So there you stand, scratching your severed head in dismay; what gifts to get that ho-ho-ho-so difficult horrorhead in your family? Why suffer the hordes of zombiefied holiday shoppers, overwhelmed store employees, and bargain bins of the damned when you can sail down the Amazon in shopping comfort while sipping your favorite frothy beverage? To help you with your gift buying, Blogcritics and Zombos Closet present the first annual list of bloody best books any fan of horror cinema would die and come back for, again and again.
For the classic horror enthusiast, Monsters: A Celebration of the Classics from Universal Studios, is an oversized, hard-covered licorice treat of photos and essays paying tribute to the unforgettable creature features of Universal Studios. Beginning with The Phantom of the Opera, and ending with The Creature from the Black Lagoon, both moldy oldie and glowingly young horrorheads can relive the glory days of the horrors that started it all.
In the monster-sized Hollywood Horror: From Gothic to Cosmic, Mark A. Vieira tosses in the atomic and the psychic, also including the fright factory films of Universal Studios, and the post-atomic age drive-in horrors of the 1950s. From Val Lewton to Roger Corman, and on up to HAL 9000, the electronic monster in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Vieira provides an interesting, informative, and eye-poppingly illustrated horror film history that would delight any horror fan. My favorite photo is a full-page shot of Ben Chapman in full costume as the Creature from the Black Lagoon, doing a little soft-shoe dance between scene takes.
More 1950s monster and mutant mayhem can be enjoyed in D. Earl Worth's Sleaze Creatures: An Illustrated Guide to Obscure Hollywood Horror Movies 1956 - 1959. Sure, these cheesy-good, could-have-been-a-B-Movie wonders are publicly derided by critics and horror snobs everywhere, but tucked away in many of their closets, to be watched only when the shades are drawn, are such gems as It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, and my personal favorite, The Crawling Eye.
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