Curiously, two new books are about the idiosyncratic and ill-mannered German cult actor Klaus Kinski. The one to get is Klaus Kinski, Beast of Cinema: Critical Essays and Fellow Filmmaker Interviews, edited by Matthew Edwards and including the perspectives and talents of several others. (It takes a village, people!) Edwards — whose excellent 2007 collection, Film Out of Bounds, also was published by McFarland & Company — separates the book into thematic thirds: essays, interviews and reviews. In doing so, he and his contributors approach their subject from a variety of angles and points of accessibility. Covering everything from his iconic collaborations with Werner Herzog to his late-in-life residency in B-movie hell, the essay portion finds Beast of Cinema at its most buttoned-up, whereas the book loosens up considerably for Edwards’ Q&As with those who worked with Kinski and lived to tell about it — most notably, Schizoid director David Paulsen and actress Flo Lawrence, both rife with tales of the actor’s bad behavior, physical and sexual. By the time Beast hits the section of approximately 50 reviews, it has its shirt unbuttoned and feet on the table. Pour yourself two fingers of your hard liquor of choice and peruse the reviews, heavy on spaghetti Westerns, sexploitation, spy adventures and scary fare — unsurprisingly the reason I’ll return to this text in years to come.

Having written the history of American International Pictures in 1984’s Fast and Furious, it makes sense the ridiculously knowledgeable Mark Thomas McGee would be the one to write Katzman, Nicholson, Corman: Shaping Hollywood’s Future. Available from BearManor Media, the book spotlights the careers of “three pioneers in bargain basement entertainment,” primarily in the 1950s: producer Sam Katzman, AIP co-founder James Nicholson and multihyphenate content machine Roger Corman. Rather than tie them together in one narrative — which would make sense, given their crossed paths — he handles each man separately. In his usual easygoing style, McGee is less interested in sharing their stories than he is leaping from one anecdote to another, not always stopping to ensure transitions for smooth sail-through. The result is highly conversational, as if you’re seated at the corner of a bar with the author, but he’s a good drink or two ahead of you, so forgive him if and when he rambles. While I would have preferred a tighter-told work — or at least one with consistency in presentation among its thirds — fans of the AIP era should find enough behind-the-scenes nuggets to chew on, not to mention capsule reviews of select films and a smattering of photographs. KNC is not bad, but it’s not essential, either.

Few things have influenced the horror film more than the Grand Guignol, aka that theater in France in which characters were rather graphically tortured and killed onstage; it’s not uncommon to see “Grand Guignol” used as a descriptive adjective in film criticism today. Short of catching some brave local theater troupe in your area staging a tribute show, Mel Gordon’s Theatre of Fear and Horror: The Grisly Spectacle of the Grand Guignol of Paris, 1897-1962 is as close as we can get to experiencing this late, great art form. (And having sat through one of those tribute shows, I much prefer this book.) Gordon quickly but satisfyingly dispenses with the origins and history of the place so he can dig into the real meat of the piece: single-paragraph descriptions of 100 Grand Guignol classics, supplemented with a more-than-generous helping of photos, playbills and revealed tricks. Originally published in 1988, this expanded edition from Feral House arrives with an additional script (“Orgy in the Lighthouse”) and, in the trade paperback’s center, 14 color pages, all but the last of which reproduces the original illustrated posters, both lavish and ghoulish. Thriving on visual stimulation throughout, the volume is a gorgeous package of garish content. Following Sin-a-Rama: Sleaze Sex Paperbacks and It’s a Man’s World: Men’s Adventure Magazines, Feral House continues to knock these new-and-improved reissues out of the park.

The genre of the giallo is so voluminous by now, it is all too easy to fire off a bad book in search of a quick buck. Mind you, Michael Sevastakis’ Giallo Cinema and Its Folktale Roots: A Critical Study of 10 Films, 1962-1987 is not that book. (This is.) With each chapter devoted to a particular film, the McFarland book makes the case for the giallo’s artistic merit — an idea most mainstream critics scoff at once the blood runs running. Rather than focus on the usual suspects (in titles and directors), Sevastakis spreads the wealth, with no filmmaker repped more than once; while the names you expect are indeed here (Dario Argento, Mario Bava, Lucio Fulci, etc.), the work chosen for each is not necessarily the anticipated default selection — for instance, Umberto Lenzi is featured by neither Eyeball nor Spasmo, but Seven Blood-Stained Orchids — and damn, does the author break it all down with aplomb. His discussion is detailed, insightful and intelligent — perhaps a deeper dive than you’d like for leisurely reading, but hey, it backs up his point that there’s much more to these films than meets the (gouged) eye. —Rod Lott

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More creatively satisfying than World Gone Wild, his 2014 survey of postapocalyptic films, David J. Moore’s The Good, the Tough & the Deadly: Action Movies & Stars 1960s-Present is in reach of claiming definitive status, but falls short in its deliberate choice (too convoluted to discuss here) to exclude the genre’s seminal titles from coverage. Die Hard? Not here. Escape from New York? Not here. Lethal Weapon? Not here. Excessive Force II: Force on Force? Totally here! In essence, the 5-pound hardcover is built mostly upon the VHSographies of such lower-rung stars as Michael Dudikoff, Mark Dacascos, Oliver Gruner, Billy Blanks and Don “The Dragon” Wilson, and there’s absolutely not a damn thing wrong with that obscurities-first approach. Prepare to find yourself spending hours falling down the rabbit hole of looking up one flick, which only reminds you of three to four others, thereby decimating any intent to consume its contents in an orderly fashion. Supplementing around 500 pages of reviews (with Destroy All Movies’ Zack Carlson and Seagalogy’s Vern occasionally weighing in) are here-and-there, unedited transcripts of Q-and-As with personalities like Dolph Lundgren and Cynthia Rothrock. These would be more welcome if Moore’s interview style were less ass-kissing, had fewer yes/no questions and contained absolutely no statements along the lines of “Say something about [insert title here].” Mitigating factor: Heavily illustrated in full color throughout.

If you want to prep for next year’s Twin Peaks relaunch with a recent text on the cult series, buy Brad Dukes’ oral history, Reflections. If you buy two, get that and Twin Peaks FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About a Place Both Wonderful and Strange. In this entry of Applause’s pop-culture FAQ line, David Bushman and Arthur Smith cover the David Lynch/Mark Frost cult classic with a crash course that qualifies both as entry-level and deep-dive. The co-authors are at their best in the general, behind-the-scenes stories of how the groundbreaking series and its misunderstood movie prequel came to pass and how the television was changed forever after. Of almost as much interest are chapters detailing the various tie-in books, copycat TV series and cultural references, but the more obsessive the sections get (such as laying out the entire mystery’s events in a timeline), the less I was interested. Unlike the aforementioned Reflections, this FAQ is nonessential for Peaks freaks (or those destined to be), but it certainly doesn’t hurt, either.

A follow-up to their Up from the Vaults volume of 2004, John T. Soister and Henry Nicolella’s Down from the Attic: Rare Thrillers of the Silent Era Through the 1950s excavates two dozen films that truly meet the “rare” criteria and presents more information on them than we’re likely to get anywhere else. Among those covered: a lost Charlie Chan mystery, 1926’s The House Without a Key; an Edgar Wallace feature in 1934’s Return of the Terror; and 1921’s Island of the Lost, an unofficial adaptation of H.G. Wells’ Dr. Moreau that predates the official one. The label they place upon 1937 Sherlock Holmes entry, Der Hund von Baskerville, could apply to all of their subjects: “more of a curiosity than a classic.” Soister and Nicolella are the first to admit that “no great movies [are] in the bunch,” but they approach each picture as if it were, with amazingly thorough research and critical review. Synopses can — and do — grow tiring, but given the obscurity of these thrillers, the authors can be forgiven on the basis of historical preservation. Like so many of McFarland & Company’s film books, the wealth of stills and poster art is most appreciated, especially in the case of the mesmerizing Just Imagine, a forward-thinker from 1930.

Two things steered me toward wanting to read James Presley’s The Phantom Killer: Unlocking the Mystery of the Texarkana Serial Murders: The Story of a Town in Terror: First was the unexpectedly clever reboot of The Town That Dreaded Sundown, which depicted the still officially unsolved crime spree. Second was the segment on said subject in the documentary Killer Legends, which utilizes Presley as a talking-head expert. I’m glad something did, because the book — now in paperback from Pegasus Crime — is deserving of status as a true-crime masterpiece à la Vincent Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter, in part because, as with that 1974 classic, it chilled me to the core in the middle of a sunny afternoon. Combining an investigative reporter’s doggedness with a storyteller’s skillful hooks, Presley gets under your skin and stays there long after you’ve hit the last page.

In 11 sharp and witty essays, each focused on a particular film, Hadley Freeman takes a long look back at the countless hours spent with Ferris Bueller, Andie Walsh and Marty McFly — and what we collectively gleaned from their return visits — in Life Moves Pretty Fast: The Lessons We Learned from Eighties Movies (And Why We Don’t Learn Them from Movies Anymore). Front-loaded with “chick flicks” like Dirty Dancing and The Princess Bride, the book widens appeal as it goes, looping in Batman, Ghostbusters and peak Eddie Murphy as Hadley celebrates these pictures by breaking down their simple pleasures and more complicated subtext. She praises the era’s comedies for being “willing to deal” with issues of social class (thanks, John Hughes), while also damning them for having their female characters “dress like shit” (thanks, John Hughes). Despite the author’s overuse/misuse of “literally” and transitory lists whose punch lines fail to pop, Life Moves Pretty Fast is a smart, no-brainer buy full of laughs, love and longing. —Rod Lott

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As recent attacks in Paris have demonstrated, the City of Lights unwillingly can be at odds with its postcard-perfect image propagated by the tourism board. Terrorism aside, Alexandra West examines the “nihilistic forces and presences” at work from within France, and how they have made their way into Films of the New French Extremity: Visceral Horror and National Identity. With a piercing critical eye and a wealth of insight, West takes a long, hard look at about two dozen movies, several of which have become well-known in the States: among them, Baise-moi, Irreversible, Trouble Every Day and the ultra-gory triple threat of Martyrs, Frontier(s) and Inside, all arranged into loose themes. Prior consumption of titles is hardly required; she keeps discussion lively and engaging, whether it’s a movie fresh on my mind (Sheitan) or something I never plan to see (anything else from Gaspar Noé). Published by McFarland & Company in trade paperback, West’s book is so très fantastique that I wish it were a reference guide that covered hundreds of films, while while I remain appreciative of what it is: a well-curated representation of the movement at large, even extends to High Tension director Alexandre Aja’s Hollywood work as a remake machine.

Can’t wait to put some scares into your summer moviegoing with The Bye Bye Man? Well, hate to break it you, but the flick has been delayed to December. Fear not! You can temporarily scratch your urban-legend itch by reading the book on which the film is based. Originally published as 2005’s The President’s Vampire: Strange-but-True Tales of the United States of America, Robert Damon Schneck’s work has been slyly and slickly repackaged as a TarcherPerigee trade paperback tie-in as — hell, what else? — The Bye Bye Man and Other Strange-but-True Tales, with a new afterword so brief, it hardly merits this mention. The title tale is an account of some Wisconsin teens’ terrifying experiences after screwing around with a Ouija board. Schneck approaches it and each of the seven other stories with the doggedness of a journalist, albeit a journalist reporting on ghosts, inexplicably vanishing kids, spirit advisers, mummies and the like. Even if I don’t believe any of them, Charles Fort sure would be proud and potential surely exists for a fun horror film … or eight.

Literate Orson Welles fans have had it rather good of late, with A. Brad Schwartz’s Broadcast Hysteria, Peter Biskind’s My Lunches with Orson and Josh Karp’s Orson Welles’s Last Movie hitting shelves, to mention just three. Now add Harlan Lebo’s Citizen Kane: A Filmmaker’s Journey, in hardcover from Thomas Dunne Books, to that list. On second thought, scratch that: Move it right to the top. Drawing upon intimidating levels of research, Lebo has crafted what must be the definitive telling of this classic film’s complete story; while many Kane texts are keen to settle on the actual production and the behind-the-scenes war of the words with William Randolph Hearst, Hebo widens the lens on both sides, with particular attention paid to how the movie’s reputation ballooned over subsequent decades, often in disproportion to Welles’ own. The greatest of this type of book is to make you want to revisit its subject yet again while lending your eyes a fresh perspective; Lebo’s Journey does just that. A toast, Jedediah, to love on its terms!

Attention, all members in good standing of the KISS Army, Brett Weiss’ Encyclopedia of KISS: Music, Personnel, Events and Related Subjects is for you. Not being a fan myself of the legendary ’70s shock-rock band, I’m hardly the target market for this McFarland & Company paperback release. Much more than focused on albums and singles, the work catalogues forays into film, TV and comics, yet it strikes me as large in scope and light on detail. For example, the movie nut in me is drawn toward three things: the infamous Hanna-Barbera production KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park and Gene Simmons’ better half, erotic-thriller queen Shannon Tweed. While both are included, information on each is extremely limited; therefore, the band’s legion of hungry followers may find the book ironically wanting. Completists will want it nonetheless.

I had a blast perusing page after page of Bob Leszczak’s Single Season Sitcoms of the 1980s: A Complete Guide. A sequel to his similarly named project covering the years 1948-1979 (also published by McFarland & Company), the paperback profiles an entire era-appropriate TV Guide’s worth of ratings-challenged comedies I grew up with (well, for several months, anyway) and loved: It’s Your Move, starring Jason Bateman at his smarmiest; The Duck Factory, with then-unknown Jim Carrey as an animator; the non-sequitur No Soap Radio; the Police Academy-influenced The Last Precinct; and Leslie Nielsen as Frank Drebin in Police Squad!, in color! There are many more that I didn’t like, and those are here, too. (I should note that then, as with today, I had no social life.) Leszczak provides a significant amount of background info for each show, supplemented with comments from actors and creators when available. While lists of episode titles don’t do anything for me, they are here for historical preservation. Who else is willing to do it? —Rod Lott

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You kids have no idea how good you have it! Avengers fighting Avengers in an all-out superhero melee in Captain America: Civil War? The comics-obsessed, grade-schooler me would’ve cut a bitch to see that! Alas, ’twas the ’70s, when we had to make do with Reb Brown on a star-spangled motorcycle — made for TV, no less! And yet, memories of those “golden years” are what makes McFarland & Company’s Marvel Comics into Film: Essays on Adaptations Since the 1940s such a blast to read. Edited by Matthew J. McEniry, Robert Moses Peaslee and Robert G. Weiner, the collection could just focus on the current Marvel Studios product and have plenty to write about, but luckily casts its net wider, to a point that may put off this generation’s fanboys weaned purely on the Phase One / Phase Two marketing initiatives alone — their loss! Being that kid who had to dream of a world of superhero movies, the standout pieces for me were those by Arnold T. Blumberg, David Ray Carter and Jef Burnham on, respectively, “the First Marvel Television Universe,” the aforementioned early Cap movies (including Cannon’s ill-fated 1990 version) and the “Small Screen Avengers.” That’s not to say other chapters didn’t tickle my four-color fancy, either, whether digging into the Conan the Barbarian franchise, Ghost Rider’s connection to Goethe’s Faust, Japan’s live-action Spider-Man series, George Lucas’ infamously character-misjudging Howard the Duck feature or David Hasselhoff’s turn as Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Look, any textbook that unironically compares the Punisher performances of Dolph Lundgren, Thomas Jane and Ray Stevenson clearly is one kick-ass textbook. ’Nuff said.

Machetes, finger blades, butcher knives? So passé. Menorahs, breasts and bongs are really where it’s at. And by “it,” I mean the means used to kill guys and gals in terror-tinged cinema. Co-authors Christopher Lombardo and Jeff Kirschner are like an overly morbid Casey Kasem, counting ’em down in Death by Umbrella! The 100 Weirdest Horror Movie Weapons, released by BearManor Media in the indie publisher’s usual dual hardcover and paperback editions. Separated by category (kitchen utensils, sports equipment, etc.), each tool of execution earns its own description of the gory details, but in setting up each kill, the co-authors actually are providing a full-fledged review of the movie in question, thus making the book more than a mere list. Lovingly written with verve for the viscera, Death by Umbrella is fun and funny as it covers scenes both iconic (Happy Birthday to Me’s shish kebab, which doubled as its poster art) and arcane (Discopath’s slabs of vinyl). Only a few times do the guys pull from outside the genre (Paul Thomas Anderson’s Oscar-anointed There Will Be Blood being the most egregious non-slasher), but we’ll forgive. After all, they can sate your curiosity surrounding DTV trash like Super Hybrid in order to save you from sitting through it.

Paul Green’s Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns: Supernatural and Science Fiction Elements in Novels, Pulps, Comics, Films, Television and Games — Second Edition obviously aims for a niche-of-a-niche readership, and luckily for it, this reviewer happily counts himself among that group and, therefore, welcomes such a project that others may dismiss as “why bother?” waste. First published in 2009, this McFarland trade paperback moseys into your TBR pile with 47 additional pages so now we can read about more recent items, like the Jonah Hex movie. Green is not a critic — at least not within the confines of this book, which is a true encyclopedia as the title claims. Arranged from A to Z, entries are strictly factual in nature, ranging from one sentence to half a page. Success of these highly specialized reference texts is measured twofold: 1) that it includes every test you throw its way (the indie Western Tales of Terror comic book is here, as is NBC’s 1979 anthology show Cliffhangers), and 2) that it introduces you to obscurities so esoteric, they sound invented (Action Comics #311, the issue concerning “The Day Super-Horse Became Human”). Richly illustrated, most pleasingly with comic-book panels and pages, Weird Westerns errs only in the occasional questionable inclusion: Avatar, Mr. Green? —Rod Lott

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