STARTLING TOMES

ALLIED ARTISTS: HORROR, SCIENCE FICTION AND FANTASY FILMS . Michael R. Pitts. McFarland Publishers. 2011. In this entertaining trade paperback, Pitts examines the output of Allied Artists, which focused primarily on genre items, exploitation films, and the occasional foreign import. Pitts provides lengthy synopses of each film [these may seem too long for films you're very familiar with, but are quite welcome for those movies you've never seen or even heard of], followed by representative reviews, production notes, and often his own reaction to these movies. You'll find everything here from   Attack of the 50 Foot Woman   to   Invasion of the Body Snatchers   with a few   Roger Corman   films along the way, such as Attack of the Crab Monsters . Barbara Steele is represented with more than one movie, and you'll also encounter everyone from Mel Welles to   Barboura [sic] Morris   to   Susan Cabot . You'll love the cover with the poster of ...

WES CRAVEN: THE ART OF HORROR . John Kenneth Muir. McFarland; 1998. Wes Craven burst on the low-budget scene with the controversial   Last House on the Left , then hit the big time with   Nightmare on Elm Street . Craven had mixed success with the films that followed, but then came the   Scream  franchise which was extremely successful. Then as a producer, Craven's name was often attached to projects that he did not direct -- "Wes Craven Presents" -- such as   Mind Ripper  and   Wishmaster . Muir follows a biographical/career section with lengthy essays on each of Craven's movies up until 1998. He also covers Craven's telefilms, the movies he produced but did not direct, and his short-lived television series,   Nightmare Cafe . Craven tried unsuccessfully to mimic the success of the   Nightmare on Elm Street  films with the psycho Horace Pinker character of   Shocker , but it didn't work. Muir obviously admires Craven's work (m...

STAR TREK 365: THE ORIGINAL SERIES . Paula M. Block with Terry J. Erdmann. Abrahms; 2010. This out-sized hardcover covers the original   Star Trek   series with William Shatner, although even fans may wonder if there's anything left to say about the show. Nevertheless, Block does manage to come up with some new and sometimes amusing observations about these original episodes. The book isn't in chronological order, which is a little strange, but a bigger problem is the unwieldy shape and heaviness of the book, not to mention the too small and light typeface, none of which, of course, is the author's fault. The book, however, is packed with big beautiful photographs, which may be the chief appeal to the   Star Trek   fanatic.

SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY AND HORROR FILM SEQUELS, SERIES AND REMAKES :   An Illustrated Filmography with Plot Synopses and Critical Commentary . Volume 1. Kim R. Holston and Tom Winchester. McFarland; 1997. Foreword by Ingrid Pitt. You gotta love a book that has a foreword by the one and only Ingrid Pitt of Hammer horror fame. But there's lots more to enjoy afterward, including synopses of hundreds of movies, along with a brief analysis of each film and interesting quotes from reviews both good and bad. There are also lots of photographs in this very thick volume, which covers everything (in more or less alphabetical order) from   The Abominable Dr. Phibes  to   Zapped Again , with stops along the way to look at multiple versions of   Invasion of the Body Snatchers , the   Halloween   and   Friday the 13th   films, Roger Corman's Poe series, the many, many Frankenstein and Dracula movies, and a whole lot more, covering the classics up to the ...

THE WAR OF THE WORLDS . H. G. Wells. " In another moment the huge wave, well-nigh at the boiling point had washed upon me. I screamed aloud, and scalded, half blinded, agonised   [sic] , I staggered through the leaping, hissing water towards the shore. Had my foot stumbled, it would have been the end. I fell helplessly, in full sight of the Martians, upon the broad, bare gravelly spit that runs down to mark the angle of the Wey and Thames. I expected nothing but death."  " Surely if we have learned nothing else, this war has taught us pity -- pity for those witless souls that suffer our dominion. " H. G. Wells' 1898 novel   The War of the Worlds , besides bringing into being the whole genre of invasion from outer space and alien life forms, is a brilliant novel written in a style that is still quite vivid and accessible today despite its being a work of the 19th century. Wells' distinctive and descriptive prose brings to shuddery life a true horror and scien...

ROD SERLING'S NIGHT GALLERY: AN AFTER-HOURS TOUR . Scott Skelton and Jim Benson. Foreword by John Astin. Syracuse University Press; 1999. Now that this series has been released on DVD, it is much easier to re-evaluate, although twenty-six years ago authors Skelton and Benson did an estimable job of doing so with this scrupulously researched volume. Let me say at the outset that, having watched all the episodes in their original form, I am not as carried away with the program as the authors -- in fact, in some ways I found the book to be more entertaining than the series -- but whether you have fond memories of   Rod Serling's Night Gallery   or thought it personified the expression "boob tube," you might still enjoy this book. In addition to supplying plot synopses and critiques of each episode and segment, the authors bolster the manuscript with dozens of fresh interviews with the show's cast members and creative personnel. They write with intelligence and author...

THIS ISLAND EARTH . Raymond F. Jones. 1952. Fiction House Press. This novel which became the basis of the science fiction   film of the same title   was expanded from a story originally published in   Thrilling Wonder Stories  ("The Alien Machine"/1947) and its two sequels. The first half of the novel is quite similar to the film, in which a scientist, Cal Meachum, receives instructions to build an "interociter," which leads him to a secret conclave of people who seem to have some unknown mission. Although the protagonists in the book do eventually wind up on an alien planet, most of the second half of the movie is invented by the screenwriter. There's no decimated husk of a planet or mutated hulking monsters in Jones' novel. Instead Meachum learns that earthlings are simply being used to build interociters to help the aliens in a struggle against a dark intergalactic force which has now set its sights on Earth; Meachum and his lady love convince the aliens ...

FANTASTIC PLANETS, FORBIDDEN ZONES, AND LOST CONTINENTS: The 100 Greatest Science Fiction Films.  Douglas Brode. University of Texas Press; 2015. Author Brode looks at 100 of the most influential, popular, and well-made science fiction films. There are chapters on such films as   The Invisible Man,   The Day the Earth Stood Still,   The War of the Worlds, Village of the Damned,   Seconds,   Alien, Star Wars,   Fantastic Voyage, Jurassic Park , and many others. This is more a book of reportage than of film criticism, as Brode's approach is to divide each essay, pop culture-style, into bold-faced sections: Background, Film, Plot, Theme, Trivia and Most Memorable Line. There is little analysis of the film's themselves. In addition to genuine classics, Brode seems to have a weakness for some of the more pretentious titles covered but he does come up with some interesting factoids on many movies. Heavily illustrated. This is an okay introduction to some me...

BROKEN MIRRORS, BROKEN MINDS:   The Dark Dreams of   DARIO ARGENTO.   Maitland McDonagh. University  of Minnesota Press; 2010 -- expanded edition. McDonagh takes an interesting look at the Italian maker of horror films with an academic approach. Dario Argento has garnered many fans of his work, although he's never been taken that seriously by U.S. mainstream critics. Some of that is due to what may be seen as over-the-top violence, a few weak screenplays, an adherence to visual effect over logic, and so on. Despite this, some of his films are quite creepy, exhilarating, and yes, artistic in their way. McDonaugh won me over with her fond [?] look at the Times Square movie houses of yesterday (where she first saw Argento's early films), where often there was more drama going on in the audience than in the picture, writing of one theater that it was "a shoebox of a grindhouse, so dirty, claustrophobic and relentlessly seamy that I remember it more vividly than the movie...

SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE GIANT RAT OF SUMATRA . Alan Vanneman. Carroll and Graf; 2002. The untold case of the giant rat of Sumatra was referred to in Doyle's stories and in at least one Holmes movie, but this is the first time the entire story has been revealed-- sort of. This is an entertaining pulp-type novel, but the Holmes and Watson it presents seem to come from an alternate dimension. For one thing, Holmes accepts supernatural and bizarre occurrences much too quickly and easily, and Watson not only beds a married lady and others, but writes gleefully about it in the narrative -- hardly the actions of a gentleman. (Besides, who cares about Watson's sex life?) These are ill-advised attempts to "modernize" or jazz up these famous characters, and they don't work. However, the story itself -- in which Holmes and Watson investigate when a widowed client is murdered, and find themselves embroiled in a far-flung conspiracy as well as with an unknown race and its grot...

DEAD MOUNTAIN: THE UNTOLD TRUE STORY OF THE DYATLOV PASS INCIDENT.   Donnie Eichar. Chronicle; 2013. I first found out about the true-life Dyatlov Pass incident when I saw a fictional movie called   Devil's Pass , which came up with an utterly far-fetched explanation for the mysterious deaths of nine young Russian hikers in the Ural Mountains in 1959. What made their deaths so strange was that they apparently rushed out of the safety of their tent   with no shoes on  and insufficiently dressed as if in a panic. They were found a mile away in various places. While most died of hypothermia, there were also other violent injuries. For decades, Russians have speculated on what made these experienced hikers run out of their tent, with an avalanche being the most likely explanation. But author Eichar, talking to relatives of the deceased, as well as experts in various fields both in the U.S. and Russia -- and retracing the steps of the victims via snowmobile --  debun...