Oh hai! Ryan Finnigan’s The Room: The Definitive Guide tears me apart as I try to determine just whom it is for: virgins or sluts? On one hand, much of the Applause trade paperback is geared toward the newbie; on the other, the train wreck of a drama it celebrates is one of those flicks for which the phrase “must be seen to be believed” was coined. And unless you’ve seen Tommy Wiseau’s The Room, you cannot, will not “get it,” making guest Alan Jones’ beat-by-beat plot rehash superfluous on at least two levels. The Guide is most enjoyable in its Q-and-A interviews with the principal players, and most insufferable in its “how to” articles on audience participation and overall indoctrination. Special attention must be given to the colorful, dot-patterned infographics that appear throughout, encapsulating those unmistakable Wiseau vibes in a way that mere words fail.

Also from Applause is the latest in its crash-course FAQ series, Modern Sci-Fi Films FAQ: All That’s Left to Know About Time Travel, Alien, Robot, and Out-of-This-World Movies Since 1970. Better than James Bond FAQ, author Tom DeMichael’s previous contribution to the franchise, this book pays tribute to the genre’s literary greats (and, um, Stephenie Meyer?!?) before jumping into a thematic trip through contemporary flicks of future visions, galactic travels, ripples in time and robots amok. Readers are likely to have heard of all DeMichael’s choices, if not seen them all, too: Star Wars, Alien, Robocop, E.T., et al. Any disappointment stemming from the trade paperback is not that the contents are heavy with such megabudgeted crowd-pleasers, but that so much of said contents is spent summarizing those movies’ stories, from frame one to fade-out, spoilers be damned. The afterwords to each picture favor information of the trivial kind, whereas the critical might whet more appetites. Recommended to sci-minded kids who aren’t sure what titles to add their Netflix queue, but skippable for any moviegoer old enough to gain admission to R-rated fare.

Fresh off a book on Hammer Films’ Psychological Thrillers for McFarland & Company, David Huckvale keeps things eerie with Poe Evermore: The Legacy in Film, Music and Television. Hardly the publisher’s first foray into all things Poe, the paperback serves as proof — not that any was needed — that the works of ol’ Edgar Allan have worked their way into our collective pop-culture consciousness like vines to trees. Taking an alphabetical trip through the master’s complete works, Huckvale discusses both direct adaptations to screen and pervasive influences on other people’s works. While some of the latter could be considered a stretch — one could argue TV’s Six Million Dollar Man probably would have existed Poe or no —  Evermore works best as a reference guide to the continuing omnipresence of the horror and mystery forefather’s ghoulishly Gothic tales, characters and themes.

I learned much, much more about one of the filmdom’s most notorious B-movie producers from Dave Mann’s Harry Alan Towers: The Transnational Career of a Cinematic Contrarian than from Towers’ own autobiography, Mr. Towers of London, brought out last year by Bear Manor Media. For starters, Mann’s work — published by McFarland — works with nearly 100 more pages; for another, Mann’s all depth vs. Towers’ more surface-skidding approach. It also gives the subject his due in pioneering production methods; the man never met a tax threshold he could not, would not, did not exploit. In fact, it’s suggested that cult director Jess Franco’s now-trademark zooms are a result of Towers’ crank-’em-out insistence. From humble beginnings to Fu Manchu adventures to late-’80s Cannon fodder (including threequels of the mighty Delta Force and American Ninja franchises), each phase of Towers’ career is covered with a scholar’s eye for detail, yet also a willingness to call a spade a spade — and by that, I mean Towers’ shortcomings in quality control: “relentless stichomythia being interspersed with ripe morsels of thickly cut ham.” Cult cineasts will find much of the salty meat ready to carve.

Finally, McFarland casts the spotlight on another man whose name is treasured among lovers of B film, in Larry Cohen: The Radical Allegories of an Independent Filmmaker. Now available in a paperback edition updated since the 1996 hardcover, Tony Williams’ work casts a probing, critical eye at the entire career of the underrated underdog — a scrappy, sardonic auteur who brings class to what otherwise may be crap (It’s Alive, Q: The Winged Serpent, The Stuff and so on) and who, on occasional, simultaneously penetrates and tweaks the mainstream with a swift script (Cellular and Phone Booth) of admirable calculation. Containing interviews with the man himself and seemingly no stone unturned (as Cohen’s work in TV and the stage get equal time), the book is a must for the faithful. Ill-advised drinking game: Take a shot every time Williams describes Cohen’s technique as “comic-strip”; you will die. —Rod Lott

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Given the innocuous title and a cover to nearly match, I assumed Nathaniel Tolle’s Pumpkin Cinema: The Best Movies for Halloween would not only have nothing to offer a well-seasoned horror vet, but be an outright embarrassment as well. Those fears were wholly unfounded; this Schiffer Publishing release oozes credibility like its titular gourd does its own guts if left on the porch, exposed to the elements, well into November.

Beyond that cursory, first-impression glance, I had good reason to worry. In his introduction, Tolle lays out his criteria for selecting the 100-plus films he chose for review; among them, “It cannot be mean-spirited or cruel.” Somehow, this self-imposed rule doesn’t defang the contents at all; turn four pages from there and the X-rated Andy Warhol’s Dracula slaps you in the face (with what exactly, I leave to your imagination).

A filmmaker himself, Tolle possesses exquisite taste in the finest flicks for All Hallows’ Eve preparation and/or celebration. While the horror genre predictably but rightly claims a clear majority of the book’s 176 pages, he casts his net of inclusion wide enough to snag examples from comedies, documentaries, kiddie fare and the catch-all realm of sci-fi/fantasy; there’s even an appendix devoted to ’ween-centric TV episodes. The choices are neither limited to American shores, nor to age groups; whether you’re 8 or 80, a gorehound or an absolute pussy, Tolle has a recommendation just right for you.

For members of the cult crowd, the mark of any good film guide — especially one geared toward a virgin (not in the sexual sense) audience — is whether it can offer them Something New. To my surprise, Pumpkin Cinema did. I’m not talking about movies I haven’t seen, but never heard of; in this case, that was WNUF Halloween Special. Tolle presents such a case for it, I immediately placed an order for the DVD.

As with Schiffer’s other recent film book, David J. Moore’s flawed but fun World Gone Wild: A Survivor’s Guide to Post-Apocalyptic Movies, the hardback is judiciously illustrated in full-color throughout, with a clean layout that’s pleasing to the eyes even when the subject matter is torture on the ticker. Whether you’ve seen Creepshow so often to the point of recitation or were too spooked to make it past the first reel of the Don Knotts vehicle The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, Tolle’s arguments are sound and his opinions appreciated. Don’t even bother checking for errant razor blades — just eat it up. —Rod Lott

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Cult cinephiles know Ed Wood also applied his unique stamp of “talent” to two-bit porn mags in the 1960s and ’70s, via short stories; however, the fiction’s scarcity kept fans’ knowledge from extending into experience. That all changes with OR Books’ release of The Blood Splatters Quickly: The Collected Stories of Edward D. Wood, Jr., a paperback whose exacting design, pulp illustrations and overall packaging belie the quality of the Plan 9 madman’s prose. Never subtle, the guy sure loved his ellipses, exclamation marks and “shock” endings, all evident in these 33 tales, more expertly curated than offerings like “The Whorehouse Horror” and “Breasts of the Chicken” have a right to be. Cheap, dirty and often deviant sex fuels much of the riotous contents, with horror being the primary genre in which Wood banged these things out, and they can be read almost as quickly as they were birthed; one can assume there were no second drafts. After all, at the time of their printing, the stories likely were read (if at all) during masturbators’ refractory periods. You can read them whenever you wish — I won’t judge — but please, just pull the string.

To trot out and paraphrase the cliché, you don’t have to be a fan of the Night of the Living Dead trilogy’s third leg in order to enjoy Lee Karr’s The Making of George A. Romero’s Day of the Dead, but it sure helps. Published by the UK-based Plexus, the full-color trade paperback overcomes a self-congratulatory preface with a detailed account of how the 1985 soldiers-vs.-zombies epic was made: with more butcher scraps than millions. While Karr was not present during the two-month shoot, one wouldn’t know it judging by the wealth of info the day-by-day diary contains, running the gamut from bone-dry minutia to juicy gossip. Much of the latter is devoted to effects legend Tom Savini’s unbridled penile antics; his libido is surpassed only by his ego. Speaking of effects, Greg Nicotero lends further credibility with a foreword, and no spread goes by without some sort of photo or illustration. Personally, I find Dawn of the Dead to be the far superior sequel, but Karr’s love lay with this Day instead. If yours does, too, tear into it sooner than later.

