What do you think?
Rate this book
The Golden Age of Crap
77 B-Movies From the Glory Days of VHS
Just because you can't respect a movie doesn't mean you can't enjoy it. The Golden Age of Crap serves up a sampling of junk-food flicks that gained their audiences on videocassette rental shelves during the '80s and '90s, a time when one couldn't visit the video rental store without being tempted by Italian post-apocalyptic adventures, ninja revenge yarns, and zombie-filled "camcorder epics." The movies covered here run from sleeper hits (Phantasm II) to cult favorites (The Dead Next Door), from unknown stinkers (Plutonium Baby) to undiscovered gems (America's Deadliest Home Video), all examined with a critical but fun-loving eye. "Nathan Shumate is a B-movie encyclopedia. I stand in awe of anyone who has seen this many films with the words "Blood Bath," "Zombie," or "Bikini" in the title."-LARRY CORREIA, author of Monster Hunter International "This book skips the usual cult classics and highlights some real gems lost in the wreckage of '80s B-movie video stores with funny and insightful reviews. A must read for B-movie fans!"-BILL GALVAN, comic book artist for Archie Comics and Marvel Comics "Remember that dude's head exploding in Scanners? Well, that's what would happen to you if you watched more than seven of the bad B movies in Nathan Shumate's The Golden Age of Crap. But Nathan has saved you some messy head explosions by watching the films for you, and his reviews are funnier and more entertaining than all 77 of the films combined." WILLIAM C. MARTELL, screenwriter of Hard Evidence and Crash Dive
Just because you can't respect a movie doesn't mean you can't enjoy it. The Golden Age of Crap serves up a sampling of junk-food flicks that gained their audiences on videocassette rental shelves during the '80s and '90s, a time when one couldn't visit the video rental store without being tempted by Italian post-apocalyptic adventures, ninja revenge yarns, and zombie-filled "camcorder epics." The movies covered here run from sleeper hits (Phantasm II) to cult favorites (The Dead Next Door), from unknown stinkers (Plutonium Baby) to undiscovered gems (America's Deadliest Home Video), all examined with a critical but fun-loving eye. "Nathan Shumate is a B-movie encyclopedia. I stand in awe of anyone who has seen this many films with the words "Blood Bath," "Zombie," or "Bikini" in the title."-LARRY CORREIA, author of Monster Hunter International "This book skips the usual cult classics and highlights some real gems lost in the wreckage of '80s B-movie video stores with funny and insightful reviews. A must read for B-movie fans!"-BILL GALVAN, comic book artist for Archie Comics and Marvel Comics "Remember that dude's head exploding in Scanners? Well, that's what would happen to you if you watched more than seven of the bad B movies in Nathan Shumate's The Golden Age of Crap. But Nathan has saved you some messy head explosions by watching the films for you, and his reviews are funnier and more entertaining than all 77 of the films combined." WILLIAM C. MARTELL, screenwriter of Hard Evidence and Crash Dive
- GenresNonfiction
262 pages, Paperback
First published April 28, 2010
3 people are currently reading
18 people want to read
About the author
Nathan Shumate
23 books49 followersNathan Shumate is a Utah author, small-press publisher, assemblage artist and dilettante (although he prefers the term “Renaissance Man”). He has written (and gotten paid for) comic books, screenplays, and various forms of fiction and non-fiction. His short stories have appeared in the magazine Amazing Stories, the anthology Monsters & Mormons, and other venues. He is the publisher and instigator of the Lovecraftian pulp space opera Space Eldritch anthologies. His most recent book is The Shadow Over Vinland, and Other Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, released June 2024. He also unleashed LousyBookCovers.com onto the world, and consults with self-publishing authors at CoverCritics.com about effective indie book cover design.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 14, 2012
Almost everyone has seen a movie that they say is "So bad it's good". A few of them may occasionally seek those films out. But there are a handful of fanatical B-Movie buffs who actively seek out terrible films. Not the "so-bad-it's good" ones but the movies that are "so-bad it's bad". You can place me in that category and certainly Nathan Shumate, the author of the very amusing The Golden Age of Crap.
Shumate makes the claim that the golden age of crap is from the 1980s through the 1990s when the advent of VHS allowed producers of cinematic ca-ca to distribute their movies out to a wider public than the theaters would allow. This is fairly indisputable, but I feel obligated to point out that the bad films of the 60s and 70s remain unsurpassed in their ineptitude thanks to the Grindhouse theaters and the drive-ins' need to show cheap double features. Really, is there any later movie that can equal the painfully excruciating awfulness of 1966's Manos: Hands of Fate? I don't think so. It would be fun to argue this with Schumate at a party while the normal people look at us with amazement and remove us from their Facebook friends list. But I digress...
Mr. Schumate has compiled 77 of his reviews from his web site Cold Fusion Video Reviews of movies from 1983 to 1998. All of these were on VHS video at the time. Many of them are no longer in release and all of them are from mildly bad to absolutely unwatchable. I have seen 10 of them which is about 9 more than the average person. I found this book to be a blast but even the non-fanatical movie lover will enjoy it. The reasons are three-fold.
1) The author loves his topic and it shows. I suspect this may put a serious wrinkle on the author's social life.
2). The author is a very good writer. He is also very funny. The worse the movie is, the funnier he becomes.
3). The author knows a lot about film-making. When he says a certain scene is bad, he just doesn't say "It's bad". He tells you why it is bad and often how a more talented filmmaker could have saved it. This would be a good book for any wanna-be movie maker if simply to learn what not to do.
And the films he reviews? They are bad but there are a couple ringers here like the the exciting Sci-Fi prison movie, Fortress. Some are definitely "So bad it's good" like Killer Klowns From Outer Space and The Mangler. The author and I share a love for Night of The Creeps, which probably makes us the only two in the universe who likes this film, but fervently disagree on others like Night of The Comet (I loved it) and Six-String Samurai (I hated it). Yet all the reviews are entertaining and full of interesting trivia and detail. I you are a B-Movie fan this is a must-read. If you still dwell in polite society, you will probably enjoy it too, then go back to watching The English Patient, you f------ snob.
2)
Shumate makes the claim that the golden age of crap is from the 1980s through the 1990s when the advent of VHS allowed producers of cinematic ca-ca to distribute their movies out to a wider public than the theaters would allow. This is fairly indisputable, but I feel obligated to point out that the bad films of the 60s and 70s remain unsurpassed in their ineptitude thanks to the Grindhouse theaters and the drive-ins' need to show cheap double features. Really, is there any later movie that can equal the painfully excruciating awfulness of 1966's Manos: Hands of Fate? I don't think so. It would be fun to argue this with Schumate at a party while the normal people look at us with amazement and remove us from their Facebook friends list. But I digress...
Mr. Schumate has compiled 77 of his reviews from his web site Cold Fusion Video Reviews of movies from 1983 to 1998. All of these were on VHS video at the time. Many of them are no longer in release and all of them are from mildly bad to absolutely unwatchable. I have seen 10 of them which is about 9 more than the average person. I found this book to be a blast but even the non-fanatical movie lover will enjoy it. The reasons are three-fold.
1) The author loves his topic and it shows. I suspect this may put a serious wrinkle on the author's social life.
2). The author is a very good writer. He is also very funny. The worse the movie is, the funnier he becomes.
3). The author knows a lot about film-making. When he says a certain scene is bad, he just doesn't say "It's bad". He tells you why it is bad and often how a more talented filmmaker could have saved it. This would be a good book for any wanna-be movie maker if simply to learn what not to do.
And the films he reviews? They are bad but there are a couple ringers here like the the exciting Sci-Fi prison movie, Fortress. Some are definitely "So bad it's good" like Killer Klowns From Outer Space and The Mangler. The author and I share a love for Night of The Creeps, which probably makes us the only two in the universe who likes this film, but fervently disagree on others like Night of The Comet (I loved it) and Six-String Samurai (I hated it). Yet all the reviews are entertaining and full of interesting trivia and detail. I you are a B-Movie fan this is a must-read. If you still dwell in polite society, you will probably enjoy it too, then go back to watching The English Patient, you f------ snob.
2)
February 1, 2016
A delight. The reviews reduce the reader to helpless laughter, over and over, which is still more of a tribute than some of these movies deserve.
March 4, 2013
I never thought I'd enjoy reading a whole book of movie reviews, especially for such horrible movies. But I did. Immensely. I laughed, sometimes so hard I cried. Shumate skewers the movies with a light-hearted touch that betrays his love of bad movies. He wants to enjoy these bizarre, low-budget, direct-to-VHS offerings. Sometimes he does and he doesn't make any apologies for liking the movies.
My favorite review is the one for Future Hunters. I was laughing so hard I had to stop reading, not once but several times. I almost died over the line: Midget Filipino cavepeople. I'm snickering just typing that.
This book is hilarious. Definitely worth reading even if you aren't a fan of B-movies.
My favorite review is the one for Future Hunters. I was laughing so hard I had to stop reading, not once but several times. I almost died over the line: Midget Filipino cavepeople. I'm snickering just typing that.
This book is hilarious. Definitely worth reading even if you aren't a fan of B-movies.
March 21, 2012
A good read indeed, although Shumate is no Joe Bob Briggs. His tastes are less catholic, for one thing.
A good book if you're looking for new vistas in bad cinema, which I always am.
A good book if you're looking for new vistas in bad cinema, which I always am.
April 4, 2013
As bad as these movies sound I still wanna see them.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews