithfully as possible — not merely in story, but also in style — and the accompanying images from both mediums prove the point, over and over. Subsequent chapters loosen up a bit to examine more flicks, whether through their use of onscreen onomatopoeia (1966’s Batman: The Movie), framing to replicate panels (Creepshow) or manipulation of time (300). Although smartly designed and more than generously illustrated, the book can grow dry if approached from a casual standpoint. So don’t! This material would kill in a classroom setting.

So venerated is Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 existential sci-fi epic that you could fill a small shelf with books dedicated to the film. Even more are on the way; in the meantime, here’s another! From McFarland & Company, film critic Joe R. Frinzi’s Kubrick’s Monolith: The Art and Mystery of 2001: A Space Odyssey reads less like a serious study of the picture (although that exists in one chapter) and more like a Fodor’s guidebook. With enthusiasm and efficiency, Frinzi covers how Arthur C. Clarke’s short story turned into what now is a classic, but considered a failure in its day; plus 2001’s needle-drop soundtrack of classical cuts; Oscar-winning special effects, especially the trippy Star-Gate sequence; and the various sequels, spin-offs and illegitimate children. Chapters vary in usefulness, from quite handy (comparing the various soundtrack albums over the years) to not at all (giving a beat-by-beat plot synopsis). —Rod Lott

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