Maybe it’s just me, but if you’re going to write a book about movies in which the whole point is characters seeking vengeance, shouldn’t you be able to spell “vengeance”? Sometimes Danny Marianino does, but many others times he doesn’t, and the whole of The Mega Book of Revenge Films — Volume 1: The Big Payback is so every-page-riddled with typos, run-on sentences and other egregious errors that it’s obvious he didn’t select “Check Spelling” on his self-published manuscript. What the man — I can’t quite bring myself to label him a “critic” — lacks in panache, he makes up for in passion, running through a seemingly random selection of payback pictures with a fanboy verve so true and strong, one practically can hear Chris Farley sheepishly end each capsule review with, “That was awesome!” As much as I knock The Mega Book for its rusted coat of grammar and questionable taste (“retarded” is an oft-repeated adjective), I still enjoyed reading it and will buy 2016’s promised Volume 2.

Likely because it aims — and succeeds — to be the definitive, end-all-be-all account on its subject, The Creature Chronicles: Exploring the Black Lagoon Trilogy has been given the deluxe treatment from McFarland & Company: a full-fledged, sleeved hardback with glossy, spot-color pages. As if you couldn’t tell by now, Tom Weaver — with co-authors David Schecter and Steve Kronenberg — dives into documenting the history of Universal’s 1954 classic Creature from the Black Lagoon and its two sequels with everything there is to know about the Gill Man. Skip the synopses and instead marvel at such finds as the list of proposed titles for the first film, audience comment-card reactions from its sneak preview, photos of the costume that thankfully didn’t make it to the screen, and more. The authors even spend time detailing every abortive attempt at a remake, the brief life of a Black Lagoon fanzine (courtesy David J. Schow) and flicks spawned in Creature’s wake (Octaman, anyone?). The downside to McFarland’s spruced-up edition is the price tag, but tried-and-true Monster Kids may not mind, given the sheer depth of the writing team’s result.

Zombies on Film: The Definitive Story of Undead Cinema also strives for authoritative status — it’s right there in the subtitle — but falls short of that. Part of that is because there are too many other great books on this well-worn subject (Glenn Kay’s Zombie Movies: The Ultimate Guide, in particular), but the bigger, better reason is just the structure of the publisher, Universe: It makes coffee-table books, and Ozzy Inguanzo has constructed a damn fine coffee-table book that just happens to center on movies full of rotting flesh, exposed brains and spilled intestines. That’s not a dismissal of Inguanzo as a writer, either; he’s a fine host to time-machine readers through Hollywood’s long fascination with these invaders from the grave, touching on all the usual suspects (Romero, Raimi, et al) and then some, without quite digging as deep as previous volumes have so well, especially in the realms of the cult and obscure. Zombies on Film is at its strongest when it casts its dangling eye on the fare of foreign shores and the ’80s’ VHS floodgates. No matter where the journey takes you, however, the visuals — heavy on posters and photos reprinted large and in full-color — are the oversized tome’s real selling point.

Finally, the least likely subject for an art book might be the blood-splattered covers of Fangoria magazine — you know, the ones that repulsed your mother so much, she refused to buy it for you at the grocery store. And yet, just in time for the horror pub’s 35-year anniversary, Cemetery Dance unleashes Fangoria: Cover to Cover, a terrific volume that reproduces every issue’s purposely garish cover, obviously in chronological order and wonderfully granting each a full page. (So what if it’s already out of date?) The book is as much as a history of post-1979 film horror as it is of Fango itself, regrettable cover choices and all — not to mention the occasional typographical use of Comic Sans. Its former editor Anthony Timpone contributes notes for each issue, which are almost as entertaining as Bruce Campbell’s foreword. Fango’s iconic filmstrip adorns so many of the issues, it’s a tad sad to see it retired. Another trend you’ll notice: select titles vying for cover space for three consecutive issues, even if it’s just a two-word teaser. You’d have to be mad to read every word of every cover here … and that would be I. —Rod Lott

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