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The Amazing, Colossal Book of Horror Trivia: Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Scary Movies But Were Afraid to Ask
This is a devilishly delightful collection of 1,814 questions and answers about the best and worst horror films ever made, from the silent movies of the 1920s to the scream queens of the 1990s.
- GenresHorror
259 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 5, 2014
For classic horror buffs, this is a great compendium of trivia questions. It could be used for fun party games at a horror-thon, or for testing your nerdy knowledge individually. I scored just above 55% overall, and I’m probably the most knowledgeable horror-film-fan of my acquaintance (not on the same level as Forrest J. Ackerman or Mike Vraney, but they’re both dead anyway). In other words, this book is a worthy challenge. There’s a total of 1814 questions, so you will be kept busy for quite some time.
The book is divided into 17 chapters, each of which is a category of horror film, Some are straightforward, like “Dracula and Other Vampires” or “Frankenstein’s Monsters” others are mixed categories, like “Big Bugs and Giant Reptiles,” and others are sort of vague, like “The Undead” (which actually means Zombies and Mummies, since Vampires were already covered), or “Cauldron of Heebie-Jeebies” (which I guess means “everything we couldn’t fit into another category”). Each chapter is divided into several smaller quizzes, which are sometimes movie-specific, sometimes about a sub-category of movies, and sometimes focused on actors or promotional information. One thing there is a lot of is “matching” quizzes, where you have to match, say, the movies in column A with the actors in column B. That requires more paperwork than the factual quizzes, but it’s still fun. Each chapter also includes some basic facts about monster movie directors and actors, and a “top five” list for the category that is likely to provoke good-natured debate.
I get the feeling that the three authors had a hard time coordinating, and may have started running out of time at the end. The later chapters are not divided into logical quizzes; particularly “Big Bugs and Giant Reptiles” needed to be sorted into more clear and consistent sub-categories. The worst quiz in here was “Out with a Bang,” which includes movies released within the six months before publication, most of which are rightfully forgotten today. As one would expect in a quiz book of this size, there are some errors as well (contrary to Question 830, we do not see any part of the baby in “Rosemary’s Baby,” the eyes shown are a flashback to the rape sequence), and a number of answers are vague enough that they would probably result in disputes (EG: Question 984, on “Cat People,” asks “Whom does the Cat Woman kill?” My answer would have been “Dr. Judd.” The answer given is “Her psychiatrist (Tim Conway),” which gives the actor’s name and the character’s profession, but it would require the IMDB to determine that my answer was correct: “Dr. Judd” is the character’s name). This sort of thing is inevitable in a book of this size, and, to be fair, there are fewer problems than you’d find in a comparable internet resource.
The book is divided into 17 chapters, each of which is a category of horror film, Some are straightforward, like “Dracula and Other Vampires” or “Frankenstein’s Monsters” others are mixed categories, like “Big Bugs and Giant Reptiles,” and others are sort of vague, like “The Undead” (which actually means Zombies and Mummies, since Vampires were already covered), or “Cauldron of Heebie-Jeebies” (which I guess means “everything we couldn’t fit into another category”). Each chapter is divided into several smaller quizzes, which are sometimes movie-specific, sometimes about a sub-category of movies, and sometimes focused on actors or promotional information. One thing there is a lot of is “matching” quizzes, where you have to match, say, the movies in column A with the actors in column B. That requires more paperwork than the factual quizzes, but it’s still fun. Each chapter also includes some basic facts about monster movie directors and actors, and a “top five” list for the category that is likely to provoke good-natured debate.
I get the feeling that the three authors had a hard time coordinating, and may have started running out of time at the end. The later chapters are not divided into logical quizzes; particularly “Big Bugs and Giant Reptiles” needed to be sorted into more clear and consistent sub-categories. The worst quiz in here was “Out with a Bang,” which includes movies released within the six months before publication, most of which are rightfully forgotten today. As one would expect in a quiz book of this size, there are some errors as well (contrary to Question 830, we do not see any part of the baby in “Rosemary’s Baby,” the eyes shown are a flashback to the rape sequence), and a number of answers are vague enough that they would probably result in disputes (EG: Question 984, on “Cat People,” asks “Whom does the Cat Woman kill?” My answer would have been “Dr. Judd.” The answer given is “Her psychiatrist (Tim Conway),” which gives the actor’s name and the character’s profession, but it would require the IMDB to determine that my answer was correct: “Dr. Judd” is the character’s name). This sort of thing is inevitable in a book of this size, and, to be fair, there are fewer problems than you’d find in a comparable internet resource.
October 16, 2012
This is a great trivia book for horror fans! The categories are fun, but the overviews and photos also make this a handy reference guide.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews