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.

While Roger Corman’s reputation of frugality holds merit, it’s all too often considered synonymous with “talentless,” which simply isn’t true. Whenever someone has questioned Corman’s competence as director, his cycle of Edgar Allan Poe films for AIP has served as my go-to defense. Genuine art and entertainment reside in that octet.

Chris Alexander needs no such swaying; he’s been all-in since childhood. Now, the Delirium magazine editor and filmmaker himself (Necropolis: Legion) devotes an entire book to the subject in — take a breath — Corman/Poe: Interviews and Essays Exploring the Making of Roger Corman’s Edgar Allan Poe Films, 1960-1964. Annnnnd exhale.

For anyone already in Alexander’s camp, myself included, the Headpress release is a must-own.

Whether Tales of Terror or Tomb of Ligeia, each movie earns its own chapter. Without fail, each chapter is split into three sections: a synopsis, an interview with Corman, then Alexander’s analysis — let’s just call it a review so you don’t discount the work as pud-pulling academia. Alexander may be prone to hyperbole on occasion, but the mofo can write.

Of these sections, the interviews are the book’s raison d’être. Corman graciously gives credit where it’s due, primarily to production designer Daniel Haller, cinematographer Floyd Crosby and screenwriter Richard Matheson. (Oddly, future director Nicolas Roeg’s exquisite photography on The Masque of the Red Death goes undiscussed.) Without bad-mouthing Mark Damon, Corman also dispels the actor’s claim of directing The Pit and the Pendulum.

In the same gentlemanly manner, Corman reveals how he got Vincent Price to emote on the proper wavelength on the first film, The Fall of the House of Usher; how Ray Milland measured against Price, who was unavailable for The Premature Burial; how Peter Lorre’s style threw off Price and Boris Karloff on The Raven; how he worked around Karloff’s health issues; and what he thinks of AIP turning an H.P. Lovecraft adaptation into a Poe pic with a mere slap-on quote and title switcheroo for The Haunted Palace.

Because the interviews are presented Q&A-style, the reader can hear Corman’s every word in their head — even when he talks about the act of orgasming.

For the cycle’s last couple of entries in the cycle, the credit pages contain some inaccuracies — more likely due to layout. Visually, though, Corman/Poe is generously illustrated throughout. Of particular value is a full-color appendix of posters (Poe-sters?) from all around the globe, plus novelizations and comic books. —Rod Lott

Get it at Headpress.

I completely understand why a chunk of cult-film fandom loathes Mystery Science Theater 3000; to paraphrase singer and arrest magnet Bobby Brown, that’s their prerogative. Speaking for myself, however, I wouldn’t be here — as in, this site — without it, as the TV show introduced me to a netherworld of movies I was unaware of, and pushed me to discover more. (You can read more about that in the introduction to my book, Flick Attack Movie Arsenal.)

Needless to say, you know right away whether Dale Sherman’s The Worst We Can Find: MST3K, Rifftrax, and the History of Heckling at the Movies is for you. The paperback is new from Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, his frequent publisher (Armageddon Films FAQ, Quentin Tarantino FAQ, et al.).

Despite the subtitle, this is the history of Joel Hodgson’s long-running Peabody Award-winning series first and foremost, with everything else adjacent or tangential. In fact, skip the first chapter on the origins of heckling (if the phrase “According to Merriam-Webster” doesn’t make you do so already) and get right into the goods with a look at MST3K precursors, from Woody Allen’s What’s Up, Tiger Lily? to the syndicated TV show Mad Movies with the L.A. Connection. (Speaking of, Mike White’s 2014 book of the same name covers even more forerunners.)

From there, Sherman paints a full picture of the series’ evolution from local UHF sensation in Minneapolis to the national stage, where it was juggled among a couple of channels, revived for streaming and resurrected yet again for its current, crowdfunded home on the internet. You may know all of that already, but Sherman fills in the details of the writing process, the constant budget constraints, how films were selected, which ones they admit didn’t work, why each cast member left, the in-fighting behind the scenes, the battles with Hollywood to make Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie and all the members’ side projects, riff-related or otherwise (mostly the former).

Even if Sherman didn’t conduct the interviews that revealed these details, he certainly did his homework. The Worst We Can Find gives a thorough overview of the series, breezing by at a level firmly between a cursory flyover and a nails-dirty dig into the weeds. Really, going straight down the middle is the right call: It’s accessible without lacking substance, and comprehensive without veering into the arcane or anal-retentive. So what if the author’s lightly peppered stabs at humor fizz like a day-old Dr Pepper? He’s writing about a show he loves so much, it’s natural Sherman get caught in the enthusiasm. If his passion hadn’t come through is when we would worry. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

We like what we like. No excuses necessary. So says Katharine Coldiron in her new book, Junk Film: Why Bad Movies Matter. One need not explain to others why your tastes lean toward X instead of Y, yet I’m glad she’s chosen to do so in the baker’s dozen of essays making up this Castle Bridge Media trade paperback. Pleasure lives on every page.

Whether discussing the merits of Death Bed: The Bed That Eats, the sweat of John Travolta or the litigiousness of Neil Breen, Coldiron’s writing is supremely intelligent. But don’t equate the I word to being an academic slog; the read is a delight. I could see myself having a conversation with her about these movies at a dinner party. And look, if there’s one thing I dread more than social gatherings, it’s talking.

With her wit is as strong as deeming Showgirls screenwriter Joe Eszterhas as “King Shit of Erotic Thriller Mountain,” I’d be more than happy to just listen. As she writes in the book’s introduction, “Without a sense of humor, bad art is unstudiable.”

While she puts that humor to good practice throughout, she takes her subject seriously. A film that fails is worth watching as much as one that succeeds, she argues with conviction. How else can one truly know what makes a movie good without knowing what doesn’t? It’s “an opportunity beyond the obligatory sex and bloodshed, to see something unique and valuable at the purported bottom of the barrel of American cinema.” If I already weren’t aboard that train of thought, her reasoning would win me over.

Many of the movies covered, like Jack Hill’s Switchblade Sisters (to which the quote above refers), Coldiron actually adores. Fewer pics repel her, and it’s comforting to find another smart person left baffled by Mark Region’s über-enigmatic After Last Season.

I enjoyed Junk Film so much, I don’t care that two chapters aren’t about movies at all. (They’re on Sean Penn’s atrocious novels and Steven Bochco’s short-lived Cop Rock TV show. Also, they’re hysterical.) Hell, I even learned about an entire eight-film franchise I didn’t know existed: Monogram’s “Teen Agers” films of the late 1940s; her play-by-play rundown of these disposable comedies alone is nearly worth the cover price. Plus, as with Castle Bridge’s Yesterday’s Tomorrows: The Golden Age of Science Fiction Movie Posters, the contents sport expert design from In Churl Yo.

Finally, to address the book’s best-kept secret, Junk Film is actually two books in one, since the piece on Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space was published by UK-based Electric Dreamhouse in 2021 as part of its Midnight Movie Monographs series. Even if that weren’t the case, this remains a real score. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

One thing the Amazing Criswell didn’t predict: the existence of Edwin Lee Canfield’s Fact, Fictions, and the Forbidden Predictions of the Amazing Criswell, the first biography of the “psychic,” “actor” and other professions you could put in ironic quotes. Published by the great Headpress, which makes perfect sense, the book is so exhaustively researched, it gives itself chronic fatigue syndrome.

If at all, older generations are most apt to know Jeron Charles Criswell King through multiple sits on the hallowed couch of Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, from where he spouted outrageous prophecies. Younger generations, however, likely came to know him through the films of Ed Wood, most notably Plan 9 from Outer Space, in which he plays himself, and Orgy of the Dead, in which he doesn’t, but may as well be since his approach is unchanged.

Since the Ed Wood rediscovery — roughly from the Medveds’ The Golden Turkey Awards in 1980 to Tim Burton’s Oscar-winning biopic of 1994 — Criswell has become a semi-legend of outré cinema. As Canfield demonstrates in detail, Criswell’s corniness wasn’t confined to the screen; the Renaissance (or Rent-a-Sance, perhaps) man was an outré figure in real life itself.

While the Wood association-cum-collaboration is well-explored, so are the less visible aspects of Criswell’s nearly eight decades on this mortal plane. His close friendship with sex symbol Mae West — then so past her prime, she was practically a recluse — may be oddball, but appears to be the definition of normal compared to his relationship with one Halo Meadows: that of longtime spouse, despite almost certainly being homosexual. Although Criswell was no stranger to embellishment when he met his Meadows, the wannabe theater icon thoroughly schooled her husband in self-promotion and -delusion.

All too often, figures on the cultural fringe are dismissed as mere crackpots to be laughed at like obliviously masturbating zoo animal, but Canfield gives Criswell the bio he deserves. Not because Criswell wasn’t a crackpot; he totally was, but he also was human. His Walter Mitty-style life comes across as both blessed and miserable, because while he enjoyed a mild celebrity, he seemed unable to fully capitalize on it, with he and Meadows always scraping for the next buck, not always legally.

If you’ve never read a Criswell prediction — as bold and brazen as they are baffling — Fact, Fictions has plenty loaded in its chamber, from his newspaper columns and books. The samples reprinted number many — sometimes too many, as a little goes a long way. Readers definitely get a full sense of his soothsaying showmanship … and wonder not only how anyone could take it seriously, but if it were all an act. You’ll find the answers — and more! — in this thick ’n’ quick read. For close to 400 pages, Canfield cannily celebrates Criswell’s bullshit while pulverizing right through it. —Rod Lott

Get it at Headpress or Amazon.