On the cusp on turning 12, I was floored by the March 20, 1983, broadcast of Special Bulletin, the NBC made-for-TV movie designed to look like a real-time news broadcast of a nuclear incident on the East Coast, courtesy of domestic terrorists. Although I knew it was fake, the effect was so chilling that exactly eight months later, my mom forbade us from watching ABC’s highly contentious The Day After, in which the threat — and eventual nukes — came not from our own, but the Soviet Union.

We American kids grew up with the fear, worry and anxiety of nuclear war as all too tangible. U.S.-Soviet relations were so bad, the mushroom clouds were not a question of if, but when.

You had to be there. Be glad you weren’t.

Not to say 2024 is all wine and roses; despite the Cold War in our collective rearview mirror, we’re inching closer to That 1983 Feeling than we’ve ever been. At least today, we have Mike Bogue’s Watching the World Die: Nuclear Threat Films of the 1980s to keep us company. Just hopefully not in a bunker.

Something of a companion to Bogue’s previous tome, 2017’s Apocalypse Then (which focused on 1950s atomic cinema and shares McFarland & Company as publisher), Watching the World Die is, rather surprisingly, not the grim, doom-and-gloom read I expected. Documentaries aside, which the author purposely doesn’t include, the decade’s movies on the topic were largely escapist, thereby taking the edge off. Having characters like Yor, C.H.U.D., Hulk and Godzilla romping around will do that.

In all, Bogue casts his critical eye on 121 films in detail, from populist blockbusters (WarGames), well-intentioned flops (Superman IV: The Quest for Peace) and indie darlings (Miracle Mile) to three James Bond entries and many more Italian SFers. However, where Watching the World Die most excels is in rummaging through the junk drawer of VHS obscurities — not because Bogue’s writing differs in these essays (it doesn’t), but because the flicks get bonkers.

You may have heard about the Steve Barkett ego project The Aftermath, but what about Thomas A. Cohen’s survivalist family saga, Massive Retaliation? The Dack Rambo vehicle Ultra Warrior? Or Canada’s Survival 1990 with its dog-eating mutants? Giving attention to such forgotten B- and C-level genre productions is something of an archeological dig of unpopular culture; that Bogue’s shovel dug that deep into oblivion is enough to forgive his book’s exclusion of comedies — the intentional kind, I mean. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon or McFarland.

And now for a new book Martin Scorsese won’t be reading: Canadian journalist Shawn Conner’s Superheroes Smash the Box Office: A Cinema History from the Serials to 21st Century Blockbusters, from McFarland & Company. If you have any interest in the subject, though, I recommend it.

As a child of the 1970s, this voracious comics reader wondered why Superman was the only true four-color do-gooder at a theater near me; I longed for more. As a new adult of the 1990s, I couldn’t believe the studios finally caught up. Now, as an older adult of the 2020s, I honestly want the mighty Marvel movie machine to break into an irreparable state. How did we get from there to here? Film by film (more or less), Conner charts the answer.

His book is a zippy run through eight decades of examples — sometimes too zippy. Example: While 2004’s The Punisher isn’t a good movie, it seems odd to not mention its megastar antagonist, John Travolta. On the other hand, the author has a lot of ground to cover; luckily, he doesn’t waste time with scene-by-scene retellings like other books on this subject often do, instead focusing on development, production and reception.

As the chapters progress into our current times of Avengers ad infinitum, either he was rushed or simply less enthusiastic; either way, I don’t blame him. Every now and again, you’ll run across an egregious error — James Gunn didn’t direct The Specials, just as screenwriter Scott Frank has never won an Oscar — but not so many to question his credibility. I’ve encountered far worse offenders just among those writing about caped-crusader cinema.

With a surfeit of similar texts, what really kept me invested in Superheroes Smash the Box Office was Conner’s sense of humor about the whole enterprise. Fanboys may bristle for him for refusing to kneel at their false idols. For instance, CBS’ Incredible Hulk pilot is “a great show if you want to watch Bill Bixby change a tire in the rain.” And of Todd McFarlane’s stated quest for “integrity” and “dignity” in shepherding Spawn to the screen, Conner writes, “Strong words from a man with creative control over a film with a dwarf clown who emits green farts.” I’m still laughing over that one. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Thanks to the recent resurgence of “folk horror,” one of Nigel Kneale’s more underappreciated works of British television, the single-season anthology series Beasts, finally has earned the attention and reputation it didn’t quite get in 1976. Case in point: Andrew Screen’s first book, The Book of Beasts: Folklore, Popular Culture and Nigel Kneale’s ATV Horror Series.

