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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Shrewdly timed to the theatrical release of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Glen Weldon’s The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture takes longer to consume, yet provides far more entertainment. A companion of sorts to his 2013 tome on the Man of Steel, the book excels as a work of cultural history … provided you can overlook the whiplash appearances of the occasional stuffy phrase (“slyphs in organza gowns”) and dropping of hipster lingo (“mansplaining”).

The book traces the Dark Knight’s “life,” from his 1939 “birth” in Detective Comics #27 to anchoring several DC Comics titles today. With the exacting fervor of someone who may consider The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide as “light reading,” Weldon details Batman’s many, many changes with the times and trends along the way — not just as a four-color character, but one who has leapt beyond the page to infiltrate the media of radio, television and, of course, the movies.

In comparing the Batman co-created by Bill Finger and liar/thief Bob Kane to the Batman of the 1966 camp television series to the Batman of Frank Miller’s 1986 revisionist graphic novel to the Batman of Christopher Nolan’s brooding film trilogy — to say nothing of all the Batmans in between, including Joel Schumacher’s much-reviled “urban-landscape-as-roller-disco” Batman — The Caped Crusade wildly succeeds. You’ll learn, for example, of an era in which your justice-seeker absolutely used guns and killed people, even on purpose.

Less successfully, Weldon attempts to couch this history of Gotham City’s No. 1 crime fighter as being congruent with the ascent of “nerd culture” from something the mainstream derides to something it now embraces. It’s a theory I’m not 100% subscribed to, and his endless, binary talk of “normals” and “nerds” sends my buy-in down a few notches with each chapter. Still, it makes for interesting reading nonetheless, which is exactly what you hope and expect from such a book, and he is not so beholden to his love of/for comics as to deny that their storylines have grown ridiculously dense.

By and large, Weldon is a fun writer to read, especially when he lets his considerable wit off the chain, whether referring to Boy Wonder sidekick Robin as “achingly kidnappable” or describing Adam West’s line delivery on the aforementioned 1960s TV program — and subsequent cash-in film — as being riddled with “pauses that are not merely pregnant but two weeks overdue.” (Even the footnotes are playful.) The sheer amount of times the author refers to something as “kinda gay” would be troubling if Weldon weren’t gay himself; however, this fact will go unnoticed unless one pays attention to the acknowledgments at the book’s end or has heard him mention his husband on NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast.

Which brings us to the book’s elephant-in-the-room caveat: If you have been or currently are a listener of that podcast, for which Weldon appears almost weekly as one of its primary hosts, it is impossible to read The Caped Crusade without hearing his voice in your head. Personally, that’s a negative, as his speaking method strikes me as so overly scripted and prepared to a fault, he often comes off as that smug know-it-all who, enabled by the rush of liquor to his bloodstream, corners people at parties and proceeds to cheerlead his own pomposity via $10 words. It’s not endearing.

And yet, like mines on a battlefield, you never know when his prose will unleash a vocabulary bomb that speaks above his target audience: agar, prolix, Derridean, caesurae, augured, febrile, noisome, tincture, bathetic, mesomorphic, abstruse, eschatological, elide, caromed, biliousness. Worse, several others appear multiple times: fealty, bolus, anodyne, gouaches, Sisyphean, lingua franca, mien, evince, gewgaws. Geegaws! That’s a word so goofy and cringe-inducing, it should only be uttered by preschoolers attempting to get the attention of their grandmother.

I mean, once you’ve read the cowled subject described as “po-faced,” “laconic” and “badass” for the third or fourth time, you understandably ache for a little variety. After all, there is nothing wrong with “disapproving,” “terse” or “intimidating,” is there? Holy Roget, Batman! —Rod Lott

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Maybe it’s just me, but the title of Bill Warren’s Keep Watching the Skies! may serve as a warning, i.e., you could get so wrapped up as to lose all sense of time. That’s certainly not a stretch, although arm strain could cut your reading session short. Subtitled American Science Fiction Movies of the Fifties, the book is such a behemoth that McFarland & Company has split it into two volumes (not sold separately) whose 1,000-plus pages collectively weigh nearly 6 pounds! First published in 1982, Keep Watching has been revised cover to cover (to cover to cover) for this 21st Century Edition, as Warren has revisited every film featured — now arranged alphabetically, from Abbott and Costello Go to Mars to X the Unknown — as well as added new entries. To call this massive undertaking a life’s work is not hyperbole. If each movie were represented by a mere pithy capsule review, a thumbs-up would not be automatic; instead, Warren affords each with a full, thought-out essay. Illustrations abound, with color pages of original posters inserted in the center of both volumes, kicking this project into that rarest of recommendations: unequivocally essential for the bookshelf of every cult-film fanatic.

