Film Review: The Last Days of Pompeii (dir by Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper)

Posted on February 13, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The summer after I graduated high school, I took a trip to Italy.

I absolutely loved it. There’s nothing more wonderful than being 18 and irresponsible in one of the most beautiful and romantic countries in Europe. I also loved it because everywhere I looked in Italy, I saw the remains of history. When I was in Rome, I visited the Colosseum. When I was in Southern Italy, I visited Comune di Melissa, the village where some of my ancestors once lived. When I visited Florence, I became so overwhelmed by the beauty of it all that I nearly fainted.

And then there was Pompeii. I spent a day visiting the ruins of Pompeii and it was an amazing experience. The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD may have been horrific for the Romans but it’s also gave history nerds like me a chance to step right into the past. Beyond just the thrill of seeing how the world once was, I have two main memories of Pompeii:

First, there was the visit to Pompeii’s brothel. An Australian tourist lay down on one of the stone slabs so that his family could take pictures of him.

Secondly, there was the fact that I wore a really pretty red dress for my visit but I failed to take into account that 1) the area around Pompeii is very hilly and 2) it was a very windy day. So, I can say that I’ve not only visited but I’ve flashed Pompeii as well.

The destruction of Pompeii has inspired several books and more than a few films, as well. One of the earliest was the 1935 film, The Last Days of Pompeii.

The Last Days of Pompeii opens with Marcus (Preston Foster), an extremely bitter blacksmith who lives in the bustling city of Pompeii. Marcus is bitter because he’s not rich and his family has been just been run down by some jackass in a chariot. Marcus does find brief fame as a gladiator but he’s stricken with guilt after he kills a man and then discovers that he’s made an orphan out of the man’s son. Marcus adopts young Flavius, just to then discover that the boy is seriously ill. A fortune teller informs Marcus that Flavius will be healed by “the greatest man in Judea.” Marcus naturally assumes that this is a reference to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate (Basil Rathbone). However, upon traveling to Judea, Marcus meets a different great man and then watches as his adopted son is healed.

Jump forward about two decades. Marcus is now a rich man and is in charge of Pompeii’s gladiatorial games. Flavius (now played by John Wood) has grown up to be an idealistic young man who barely remembers the day that he was healed. What Marcus doesn’t know is that Flavius has been helping slaves escape from Pompeii. When Flavius is arrested, it appears that Marcus is doomed to watch his own son be killed in the arena.

But wait a minute — what’s that coming down the mountain? It’s kinda smoky and red and it looks like it might be really hot and …. oh damn.

Now, there’s two problems here. First off, from a historical point of view, the film’s timeline doesn’t work out. Jesus was crucified in 33 AD. Pompeii was destroyed 46 yeas later, in 79 AD. Therefore, there’s no way that Flavius should only be in his early 20s. Secondly, just the fact that the film takes place in Pompeii pretty much gives away the ending before the story even begins. Since you know that the volcano is eventually going to kill everyone, it’s hard to get too caught up in any of the drama. You just find yourself sitting there and going, “When isssssssssss the volcano going to eeeeeeeeeeeeerupt!?”

On the plus side, Preston Foster is one of the more underrated of the Golden Age stars and he does a pretty good job here. Plus, you have to love any film that features Basil Rathbone as a semi-decadent Roman. Rathbone plays Pilate as both a bored libertine and a guilt-stricken convert and, both times, he’s impressive.

Despite being directed by the team behind the original King Kong, The Last Days of Pompeii is a bit slow but, if you’re specifically a fan of old sword-and-sandal epics, it’s entertaining enough. See it for Foster, Rathbone, and the ghosts of old Pompeii.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Buio Omega (performed by Goblin)

Posted on November 13, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

One of my favorite movies of all time is Joe D’Amato’s haunting 1979 romance Beyond The Darkness. Not only is it one of the best Italian films ever (and the best film ever directed by D’Amato) but I think it’s also one of the best films ever made.

One reason the film is so effective is because of its soundtrack, which was composed and performed by (who else?) Goblin. The music will be familiar to any Italian horror fan, largely because it was reused by about a thousand other movies that came out in the years after Beyond The Darkness. (Director Bruno Mattei, in particular, was fond of it.)

