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Inside Teradome: An Illustrated History of Freak Film
Freakshows - human anomalies presented for spectacle - have flourished throughout recorded history. The birth of the movies provided a further outlet for these displays, which in turn led to a peculiar strain of bizarre Freak Film. Inside Terradome is a comprehensive, fully illustrated guide to the roots and development of this fascinating, often disturbing cinematic genre. With over 350 photographs, Inside Terradome reveals a twisted thread of voyeuristic sickness running both through cinema and the society it mirrors.
- GenresFilm
248 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1995
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 11, 2007
lots and lots of pictures of freaks plus intelligent discussion on pretty much every freak film ever made. wowee zowee.
June 30, 2023
A book I have intended to read for a long time and finally got to it.
And what to say about it? It's certainly beguiling. It reminded me a bit of Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon books in having an almost tabloid approach of delving into the private or forbidden, reported with some questionable 'facts' along the way but delivered with an enthusiasm that may sweep you up and carry you along.
It first gives a history of sideshow prodigies before then delving into the strange, sometimes tragic - sometimes perverse world of 'freak' film.
Festooned with many intriguing and sometimes unsettling images (some unfortunately reproduced in poor quality but overall still rather affecting) reading this book does in some ways feel, I imagine, like being a visitor to a sideshow or dime museum of old. Hunter tantalising with rapid description like a carny barker and the images acting like the lurid banners on the midway drawing in rubes like me (though I was actually a carny years ago) targeting a voyeuristic curiosity. Many of the films mentioned in the book I have seen and some of them I liked a lot (others less so) but so many more I haven't seen. This book makes me very curious to watch them, despite some of them sounding potentially awful on various levels. So yeah ... I guess job done. 👍
3⭐ I'd have given it 4⭐ if there had been more fact checking on some points and if the print reproduction was better. (On the other hand the low-res kinda gives it a fitting underground feel )
And what to say about it? It's certainly beguiling. It reminded me a bit of Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon books in having an almost tabloid approach of delving into the private or forbidden, reported with some questionable 'facts' along the way but delivered with an enthusiasm that may sweep you up and carry you along.
It first gives a history of sideshow prodigies before then delving into the strange, sometimes tragic - sometimes perverse world of 'freak' film.
Festooned with many intriguing and sometimes unsettling images (some unfortunately reproduced in poor quality but overall still rather affecting) reading this book does in some ways feel, I imagine, like being a visitor to a sideshow or dime museum of old. Hunter tantalising with rapid description like a carny barker and the images acting like the lurid banners on the midway drawing in rubes like me (though I was actually a carny years ago) targeting a voyeuristic curiosity. Many of the films mentioned in the book I have seen and some of them I liked a lot (others less so) but so many more I haven't seen. This book makes me very curious to watch them, despite some of them sounding potentially awful on various levels. So yeah ... I guess job done. 👍
3⭐ I'd have given it 4⭐ if there had been more fact checking on some points and if the print reproduction was better. (On the other hand the low-res kinda gives it a fitting underground feel )
October 24, 2021
The entirety of the Creation Books output can be summed up with this one, which oscillates between sensationalist hackwork and comprehensive study of the carnival in horror films. Also the first page lists Alhazred's Necronomicon as a real book. Entertaining.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews