THE BASIC SCHLOCK FILM BOOKSHELF, VOL. 5: The Lesser-Known Guides

It’s tough for any­one to have suc­cess with a book — and it’s even tougher when you are deal­ing in a spe­cial­ized inter­est like schlock.  Plenty of tal­ented, insight­ful minds have tack­led this topic over the years but they don’t always achieve the recog­ni­tion they deserve.  This was doubly-true in the pre-internet era, when authors could only rely upon a few main­stream genre mags and word-of-mouth to drum up inter­est for their endeavors.

This install­ment of the Basic Schlock Film Bookshelf is ded­i­cated to those for­got­ten scribes who have toiled in the schlock mines with­out ever achiev­ing the noto­ri­ety of a Michael Weldon or Joe Bob Briggs.  The fol­low­ing selec­tions high­light three authors who plumb the depths of the schlock con­tin­uüm with wit, intel­li­gence and great writ­ing.  Their efforts are wor­thy of a quick search through your favored used-book ven­dors and their books will reward you with plenty of choice schlock scholarship.

CREATURE FEATURES: THE SCIENCE FICTION, HORROR AND FANTASY MOVIE GUIDE by John Stanley (2000 – Berkley): This was a big favorite dur­ing my Fangoria–read­ing days and it played a big role in my hor­ror genre edu­ca­tion.  Penned by a t.v. hor­ror host, it’s a com­pre­hen­sive col­lec­tion of sci-fi, hor­ror and fan­tasy flick reviews in cap­sule form that cov­ers every­thing from the clas­sic Universal mon­ster mashes to the skuzzi­est slasher opuses.  Stanley brings the insight of a genre afi­cionado to the whole enter­prise: whether he’s review­ing a vin­tage black-and-white chiller or a bottom-of-the-barrel gore-a-thon, he brings the same depth of knowl­edge and Forry Ackerman-esque good cheer to each cri­tique.  He’s not afraid to have a lit­tle fun with schlock and comes off as an all-around swell guy.  Note: Stanley has been pub­lish­ing his Creature Features guides since the early 1980’s so there are four dif­fer­ent edi­tions of this book (each new edi­tion drops some titles from the past one for space rea­sons, so caveat emp­tor).  I’ve listed the most recent edi­tion since it will be the most up to date in terms of mod­ern genre fare but any Creature Features guide you can get your hands on will offer plenty of good genre lore & reviews.

PHANTOM’S ULTIMATE MOVIE GUIDE/THE PHANTOM OF THE MOVIES’ VIDEOSCOPE by Joe Kane (1989/2000 — Dell/Three Rivers): The Phantom of the Movies is the nom de plume for Kane, a long­time writer for the New York Daily News who, like Joe Bob Briggs, invented a per­sona for his explo­rations of cult cinema’s fringes.  Kane’s bypasses the rowdy irrev­er­ence and whim­si­cal flights of fancy of the Joe Bob Briggs style to focus squarely on the films them­selves in a play­ful, intel­li­gent style.  The reviews in both books are bro­ken down into broad genre cat­e­gories (hor­ror, exploita­tion, so-bad-its-good, etc.) and approach the films from the basic view­point of whether or not they are worth a rental, work­ing in extra com­men­tary for the more mem­o­rable titles.  A novel aspect of both guides is the fact that Kane counts on the viewer’s savvi­ness with genre clas­sics and gives them shorter reviews to make room for bet­ter cov­er­age of lesser-known titles.  Thus, his books shouldn’t be the first picks for a novice but they make great com­pan­ion vol­umes to your more basic schlock ref­er­ence tomes.  His styl­ish prose is unusu­ally biz-savvy for a schlock maven, mak­ing heavy use of terms like “man­qué” and using “perf” instead of per­for­mance.  This style is not mere win­dow dress­ing – he’s a very insight­ful critic and can sum up a flicks’s mer­its or flaws in less than 400 words… and I’ll always be grate­ful to the Phantom for turn­ing me on to The Executioner (a.k.a. Massacre Mafia Style), one of the most mind-blowing schlock epics ever made.  Note: Videoscope is the more recent of the pair and thus offers more titles plus an array of cool short inter­views with genre celebs but Ultimate is still worth get­ting if it’s your only option.

VIDEO TRASH AND TREASURES/MORE VIDEO TRASH AND TREASURES by L.A. Morse (1992 – Harper Collins): These two com­pre­hen­sive col­lec­tions of cap­sule reviews aren’t any­where near as well-known as the other books in this sec­tion but they deserve to be.  L.A. Morse has really done his home­work, explor­ing vir­tu­ally every film from the 1980’s that haunted the genre sec­tion of video stores and deliv­er­ing con­cise cri­tiques that bal­ance the intel­li­gent inci­sive­ness of a genre-savvy writer with a com­pre­hen­sive break­down of their exploitable con­tents à la Joe Bob Briggs.  Since the book is geared towards home view­ing, Morse is also nice enough to group things into fes­ti­vals of two or three like-minded flicks in each chap­ter – a touch that influ­enced me to assem­ble the­matic pro­grams of schlock when­ever I’d screen the stuff for friends dur­ing my col­lege years.  The final ben­e­fit is that each book is a sleek, pocket-size paper­back, mak­ing it just the right size and shape to tote along to the video store for quick on-the-spot ref­er­enc­ing.  In short, both vol­umes offer a per­fect way to gather a whole lot of eso­teric knowl­edge for min­i­mal cash out­lay.  Get ‘em and flesh out your schlock education.