Published by Headpress, which already has a Kneale biography in print, the weighty tome embraces — and achieves — its mission to be the definitive text on the show. The only way it could surpass that would be inclusion of Beasts’ episodes themselves, whether through disc or download. As the song goes, you can’t always get you want.

But if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need. It certainly made my day of airport layovers and flight delays easier. If you’ve enjoyed Beasts, this book is just that. If you have yet to see it, I wouldn’t recommend reading until you do, because, c’mon, spoilers. (The ending of “The Baby” alone will thank you.) Luckily, it’s readily available.

For all six episodes (and “Murrain,” a 1975 one-off rightly considered to be an unofficial precursor), Screen doesn’t just dig; he excavates. Reading each chapter is like getting a DVD commentary so detailed — on-set information, post-airing reaction, every moment broadcast and each evolution from Kneale’s original script — it runs over the allotted time. For example, for “Special Offer,” a standout hour in which only a mousy grocery employee can see the mischievous critter she blames for items literally flying off shelves, Screen gives further context by exploring other telekinesis-themed works (yes, Carrie) and real-life reports of poltergeist activity of the time.

Going above and beyond, the author includes information on what viewers might have seen if Beasts had been granted a second season. Not a ton exists — in some instances, an episode title is all Kneale wrote — but where else would you find it?

Kneale’s name never will go unassociated with his most famous creation, the Quatermass franchise. But the celebrated screenwriter left behind such a remarkable body of work, other items not named The Stone Tape or The Year of the Sex Olympics deserve top-of-mind consideration, too. The Book of Beasts goes a long way to push a certain animal-themed series there — invisible dolphins, rat attacks and all. —Rod Lott

Get it at Headpress.

To tell the history of the Warner Bros. studio is to tell the history of the movies. Reading Warner Bros.: 100 Years of Storytelling makes this apparent. Written by Forbidden Hollywood’s Mark A. Vieira, the hefty Running Press hardcover is an all-gloss affair, but in an impressive way, as the presentation matches its subject’s prestige.

Decade by decade, Vieira covers the WB releases as it transitions from silents to sound, from Technicolor epics to New Hollywood shake-ups, from blockbuster cinema to the franchise-driven today. This being a coffee-table book, Vieira’s text can’t go in depth, so he weaves as big a coverage blanket as possible, knowing the poster art and still photos are the project’s true stars. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

To consider Vincent A. Albarano’s look at SOV horror movies, Aesthetic Deviations: A Critical View of American Shot-on-Video Horror, 1984-1994, knowing what it’s not is the best starting point. As he makes clear from the outset, the paperback is neither a review guide nor a work of reference; by no means is it complete, restricted to a 10-year period.

The book’s subtitle wasn’t assembled for SEO purposes; Albarano has written a work of true scholarship, conceived as a thesis, which accounts for the use of words like “pugnacity,” “egalitarian” and “simulacrum.” It just so happens to study, in part, a horny ventriloquist’s dummy that looks like Rick James. (If your reluctance needs further calming, remember this one unassailable fact: Guys, it’s published by Headpress, K?)

After a brief history lesson on SOV’s start with such slashers as Blood Cult and Sledgehammer, Albarano combs through an overlooked, often spurned subgenre of “cinematic undesirables” in which “subtext is removed from the equation,” he writes. “They stick with the viewer despite their every wrong move. As a fan of these films, I’ve been puzzled by their very existence as much as I’m transfixed by their unique operations.”

Works from such backyard-and-basement moguls as Charles Pinion, J.R. Bookwalter, Carl J. Sukenick, Todd Cook and occasional punching bag Todd Sheets are examined. Other than the sheer range of titles covered, from the obvious to the unexpected, what I like most about Aesthetic Deviations is the author’s honesty; while he’s a fan of SOV, that doesn’t translate to slavish hyperbole. Instead, he’s unafraid to highlight both the uniqueness and misogyny of Chester N. Turner’s Black Devil Doll From Hell, praise the bravery of the Polonia Brothers’ Splatter Farm as he questions its anal-trauma fixation, or call out Gary P. Cohen’s Video Violence for reveling in the very thing it purports to vilify.

Although I didn’t realize until a footnote mentioned it, I’d read earlier drafts of two chapters in 2020, through Albarano’s one-shot zine on the topic, When Renting Is Not Enough (worth tracking down if you’d rather dip your toe before taking the full plunge). I’ll admit being skeptical of such a serious look at movies that “gain points,” per Stephen Thrower, “for being truly incoherent.” Yet like that lone issue of Albarano’s zine, the book that’s grown out of it is intelligent, thorough and, if you’ll grant it patience to make its case, accessible. —Rod Lott

Get it at Headpress.