Of the three collaborative volumes between Michael S. Price and John Wooley in the ongoing Forgotten Horrors series I’ve read thus far, Forgotten Horrors to the Nth Degree: Dispatches from a Collapsing Genre is the best.

It speaks directly to the film geek in me, saying, “Hey, read me, film geek.” It also is different from the others — Volume 6 just came out last month — in that instead of being a collection of reviews, it is a collection of columns that operate as both reviews and interviews. The contents are culled largely from the authors’ long-running, now-defunct, eponymous column in Fangoria magazine.

Roughly 40 films are examined in depth in such a manner, with Price-Wooley incorporating their opinions with the insights of at least one direct participant from the flick in question, no matter which side of the camera. The names include — but are by no means limited to — Donald Pleasence (Raw Meat), Rudy Ray Moore (Petey Wheatstraw), Ivan Reitman (Cannibal Girls), Chuck Connors (Tourist Trap), Marilyn Chambers (Rabid) and Jamie Lee Curtis (Terror Train).

Just about everyone seems thrilled to discuss the particular, peculiar CV entry in question, save for two examples: The Entity‘s Barbara Hershey and Barn of the Naked Dead director Alan Rudolph, who refuses to admit association with it, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary.

Purposely, the pieces fall within the horror genre’s heyday, said by the authors to begin with H.G. Lewis’ invention of the gore picture with 1963’s Blood Feast and end with the shot-on-video Blood Cult, which changed everything in 1985 by being the first feature film expressly made for the home-video market.

Emblematic of its name, Nth Degree, the 304-page trade paperback ventures off its own beaten path to include plenty of extras, in the form of extended pieces on David F. Friedman, Larry Buchanan, Leo Fong and others. Comics great Stephen R. Bissette provides an “afterword” of capsule reviews of Vermont-set horror films, and hell, there’s even a multipage comic-book story that opens the volume.

My only complaints with the book are minor: an overuse of antiquated phrases such as “et. seq.” and an egregious use of some godawful Adobe Photoshop filter that noticeably mars so many of the photographs (thankfully, poster art escapes this mistreatment). Otherwise, Nth Degree is an infectious trip for the psychotronic-inclined; seat belts optional. —Rod Lott

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As completely expected, the films of Ted V. Mikels are much more fun to read about than they are to watch. Unlike a chosen few directors, let’s just say the guy had his work end up featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 for damned good reason.

Christopher Wayne Curry, author of Film Alchemy: The Independent Cinema of Ted V. Mikels, doesn’t quite see it that way; he worships the works, but he also considers Mikels a friend and heaps “love, respect and admiration” on the filmmaker. Also in his introduction, Curry calls Mikels the single most interesting figure in exploitation cinema, deserving of mention alongside Russ Meyer. I realize such things are subjective, but he’s obviously approached the book with a blinded bias. It’s enough to make you want to cry, “Get a room!”

That is its biggest downfall, but guess what? I still recommend it, because even with the absence of impartiality, the book remains a blast to read.

A much more affordable paperback reprint of McFarland original 2008 hardback release, the slim Film Alchemy takes readers on a detailed, chronological journey through Mikels’ complete CV as director (well, complete as of 2008), starting with the 1963 thriller Strike Me Deadly to the 2006 family drama (!) Heart of a Boy. Most cult cinephiles, however, know Mikels best for a few that land in between — namely, 1968’s The Astro-Zombies (to which he’s still cranking out unwanted sequels), 1971’s The Corpse Grinders and 1973’s The Doll Squad (ripped off by Aaron Spelling for the TV series Charlie’s Angels, if Ted is to be believed).

Ted’s quite a character (polygamists tend to be) and he has great stories to share about the making of these no-budget epics. But his story prowess does not extend to the screen; Ed Wood looks masterful by comparison. The four flicks of his I’ve seen have all been really tough sits, and Lord knows I’m more forgiving than most when it comes to B and Z cinema.

Yet Mikels seems unaware of all his limitations, to the point of delusion, and Curry is right along with him. Only when the book approaches the VHS age of Mikels’ career does Curry cede to admitting shortcomings. And as the movies get less interesting, so does the book; after all, Mission: Killfast, although a terrific title, has yet to resonate with any degree of pop-culture impact and likely never will.

Film Alchemy is highly recommend to Mikels’ fan base and just plain recommended to those with a love of bad movies. The book pops with a wealth of photos and poster art. One can see how easy it would have been at the time to get suckered in by such much-to-promise visuals. —Rod Lott

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Humility is hardly an attribute that comes to mind when considering director William Friedkin, by all accounts a talented man who let success go to his head in the worst way. Refreshingly, he’s the first to admit it — and all his other faults — in The Friedkin Connection, a dumb title for a smart memoir.

Having been born the year of The French Connection and all of 2 when he followed up that Oscar win with The Exorcist, I was oblivious to how meteoric his rise was. He had made only four films prior to French, beginning with the Sonny & Cher vehicle Good Times, none of them hits.

In this book, Friedkin fills in all those blanks. It is more an autobiography of Friedkin the moviemaker vs. Friedkin the man. Personal details from childhood on up are kept to a minimum, relayed to the reader seemingly only when they directly influenced his work. As someone who tires of celeb bios that assume the reader wants to know every flipping twig on the family tree, I welcomed the brevity.