Fresh from counting down the subjective 100 Greatest Science-Fiction Films, author Douglas Brode returns — this time with tongue a-waggin’ — to ogle luscious ladies in Deadlier than the Male: Femme Fatales in 1960s and 1970s Cinema. For the BearManor Media trade paperback, Brode profiles more than 100 of not necessarily the silver screen’s most golden goddesses, but those who also played it rough as villainesses. Thus, we get a lot of Bond girls and Hammer vixens, but dozens more hailing from the seamier side of exploitation cinema. Each woman is introduced with quick vital stats, such as her measurements (when available), before Brode digs in for a big-picture overview of her life and career, often with appropriately tongue-in-cheek self-awareness. For example, of Barbara Steele, he writes that “mostly her work consisted of being bound and gagged in old castles.” This goes a long way in mitigating Brode’s crime of misspelling names: Dianne Thorne, Silvia Kristel and Carol Baker, to point out just three errors. Among 522 jam-packed pages, rarely a spread goes by without a photo, almost all of which are dead-sexy. And, like the actresses’ films, several shots contain nudity, so keep away from prying eyes! I read this front to back over the course of several weeknights; if I were 14, it would be embarrassingly dog-eared … and not so much from “reading,” per se. 😉

Don’t let the highfalutin word in the subtitle keep you from Cycles, Sequels, Spin-offs, Remakes, and Reboots: Multiplicities in Film and Television. Edited by Amanda Ann Klein and R. Barton Palmer, this is a highly accessible look at why a franchise-crazed Hollywood is so fond of using and reusing the same concepts and stories. (The short answer: Because audiences pay in droves to see them.) From Dumbledore to mumblecore, this wonderful collection of 17 essays brims with sharp insights; for instance, the practice of capitalizing on familiarity dates back to cinema’s infancy, as Thomas Edison released a film based upon a popular novelty postcard in 1905. Standouts in this University of Texas Press trade paperback include Chelsea Crawford’s piece on American remakes of J-horror hits; Constantine Verevis’ use of the Jaws series to illustrate the When Animals Attack-style trend of the 70s (although calling Steven Spielberg’s undisputed classic a “disaster film” is terminology I take umbrage with); Robert Rushing considers how the waves of peplum, from Steve Reeves’ Hercules to the more recent Brett Ratner and Renny Harlin versions, play with sexuality; and Kathleen Loock’s examination of the major studios’ current fascination with reviving properties of the 1980s. However, another Kathleen — Williams — provides the most interesting chapter, on the YouTube phenomenon of retooled trailers, both by fans and, in the unique case of Snakes on a Plane, by execs.

Godzilla, Gamera and all their oversized, radiated ilk: Are they worthy of the intense critical examination afforded to “important” foreign films? Jason Barr sure as hell thinks so, and The Kaiju Film: A Critical Study of Cinema’s Biggest Monsters sure as hell serves as proof. Published in trade paperback by McFarland, this may be the most sober book ever written and that ever will be written on the subject, as Barr takes these films very seriously. Irked at pop culture’s broad view of these movies as greasy kids’ stuff, he takes a slight dig at William Tsutsui’s Godzilla on My Mind for being “flippant” in tone, yet at least that 2004 book was a delight to read. Barr clearly has won the war of expertise, because chapter by chapter, he illustrates an incredible depth of knowledge not just in the aforementioned franchises, but as the giant-monster genre as a whole is informed by Asian traditions predating cinema and interested in making pointed political statements (not all of which lurk as subtext — Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster, anyone?). The Kaiju Film is intelligent, all right. I just wish it also were fun. It’s essentially a thesis, not a reference work; take that into account as you decide responsibly. —Rod Lott

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