Chadwick H. Saxelid's Blog: Ghoulies, Ghosties, and Long-Leggedy Beasties, page 57

Horror Movies by Alan Frank

As I age, the decade of my childhood (the 70s) and the decade I began as a teenager and ended as a "new adult" (the 80s) grow more magical and otherworldly.

One reason, I am sure, is nostalgia for that mythical "simpler" time that never existed. That time when my parents seemed invincible and omniscient. When summer vacation(s) felt like a vast period of time where I could devote as much time to reading comics and books, watching television, and seeing movies as I was capable, which was a lot.

Another reason, and one I think is closer to the truth, is how times were different back then.

My family didn't have cable television, for one. So there were only a few VHF channels and a smattering of UHF channels for me to choose from. We did not have a VCR until 1982, I think. So, if I wanted to record something, I had to use an audio cassette and then listen to it as if it were a radio drama. The tapes I remember most vividly, and wore out my recordings of, were the broadcast premiere of Jaws, recordings of John Carpenter's The Fog and Escape from New York made off of HBO, and several episodes of Kolchak: The Night Stalker (The Ripper, The Vampire, and The Spanish Moss Murders, respectively) during its run on the CBS Late Movie.

News and information about movies could be sparse to non-existent in those days. There were the occasional Behind the Scenes documentary, fifteen-minute to half an hour studio puff pieces that hyped an upcoming "event" movie. These shorts would usually air on Saturday or Sunday afternoons, as filler. There was also That's Hollywood, the Tom Bosley narrated Behind the Scenes series, and... not much else that comes to mind.

Except for newspaper articles, magazines (Famous Monsters, Cinefantastique, Starlog, and Fangoria, et al) and books. These were the Wikipedia and websites of my youth. The only places to find information, pictures, and summaries of movies that aired infrequently on our local stations, or so it seemed at the time. Films such as Quatermass and the Pit and Island Of Terror proved elusive, while others, like Horror Express, Deep Red, and The Birds, to name a few, were broadcasting mainstays.

There were several books I remember pouring over, trying to get a glimpse of the tantalizing horrors that were so frustratingly out of my reach. One of these of might have been Alan Frank's Horror Films.

Might have been because Frank wrote several books detailing the history of cinematic horror and, while I can remember the photos contained in those books, their titles and text, until recently, were a mystery. Because, back in 1976 and 1977, all my attention was focused on the pages and pages of movie stills (most in black and white, but some in glorious and gruesome color) and none whatsoever to the titles or their text.

A few years ago, I found and read Frank's Horror Movies: Tales of Terror in the Cinema. That book contains far more photos I recall studying than Horror Films does, but I am no less appreciative of being able to have both in my collection, and hope to ad Frank's The Horror Film Handbook at some point in the future.

Horror Films offers a fairly detailed chronological listing of the major and minor moments in horror cinema. Frank starts with the advent of motion pictures and, decade by decade, works his way up to the (first) remake of King Kong, which was released at the end of 1976. Horror Films was published in 1977.

While the amount of information and detail Frank is able to share is admirable, I found some of his criticism to be... suspect.

He dismisses Night of the Living Dead as minor, excoriates Peter Sellars performance(s) in Dr. Strangelove, is contemptuous of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and, in a laugh out loud moment, even dares to praise Night of the Lepus as "a pleasant reminder of the way movies used to be." I do agree wholeheartedly with the adulation he gives director Terence Fisher, though.

Actually reading the book, instead of just leaving it in the bookcase and taking it out for the infrequent thumbing through, was an entertaining look back at a time when movies weren't as ubiquitous and accessible as they are today. When the best you could do was read something like Horror Films or, even better, a novelization, while you waited (most often impatiently) for a movie to show up on TV.

Oops

When I decided to create a more professional looking web presence, I did not intend to delete my blog. But I did and, I am embarrassed to share, over a decade of content vanished in an instant.

So it goes.

Rather than abuse myself over my foolish mistake, I will use it as an opportunity to challenge myself and grow, both creatively and professionally.