After all, I came to The Friedkin Connection wanting to learn about the movies he’s made, not the sordid details of failed relationships, and that’s why it’s a winner. He ticks through them all with candor and regret, from his big-budget, post-Exorcist failures of Sorcerer and the controversial Cruising to his underseen creative comeback of 1985’s To Live and Die in L.A. and up to last year’s wonderfully crazed Killer Joe.

But it ignores — as in, never even mentions — 1983’s Deal of the Century or 1990’s The Guardian. I refuse to believe he didn’t have good stories to share with those projects, especially since the former starred legendary asshole Chevy Chase. It’s weird that his one episode of the mid-’80s Twilight Zone revival merits discussion, but these two films have been erased. —Rod Lott

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At first glance, Mike Mayo’s The Horror Show Guide: The Ultimate Frightfest of Movies looks like one of those beloved, phone-directory-thick Videohound genre guides Visible Ink Press issued throughout the ’90s, particularly his own Videohound’s Horror Show.

Turns out there’s a good reason: The new book is a second edition of that 1998 book, but stripped of the Videohound brand. Thus, gone is the dog-bone rating system, along with many capsule reviews of the earlier work.

Although Horror Show Guide claims to review more than 1,000 movies (compared to the first edition’s 666), it doesn’t feel like it. For a number of reasons, it seems less authoritative — and not just because Mayo calls The Mothman Prophecies “one of the very best” of scare cinema.

In addressing one 1960 picture that rightly is considered a bona fide classic, the author praises it like he should … but only under its alternate title of The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus without mentioning the one that curious consumers would need to search in order to purchase it: Eyes Without a Face. Otherwise, it’s of little help or value to readers.

While Mayo does take advantage of an updated edition by including many titles that came into being within the last 15 years (likes Misty Mundae and Amber Heard’s tits; dislikes 3D and Rob Zombie), a number of them are simply not horror: Mel Gibson’s Jesus epic, The Passion of the Christ; the Italian sex-comedy omnibus Boccaccio ’70; Steven Soderbergh’s all-star medical thriller, Contagion; the Nicolas Cage action vehicle Drive Angry; the weather-paranoiac drama Take Shelter; and — why, God, why? — those wretched Twilight teenage romances. I wouldn’t worry about their inclusion so much if he hadn’t had to cut out so many legitimate films to make room for them.

Many of the photos are irrelevant (like, red-carpet paparazzi shots) instead of being stills or posters, or inexcusably printed in low resolution. Mayo makes some glaring errors along the way (such as crediting William Friedkin as director of 1996’s The Island of Dr. Moreau debacle) and has a real problem with properly reporting titles.

Or should I say the problem with properly reporting titles? In many instances, he adds the word “the” where there shouldn’t be; in many more, he leaves the word off when it should be there. This infects the book throughout, which makes him look lacking in knowledge and/or his editor look lazy.

If you own Videohound’s Horror Show, stick with that. This not-ultimate Ultimate Frightfest update comes up far too short to be worth an upgrade. —Rod Lott

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A fine line exists between European arthouse films and European horror films, argues Ian Olney, and he makes a convincing case for it in Euro Horror, a paperback study for Indiana University Press.

Of course, many closed-minded people think no line exists between horror and pornography, so Olney also spends a great deal of time drawing one, while admitting similarities. In both instances, it has helped horror’s cause that lavish DVD editions have rescued the films from obscurity; such discs’ all-out-extras treatment have lifted the genre from the depths of the lowbrow to an artful respectability.

Throughout his book, the author forces the reader to think harder about these movies, to see that there’s more going on beyond mere exploitation. Yes, even in the seemingly tossed-off works of your Jess Franco and Joe D’Amato.

The bulk of Euro Horror divides itself into three “case studies”: the giallo, the “S&M horror film” and the ever-popular cannibals and zombies. Olney examines and deconstructs iconic films among these subgenres to address themes of racism, sexuality and otherwise. For example, with regard to women-in-prison pictures, “[they] not only privilege the lesbian gaze, but also invite viewers to adopt it themselves.”

Naturally, in studies such as these, how much of what the author proposes is shared by the filmmaker (at least consciously) is impossible to quantify; you either see merit in the argument or not.

I see plenty of merit, but then again, I’m predisposed to loving these films. Here, among dozens upon dozens cited and considered, some getting considerably more play include Mario Bava’s Blood and Black Lace, Lucio Fulci’s Zombie, Emilio Miraglia’s The Red Queen Kills 7 Times, Franco’s Eugenie de Sade, Dario Argento’s The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, D’Amato’s Images in a Convent, Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust and, yep, even Claudio Fragasso’s Troll 2.

It is with the latter film that Olney gives too much credence to bloggers (especially one who apparently can’t write a sentence without the word “fucking”) to back up his points, but thankfully, that’s the only time. Everywhere else, he draws from a wealth of credible sources that place him in solid company. His only other misstep is minor: believing that making the “New Releases” wall at Blockbuster Video has something to do with popularity, and not for simply being a new release. (Sadly, I speak from personal, retail-hell experience.)

A film professor at English at York College of Pennsylvania, the author is a smart guy with a smart book — too smart for casual readers of criticism, fascinating for those of us who don’t mind academia intruding upon our 90 minutes of anarchy.

For a wider-scoped, less-scholarly book on the same subject, I highly recommend Danny Shipka’s Perverse Titillation of 2011. When you’re done with that and ready for a graduate course, enroll in Euro Horror — time and money well-spent. —Rod Lott

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