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The Creature Features Movie Guide: Or an A to Z Encyclopedia to the Cinema of the Fantastic, or Is There a Mad Doctor in the House?
Summarizes the plots of a wide variety of horror, science fiction, fantasy, and suspense films
- GenresNonfiction
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
32 people want to read
About the author
John Stanley
15 books6 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
John Stanley (b. 1940)
John Stanley (b. 1940)
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 3, 2013
I believe that this was the first proper film guide I ever owned. Although I bought it a year or so after I got The Great Book Of Movie Monsters, that book is more of guide to movie monsters, while this one is an encyclopedia of films, with reviews of each.
When I try to remember now what my pre-pubescent self thought of this book, certain things come to mind. One is definitely the picture of Raquel Welch from "One Million Years, BC" in her animal-skin bikini. Also the slightly confusing fact that not all the movies featured "creatures" in the sense of monsters (later editions would clarify that this was a guide to "fantasy, science fiction, and horror" film). And, finally, the sense of wonder at just HOW MANY (over 3000!) such movies there were for me to see. Of course, I marked the ones I had already seen, but there were SO MANY more I still needed to watch, which was amazing in those pre-video-rental days.
And this book was loved, in the same sense that The Velveteen Rabbit was. It is beyond dog-eared, it is falling apart from age and frequent reference. The entire front section of the book is missing, alas probably forever; my edition now begins with "Death Car on the Freeway," though it does go all the way to "Z-7 Operation Rembrandt."
Since reading this book way back when, I have learned that John Stanley was the personable host of a late-night TV movie program called "Creature Features" in San Francisco, a fore-runner to Elvira and Joe-Bob Briggs. He had an interesting style. Unlike most horror hosts, he did not wear makeup or a cape or turn his set into a dungeon. He was just a fairly normal 70s guy, sitting in a chair, telling you in a calm, respectful voice about some of the most outrageous films ever made. He loved his chosen genre, although he wasn’t at all hesitant about calling crap when he saw it, and quite a few of the reviews in this book are negative.
I’ve reviewed a later version of this guide under The Creature Features Movie Guide Strikes Again: An A to Z Encyclopedia to the Cinema of the Fantastic, Or, is There a Mad Doctor/Dentist in the House?, so I’m not going to go into more detail now, but I’ll note that I did compare a few of the reviews. Some of the more obscure stuff was dropped for the nineties version, possibly because it was hard or near-impossible to find on video, and there was so much new stuff to add because of video at that time. Some of the reviews are shorter. I noticed that the review of “Friday the Thirteenth, Part 2,” which was still new at the time of my older edition, was cut in half for the 90s version. In the older review, he says it was better than the first one, and much better than #3 (and I would agree with him), but in the more recent one, he avoids giving any definite opinion, just reporting what it is. I think in some ways, even though this was from a bigger publisher, he took more chances in his earlier versions of the book, and was a bit “edgier,” as the kids say. The later guide remains useful, but this one has a certain charm that he couldn’t (or didn’t) recapture later in life.
When I try to remember now what my pre-pubescent self thought of this book, certain things come to mind. One is definitely the picture of Raquel Welch from "One Million Years, BC" in her animal-skin bikini. Also the slightly confusing fact that not all the movies featured "creatures" in the sense of monsters (later editions would clarify that this was a guide to "fantasy, science fiction, and horror" film). And, finally, the sense of wonder at just HOW MANY (over 3000!) such movies there were for me to see. Of course, I marked the ones I had already seen, but there were SO MANY more I still needed to watch, which was amazing in those pre-video-rental days.
And this book was loved, in the same sense that The Velveteen Rabbit was. It is beyond dog-eared, it is falling apart from age and frequent reference. The entire front section of the book is missing, alas probably forever; my edition now begins with "Death Car on the Freeway," though it does go all the way to "Z-7 Operation Rembrandt."
Since reading this book way back when, I have learned that John Stanley was the personable host of a late-night TV movie program called "Creature Features" in San Francisco, a fore-runner to Elvira and Joe-Bob Briggs. He had an interesting style. Unlike most horror hosts, he did not wear makeup or a cape or turn his set into a dungeon. He was just a fairly normal 70s guy, sitting in a chair, telling you in a calm, respectful voice about some of the most outrageous films ever made. He loved his chosen genre, although he wasn’t at all hesitant about calling crap when he saw it, and quite a few of the reviews in this book are negative.
I’ve reviewed a later version of this guide under The Creature Features Movie Guide Strikes Again: An A to Z Encyclopedia to the Cinema of the Fantastic, Or, is There a Mad Doctor/Dentist in the House?, so I’m not going to go into more detail now, but I’ll note that I did compare a few of the reviews. Some of the more obscure stuff was dropped for the nineties version, possibly because it was hard or near-impossible to find on video, and there was so much new stuff to add because of video at that time. Some of the reviews are shorter. I noticed that the review of “Friday the Thirteenth, Part 2,” which was still new at the time of my older edition, was cut in half for the 90s version. In the older review, he says it was better than the first one, and much better than #3 (and I would agree with him), but in the more recent one, he avoids giving any definite opinion, just reporting what it is. I think in some ways, even though this was from a bigger publisher, he took more chances in his earlier versions of the book, and was a bit “edgier,” as the kids say. The later guide remains useful, but this one has a certain charm that he couldn’t (or didn’t) recapture later in life.
August 11, 2009
I purchased this when it first came out in the giftshop of the Winchester Mystery House, and it changed my life LOL I vowed that I would see every movie listed in this book, and so far I've done pretty good over the last 30 years. 2 more came out in this series and are highly reccomended for fans of the genre, however in the age of the internet and such sites as Wikipedia and IMDB, this kind of reference book is almost obsolete.
January 22, 2016
This gets my 5 star rating as it is one of the best movie guides available. I dig Stanley's irreverent, amusing and personal style which tells it like it is without being nasty or sardonic. He understands the psychotronic genre of film, will tell you when something is great, also when it's not great but fun. He also knows what trash is. The reviews are pithy and succinct but loaded with personality. A book I return to contstantly and an essential in my film review book collection.
November 10, 2010
A light, breezy movie reference guide jam-packed and brimming with pithy write-ups of many a forgotten film. For light night T.V. denizens, obsessive compulsives and psychotronic film freaks!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews