Thomas Hodge’s VHS: Video Cover Art is hardly the only book to lovingly collect outré boxes from the dominant home-video format of the 1980s and ’90s, but it’s the first to feature this eyebrow-raiser from the back cover of the 1986 sex comedy Free Ride:

“HEALTH WARNING
Superglue is not a penis enlarging cream
See inside for details”

Woe be to the horny renter who couldn’t read, I guess.

That’s merely one small delight in Schiffer Publishing’s horizontal hardcover, full of colorful, kitschy boxes handpicked by Hodge, aka The Dude Designs, the moniker under which he creates wonderfully evocative key art of his own to cult flicks of today, from Hobo with a Shotgun to WolfCop. His style clearly kneels at altar of the cassette-rental heyday. It was a time when we were drawn to tapes we knew Mom never would allow us to bring home. With fondness, Hodge remembers the “rows upon rows of fantastically fun, crazed art depicting moustached muscle men, buxom beauties, big explosions, phallic guns, and nightmare-inducing monsters,” he writes in his introduction. “How can the Mona Lisa inspire after you’ve gazed upon the likes of Lust for Freedom and Silk as a kid.”

How indeed? (Although I’m more of a Silk 2 man, myself, being unable to resist photography of Monique Gabrielle wearing nothing but a shiny white bra.)

Hodge also wishes readers will discover many gems, and you will. That’s not because similar books — Jacques Boyreau’s Portable Grindhouse, Joe Pickett and Nick Prueher’s VHS: Absurd, Odd, and Ridiculous Relics from the Videotape Era — have zero overlap, but because Hodge is British. Therefore, the 250-ish tapes featured — obscurities like Blood & Guts: Heavy Thunder, Searchers of the Voodoo Mountain and The Chinese Typewriter — come from companies different from those stateside, meaning the covers are largely alien to Yankee eyes.

Being low-rent, such commissioned illustrations for the UK tapes manage to look really porny. Those companies got away with showing a lot of tits, and we’re not even talking X-rated titles. At least they retain the American practice of seemingly every tagline including dramatic ellipses, e.g. “ONLY ONE MAN WOULD DARE … CHALLENGE THE NINJA” and “THE INNOCENTS HAVE TASTED BLOOD … AND THEY LIKED IT!”

Choice as those lines are, they have nothing on the lost art of back-cover box copy, judging from these examples:
• What a Way to Go: “Kidnapped by a household of women to make love to a sex-starved fat woman”
• Spectreman: “Live actors attempt to outdo Superman through a new power to right wrongs, Spectreman. DEFINITELY FOR THE KIDS”
• Banzai Runner: “Cocaine trafficking is emerging. As one U.S. Drug Enforcement agent puts it: ‘Who’s going to catch you when you’re doing 200 mph.’ The answer could be Dean Stockwell.”

Could be! And yet VHS: Video Cover Art is a must-have. —Rod Lott

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I won’t, but I could tell you in excruciating detail where I was when I found out about — and subsequently purchased — Michael J. Weldon’s The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film. Same goes for Joe Kane’s The Phantom’s Ultimate Video Guide in 1989, not to mention many others across many years.

I bring it up only because had David Elroy Goldweber’s Claws & Saucers been published then instead of now, the ins and outs surrounding its acquisition forever would be imprinted on my brain. Claws & Saucers doesn’t have the personality to emerge as indispensable as those genre-centric film guides, but it generates the same nostalgic charge upon digging into it. Put simply, this huge, four-pound volume is just fun to flip through, whether to titles that pique your curiosity or at random.

Dedicated to horror, fantasy and science fiction, it’s the kind of film book that has taken up not just a special place in my heart, but an entire quadrant. It’s also the kind of film book a major publishing house would have handled back in the day, if not for the World Wide Web smothering mainstream print with a throw pillow. (Thanks, Internet!) Even acknowledging its faults — the wide pages would be better served by a two-column layout and ditching the extra spaces following punctuation — I’m smitten.

A contributor to the Forces of Geek website, Goldweber says he put nine years of work into Claws & Saucers — a claim I don’t doubt for a second. While it is impossible for such an endeavor to be “complete” (as the subtitle claims, but these things become outdated during the printing process), Goldweber has reached as close as possible by wisely using 1982 as a cutoff point. (Why then? Because, he writes in the intro, Tron’s computer effects changed everything.) I’d argue that he could fill at least another 684 pages by covering ’83 on, given two reasons:
1. that technological advances have made it easier for the layman to make movies
2. and that post-Star Wars, Hollywood has prioritized and lionized sci-fi, instead of relegating it to drive-in fare.

He’s still got, oh, eight full decades to work with, resulting in somewhere slightly north of 1,700 reviews, from Abbott and Costello Go to Mars to Z.P.G.. For each, the write-ups are usually brief: a touch of plot regurgitation, a fair bit of critical eyeballing, a round of numeric ratings and it’s on to the next one. Those numerals rate each flick on a 10-point scale in five categories: Action, Gore, Sex, Quality and Camp. These rankings strike me as so arbitrary to be white noise: I glossed right over them rather than got annoyed by them. It’s the written opinions that count, and the Claws & Saucers experience is more reliable than your local newspaper’s TV listings, and more open-minded than Leonard Maltin. —Rod Lott

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In naming his new book, Joseph Maddrey chose the wrong preposition: Beyond Fear is about fear. What the Bear Manor Media trade paperback is beyond is the usual quality of film bios seen in the indie-pub field — miles above, no less. The subtitle teases Reflections on Stephen King, Wes Craven, and George Romero’s Living Dead, which is to say essays about these terror titans’ lives and work, but imbued with threads of personality from Maddrey (perhaps best known for 2004’s Nightmares in Red, White and Blue and its subsequent 2009 documentary), all ridiculously readable. Romero actually represents just a smidge of the 336 pages, while Craven is more fleshed out, including a new-to-me nugget of how A Nightmare on Elm Street almost was made for Disney Channel. Clearly, Maddrey’s heart and soul lie with King, and it’s a testament to the volume that even if Romero and Craven’s parts were shaved away, your money still would be well-spent. He provides an enlightening encapsulation of the writer’s entire career — peaks, valleys and coke-fueled bumps — with particular attention paid to each novel’s germination. I devoured it like Constant Readers do King’s books.

In the mood for a good debunking? Are you sure? Because you might be disappointed to learn that the Mercury Theatre’s 1938 radio adaptation of a certain H.G. Wells novel did not cause widespread panic after all. Note: The operative word there is “widespread,” because as A. Brad Schwartz proves in Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News, uproar did result — just not in the teeming masses as legend has it. Kind of a book-length Snopes entry, but actually entertaining and readable, the Hill and Wang hardcover release makes its factual case while also delivering a stranger-than-fiction account of the real story behind the unreal story, full of eye-opening letters from listeners both outraged and amused. Given Welles’ eventual F for Fake documentary on hoaxes and forgeries, one would think the filmmaker himself would appreciate Schwartz’s stats-backed correction of “history”; on the other hand, he certainly ate up the post-War attention.

Don’t assume from the title of his new book, A Christian Response to Horror Cinema: Ten Films in Theological Perspective, that Peter Fraser is condemning the entire horror genre; while many deeply devout consider such entertainment to be satanic at face value, Fraser finds interest — and even pleasure — in viewing depictions of the light and the dark. In fact, he argues for their co-existence, despite not having a particular affinity for scare cinema. (This will not surprise you when he admits upfront that What Lies Beneath gave him “night terrors.”) Just over half the book is devoted to old-school chillers, one of which grants the McFarland-published paperback its highlight: his discussion of 1973’s The Exorcist. As he writes, while William Friedkin’s classic conjures evil onscreen, “the paradox … is that the story was apparently written and put onto film to lead people toward the faith.” I’ve made that argument before to deaf and deeply religious ears, so it’s refreshing to read the same from an open (if too easily frightened) mind.

As news arrives of Showtime reviving (or maybe not) David Lynch and Mark Frost’s weird, wonderful Twin Peaks television series, Andy Burns’ Wrapped in Plastic: Twin Peaks arrives as part of the second wave of ECW Press’ line of Pop Classics paperbacks. Judged as a free-flowing, long-form essay stemming from one man’s mind, Burns’ book works; judged as a story of the show’s making, it fails. (But it’s not meant to be that, for which I steer you toward Brad Dukes’ oral history, Reflections.) Small in size and page count, but not intelligence, Wrapped considers (and reconsiders) how damn risky the series was, its depiction of ultimate family dysfunction, and how influential it remains today in this age of “auteur television,” despite its all-too-brief broadcast life. Because the Pop Classics line lets its authors run wild, the results read deeply personal, if not always relatable; it depends upon your own love for each volume’s under-the-microscope subject. (For those keeping track, that has included Showgirls, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Elvis Costello, with Nicolas Cage to follow this fall.)

It is what it is: RKO Radio Pictures Horror, Science Fiction and Fantasy Films, 1929-1956. The hefty paperback from McFarland sees Michael R. Pitts covering every film that meets the book’s title criteria, from Adventure Girl to Zombies on Broadway. With even short subjects thrown in for good measure, the contents are presented alphabetically vs. chronologically. For RKO nuts — and believe me, they’re out there, given the studio’s runs with King Kong, Dick Tracy, Walt Disney, Val Lewton and Tarzan — the admittedly niche book should prove a welcome reference. For more general film lovers, only Pitts’ own critiques and historical perspective provide any sustenance, as IMDb has eliminated the need for comprehensive cast-and-crew credits, and I hear from a growing number of people that lengthy plot synopses are space-wasters as well. As per McFarland’s usual standards, original key art is widespread and tops. —Rod Lott

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As a fan of Dario Argento myself, I feel as if Derek Botelho wrote The Argento Syndrome just for me. Although Maitland McDonagh’s Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds is arguably the definitive book on the director famously dubbed (and derided) as “the Italian Hitchcock,” Botelho’s has the edge for pure entertainment value. Both books are musts for the filmmaker’s followers, as each takes a different tact.

