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Classics of Horror Film
Critical reviews of classic and otherwise noteworthy horror movies are organized according to single film and recurrent motif or theme
246 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1990
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
July 12, 2024
I’ve mentioned before that as a teenager, I had rather morbid tastes in entertainment. This naturally led to an interest in the horror genre. This fascination has never entirely left me, as you can tell from the many horror-tinged reviews I’ve done for this blog. But these things are relative. I watch more horror movies than the average person by a fairly wide margin, but I know people who are true horror flick fans that I can draw upon for information on the most obscure or never-on-video movies. Back in the 1970s, though, I had to rely on books such as the one in hand today.
William K. Everson was a film historian and preservationist who helped save many rare movies and produced fine programme notes for them. So he’d seen a lot of movies, often repeatedly, and was well-versed in the subject.
Most of the book is discussion/reviews of movies in roughly a chronological order, starting with the 1925 silent The Phantom of the Opera and up through the 1940s. More recent films are mentioned when they are related. At the back, there’s discussion of films by category, like vampires, werewolves and lastly “possession” so that Mr. Everson can finish with a discussion of The Exorcist, still in theaters at the time of writing, very popular, but too new to be considered a “classic.”
In the introduction, one of the topics discussed is that it can be hard to say just what is a “classic” in the horror genre. Many of the movies discussed are at best flawed gems, while others are only “classics” because of one strong feature such as a particularly good script or performance or camera work, or being the first of a given type. A couple were “lost media” even back in the 1970s, so Mr. Everson has to guesstimate what they were like.
The many black and white photographs liven up the dense text. A nostalgic buzz comes from Mr. Everson’s distaste for the increased emphasis on gore and sex in horror films of the Seventies; one can only imagine how he’d feel about the movies of the 2020s! He’s notably also not keen on the Japanese efforts in the horror genre–all the kaiju movies are a footnote in his discussion of King Kong, and he wasn’t enthusiastic about Kwaidan either, mentioning it only as part of a review of a British ghost story anthology movie.
If there’s one major flaw in the book, it’s the lack of an index–since several movies are discussed only in reviews of other movies, it can be hard to find them.
I fondly remember running across this book in the library as a teen, and the thrill of reading about all these cool old movies (I’ve now seen over half, and some of them I’ve reviewed on this very blog.) Happily, a younger relative found this volume in a used bookstore and recognized it as just the sort of thing Uncle SKJAM! would appreciate.
Both this and the follow-up volume, More Classics of the Horror Film, are highly recommended to fans of the genre. Check out libraries and used bookstores near you!
William K. Everson was a film historian and preservationist who helped save many rare movies and produced fine programme notes for them. So he’d seen a lot of movies, often repeatedly, and was well-versed in the subject.
Most of the book is discussion/reviews of movies in roughly a chronological order, starting with the 1925 silent The Phantom of the Opera and up through the 1940s. More recent films are mentioned when they are related. At the back, there’s discussion of films by category, like vampires, werewolves and lastly “possession” so that Mr. Everson can finish with a discussion of The Exorcist, still in theaters at the time of writing, very popular, but too new to be considered a “classic.”
In the introduction, one of the topics discussed is that it can be hard to say just what is a “classic” in the horror genre. Many of the movies discussed are at best flawed gems, while others are only “classics” because of one strong feature such as a particularly good script or performance or camera work, or being the first of a given type. A couple were “lost media” even back in the 1970s, so Mr. Everson has to guesstimate what they were like.
The many black and white photographs liven up the dense text. A nostalgic buzz comes from Mr. Everson’s distaste for the increased emphasis on gore and sex in horror films of the Seventies; one can only imagine how he’d feel about the movies of the 2020s! He’s notably also not keen on the Japanese efforts in the horror genre–all the kaiju movies are a footnote in his discussion of King Kong, and he wasn’t enthusiastic about Kwaidan either, mentioning it only as part of a review of a British ghost story anthology movie.
If there’s one major flaw in the book, it’s the lack of an index–since several movies are discussed only in reviews of other movies, it can be hard to find them.
I fondly remember running across this book in the library as a teen, and the thrill of reading about all these cool old movies (I’ve now seen over half, and some of them I’ve reviewed on this very blog.) Happily, a younger relative found this volume in a used bookstore and recognized it as just the sort of thing Uncle SKJAM! would appreciate.
Both this and the follow-up volume, More Classics of the Horror Film, are highly recommended to fans of the genre. Check out libraries and used bookstores near you!
May 22, 2017
The best thing about this are the illustrations - it's jam packed with B/W film stills many of which I have not seen published elsewhere. They are also a decent size, many taking up a full page - There's a wonderful full page image of the Brides of Dracula from the 1931 Lugosi film - But there are some obscure ones in here too like a still from the Vampire's Ghost (1945) and lots from Dracula's Daughter (1936).
A book such as this is always going to be limited - it was written in 1974 and so only covers horror films before that. Still that can be a blessing since it gives more weight to films that get overlooked to fit in more modern classics. In terms of content it's heavily weighted towards Universal films and doesn't go into as much detail on Foreign offerings or the later end of it's timescale, although to be fair - studios like Hammer have books in their own right covering the same era.
This is a great overview and covers all your genre archetypes - werewolves, vampires, mummies etc as well as having chapters dedicated to specific films. A great addition to any horror film library.
A book such as this is always going to be limited - it was written in 1974 and so only covers horror films before that. Still that can be a blessing since it gives more weight to films that get overlooked to fit in more modern classics. In terms of content it's heavily weighted towards Universal films and doesn't go into as much detail on Foreign offerings or the later end of it's timescale, although to be fair - studios like Hammer have books in their own right covering the same era.
This is a great overview and covers all your genre archetypes - werewolves, vampires, mummies etc as well as having chapters dedicated to specific films. A great addition to any horror film library.
March 31, 2024
Well, the cover made me pick this one up and it was absolutely worth it. So many great black and white movie stills of major movies: the silents, Frankenstein and successors, Vampyrs, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, freaks, the old dark house, white zombie, The Mummy, Dr X, King Kong, Mystery of the Wax Museum, murders in the zoo, island of lost souls, mark of the vampire (London after midnight), the walking dead, the devil doll, Werewolves, Poe, hauntings and possession... this is an excellent stroll through all horror movies ever made. Highly recommended, both for beginners and advanced!
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November 4, 2024Used this book to work through horror movies all throughout the month of October. This was a great guide to jump in and examine the films with more depth and background 🎃🐈⬛️🪲🔥
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews