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

Get it at Amazon.

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

Get them at Amazon.

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

Get them at Amazon.

As revenue generated from video games rivaled — and eventually eclipsed — that of motion pictures, Hollywood executives have been eager to reclaim some of those plunked quarters by adapting arcade and console favorites into movies. It wasn’t always the more-regular occurrence it is today, and the results have been messier more often than not, and both those points make Luke Owen’s book on the subject a fairly fascinating chronicle of coin-op/cinematic synergy.

In Schiffer Publishing’s Lights, Camera, Game Over!: How Video Game Movies Get Made, the British-based Owen offers detailed production histories of 11 key adaptations — well, okay, 10 adaptations, plus Adam Sandler’s two-bit flop on 8-bit nostalgia, 2015’s Pixels.

Whether covering the utter debacle of Super Mario Bros. or the C-cup success of Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, each chapter zeroes in on each step of the often tortured conception, development, shooting, release and (with luck) legacy of these movies, drawing upon deep-dive research and Owen’s original interviews with principal players (most notably Mortal Kombat and Resident Evil director Paul W.S. Anderson, who contributes the book’s foreword), which yields an astounding, refreshing amount of candor — such as Jean-Claude Van Damme’s drug and dong use on the set of Street Fighter.

Not every game-based flick is included (sorry, Uwe Boll fans), but Owen does not neglect to include some of the more obscure films, such as the kung-fu jiggle-fest DOA: Dead or Alive and the misbegotten Tekken, originally slated to star Jackie Chan and Jet Li. More intriguing are shorter, interstitial chapters on movies that didn’t get made, including Halo and Pac-Man — and the proposed plot for that last one (courtesy of Poltergeist rebooter Gil Kenan) is one you won’t believe!

As strong as Owen is in gaming knowledge, he is not so much in spelling. Names are botched throughout the book — not just once, in a forgivable typo, but multiple times, like “Steven Segal” every time Steven Seagal is mentioned. Legendary Paramount Pictures exec Sherry Lansing becomes “Lancy”; The Shield creator Shawn Ryan, “Rowe”; splatter director Lucio Fulci, “Fulchi”; Resident Evil franchise players James Purefoy and Iain Glen, “Purefory” and “Glenn.”

Red flags fly high even concerning the veracity of simple information, when Owen refers to “Agatha Christie’s Strangers on a Train” when surely he meant Murder on the Orient Express, or calls the Brandon Lee vehicle Rapid Fire a made-for-TV movie, or continually confuses a work visa (lowercase) with the credit card giant Visa (uppercase). He uses “cannon” for “canon,” and “coo” for “coup.” Although not as cut-and-dry, the most eyebrow-raising stumble of all is his description of 1990 Tom Hanks as an “upcoming actor,” despite being the first or second lead in no fewer than a dozen major motion pictures by then, including such hits as Splash, Bachelor Party, Dragnet and Big, the latter earning him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor — hardly the “relative unknown” he is painted to be.

So, yes, Lights, Camera, Game Over! is in need of a reset button on the proofreading and copyediting levels, yet I’m too much of a sucker for a well-told tale of behind-the-scenes machinations to let those factual lapses sour the overall experience. In fact, I devoured all of its 315-plus pages over the course of two nights — and I don’t even like video games! I’m up for another round, because if he won’t preserve the history of Double Dragon and Doom, Lord, who will? —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Fresh from editing last summer’s Klaus Kinski: Beast of Cinema book, Matthew Edwards follows up with another winner in McFarland & Company’s Twisted Visions: Interviews With Cult Horror Filmmakers. Just shy of two dozen directors sit for probing, lengthy Q&As; none are household names, unless your household is adorned with Nekromantik merch. (And if that’s the case, I politely decline your invitation for a sleepover.) Among the highlights: Alfred Sole reveals one of his actresses tried to kill herself during the Alice Sweet Alice shoot; Don’t Go in the House’s Joseph Ellison recalls facing the loaded rifle of the owner of the house they shot at; Rodrigo Gudiño traces his path from founder of Rue Morgue magazine to full-fledged filmmaker; and, in arguably the most interesting chapter, Jack Sholder spills the details about what an asshole Michael Nouri was throughout the making of The Hidden. Edwards is a strong interviewer, posing questions that have genuine thought behind them, which shows in the subjects’ passionate, candid responses.

In a summer when the overdue Wonder Woman has reigned supreme, one wonders if Ridley Scott’s Thelma & Louise didn’t give the Amazon princess a boost to smash the multiplex’s glass ceiling. In commemoration of the 1991 Oscar winner, Becky Aikman chronicles every step in its making — and subsequent leaps of influence — in Off the Cliff: How the Making of Thelma & Louise Drove Hollywood to the Edge. I only wish the Penguin Press release were at least half as compelling as the film it commemorates. While Aikman is a fine writer, initial chapters focusing on screenwriter Callie Khouri alone tend to overstate the stakes or create drama when there appears to be none, assumedly to support one exec’s quote that all the planets aligned for this one-in-a-million moonshot. Her you-are-there approach works once the film’s tortured, elongated, barrier-strewn development process begins, including Scott not in the director’s chair, Goldie Hawn lobbying hard for a lead and failed sitcom supporting player George Clooney auditioning for the small, shirtless role that eventually made a star out of one William Bradley Pitt. One of the strongest parts of Aikman’s book is the epilogue, in which Hollywood remains a boys’ club, despite T&L‘s Zeitgeist success. No argument there.

Another McFarland trade paperback, this one from Lyndon W. Joslin, gets a fresh coat of blood-red paint for its third edition: Count Dracula Goes to the Movies: Stoker’s Novel Adapted. More than half of the book finds the author comparing Bram Stoker’s 1897 epistolary classic to 18 subsequent screen adaptations, to see how faithful (or not) the likes of Tod Browning, Francis Ford Coppola, Werner Herzog, Jess Franco, Dario Argento and Mel Brooks are — or, as the case often is, are not. While Joslin knows Stoker’s text inside and out, reading scene-by-scene beats of each film is tiresome; I quickly found greater enjoyment skipping these synopses and diving straight into his commentary. Later, less-exhaustive chapters focus on the Universal sequels, the Hammer cycle and notable vampire flicks that owe more to the Hollywood matinee than the Gothic text, from AIP’s Count Yorga to the Wes Craven-presented Dracula 2000. This book inadvertently makes a terrific companion to the publisher’s recent Vampire Films of the 1970s. —Rod Lott

Get them at Amazon.