While Botelho curiously fails to delineate Argento’s films on a year-by-year timeline, he covers Argento’s directorial efforts chronologically. Whether largely or nominally giallo (with one sex comedy sticking out like a sore penis), each movie merits its own chapter, from 1970’s wildly influential The Bird with the Crystal Plumage to 2012’s imperfect but harshly judged Dracula 3D.

The result? A thoroughly winning, armchair-style examination of a distinguished career, supplemented by wonderfully stylistic illustrations by Micha Maté to introduce each chapter and interviews of key players when the author could get them. Bonus points are due to Botelho for including Argento’s TV work, particularly 1973’s four-episode Door into Darkness anthology series, and for actually having something to say. Sadly, many indie film books lack this latter element, opting instead for fanboy service instead of genuine introspection.

Published by Bear Manor Media in a oversized paperback format as splashy as the director’s saturated colors, The Argento Syndrome sports a nifty design that complements the text. Only one thing bugged me about Botelho’s book: the chapters in which he recounts his face-to-face meetings with Argento and his famous daughter, Asia (xXx). These come off too starstruck, which I’m guessing was not the first-time author’s intent; the problem is not a fatal one because he calls Argento’s turds when he sees them, so his objectivity appears to remain intact. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon or Bear Manor Media.

Thus far, 2015 has brought us two movie-loving memoirs from major publishers: Comedian Patton Oswalt’s Silver Screen Fiend ushered in the New Year and now Adam Rockoff greets the sweltering months with The Horror of It All. Rockoff is just the guy you don’t know by name.

Or at least comparatively speaking. Fright fans — the crowd most likely to snap up this heartfelt hardback — may know Rockoff as the author of 2002’s Going to Pieces: The Rise and Fall of the Slasher Film (a nifty book which became the nifty documentary of the same name) and as the screenwriter of 2010’s I Spit on Your Grave remake. Okay, so he actually hid behind a pseudonym on that project, and the reason why makes for one of many good stories in The Horror of It All.

Unlike Oswalt’s book, which carries a narrative through-line, Rockoff’s could qualify as an essay collection. Although its breath-robbing subtitle (One Moviegoer’s Love Affair with Masked Maniacs, Frightened Virgins, and the Living Dead … ) suggests an adherence to fiction’s three-act structure, that tale is more or less told in the first chapter. It and the other nine aren’t really linked, other than that they are:
a) full of the author’s opinions, and
b) about horror movies.

Each can stand alone. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Not when they’re this damned entertaining.

In chapter two, Rockoff rips apart the now-notorious 1980 episode of Sneak Previews, in which Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert hypocritically decried the trend of slasher movies, while chapter seven examines supposed “snuff” films, from (what else?) Snuff and Faces of Death to Guinea Pig and, ergo, the extreme gullibility of Charlie Sheen.

Others pieces are historical-minded. One details the PMRC Senate hearings/attacks on heavy metal music; another, how the 1996 release of Wes Craven’s Scream resurrected the moribund genre of horror for the big screen to a degree that it has yet to abate (and, he argues with extreme confidence, never will).

And other sections are more personal, such as chapter four, dedicated to how and why the author’s teenaged self turned down a hand job in favor of watching a VHS tape full of horror trailers. He peppers the book with such nostalgic asides, from seeing his first Playboy to trolling the local flea market for life-altering issues of Fangoria.

Of that bargain-bonanza site, he writes, “Where else could you possibly find Chinese stars, a rattlesnake paperweight, and a ‘Kill a Commie for Mommy’ T-shirt within fifty yards of each other?” I bring this quote up to illustrate Rockoff’s most welcome sense of humor, which permeates every page; of renting vids with his buddies way back when: “And we had our minds blown by Sleepaway Camp. Sure, the film’s gender politics might have escaped us, but sometimes a girl with a dick trumps all.”

As if you couldn’t tell, Rockoff is unafraid to say what’s on his mind, even when it comes to admittedly (and wildly) unpopular opinions, such as Ridley Scott’s classic Alien being boring, Brett Ratner’s Red Dragon reigning superior over Michael Mann’s Manhunter, and — sacrilege of sacrileges! — the iconic shower scene of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho being “totally overrated … one big letdown.” (Don’t shoot the messenger, folks.)

If there’s an element to dislike about The Horror of It All, it’s not his mass slaughtering of sacred cows; after all, he presents them with conviction and compelling arguments. It’s that in the back half of the book, he increasingly comes off as kind of an asshole, as even the most well-constructed defense tends to come undone when it concludes with “Fuck you” or a variation thereof. At least these instances are few, none of which — alone or collectively — detract from the sheer enjoyment of reading the book, which I did in one weekend afternoon and instead of watching a horror movie. That’s how much fun it is. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.