10 Films I Must See Before I Die

Posted on April 24, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I love movies. I love watching movies, reading about movies, and talking about movies. Perhaps most of all, I love the hunt. I love discovering movies or finding movies that had previously, for me, only existed in reviews or as a collection of screen captures. To me, there is no greater experience the watching a movie for the first time. (Even if, as often happens, that first time turns out to be the only time.) Listed below are ten movies that I have yet to see but desperately hope to at some point in my life.

1) Giallo a Venzia (1979) — This is supposedly one of the most graphically depraved Italian horror films ever made. If that’s not a recommendation, I don’t know what is. Actually, I haven’t heard a single good thing about this movie but it has still become something of a Holy Grail in my quest to see as much Italian horror as possible. This is largely because the movie is nearly impossible to find. When it was first released, it was banned in the UK as part of the so-called “video nasties” scare. (Trust the English to not only ban a movie but to come up with an annoying name for doing so in the process.) This led to it never really getting much of a release in the English-speaking world and, now years later, it’s only available on bootleg DVDs. As such, I imagine that if I ever do see it, it’ll be because I made a deal in a back alley with some bald guy who speaks with a Russian accent. Much as with drug prohibition, the fact that its “forbidden” has made this movie rather attractive.

The few people who have seen this always mention that towards the end of the movie, Mariangela Giordano’s legs are graphically sawed off. This makes sense as Giordano was always meeting grotesque ends in Italian horror movies. In Patrick Lives Again, she is impaled (through her vagina no less) by a fireplace poker while in Burial Ground, she makes the mistake of breast feeding her zombie son. In many ways, Giordano was like a female Giovanni Lombardo Radice. However, its odd to consider that while the sight of Giordano’s legs getting sawed off was enough to get the film banned, the sight of poker being graphically driven into her crotch was apparently totally acceptable. Censorship is a strange thing, no?

One last reason I want to see this movie — its filmed in Venice. When I was in Italy, I fell in love with Venice. (I also fell in love with a tour guide named Luigi but that’s another story.)

2) An uncut version of Nightmares in a Damaged Brain (1981) — This is another banned Italian movie. When Nightmares was originally released, Tom Savini was credited as being behind the special effects. Savini, however, has long claimed to have had little to nothing to do with the movie. As Savini, to his credit, has never been embarrassed to claim ownership for his effects (regardless of the movie they appear in), I’m inclined to believe him.

In many ways, Nightmares reminds me of a film that Savini actually did work on, Maniac. Not so much as far as the plot is concerned but just in the same bleak worldview and almost palpable sleaze that seems to ooze from every scene. The version that is most widely available on DVD (and the one that I own) appears to be the cut version that was eventually okayed for release in the UK and even cut, this is a film that remains oddly compelling in just how much its willing to immerse itself in sleaze. The uncut version remains elusive but someday, I will find it.

3) The Day The Clown Cried (1972) — You knew this one was coming, didn’t you? I think everyone wants to see Jerry Lewis’s never released Holocaust comedy. Supposedly, Lewis keeps the movie in a locked vault which I just find to be oddly hilarious. My hope is that, if nothing else, some enterprising filmmaker will make a movie about a crack team of thieves who break into Jerry Lewis’s estate just to steal the only copy of The Day The Clown Cried and sell it to the people at Anchor Bay. Jerry could play himself. I also think this film will see the light of day sooner or later. At some point, either Jerry Lewis or his estate is going to need the money.

4) The Other Side of the Wind — Orson Welles apparently spent the last few decades of his life making this movie. At the time of his death, the movie was reportedly 95% film but only 40% edited. Apparently, because of a whole lot of complicated legal things, the movie has spent the last 30 years under lock and key in Iran. Even if somebody could rescue it, the remaining footage still needs a strong hand to put it together. While I’m sure that many directors would be happy to volunteer to provide that hand, the two names most frequently mentioned — Peter Bogdonavich and Henry Jaglom — do not fill me with confidence. I’d rather see the final film put together by Jess Franco, who was assistant director on Chimes at Midnight.

5) The Fantastic Four (1994) — This is not the dull movie that came out in 2005. This apparently an even duller version of the same film that was made 11 years earlier for legal reasons. Apparently, Roger Corman would have lost the movie rights to the comic book if he didn’t start production on a film by a certain date. So, this film was made on the cheap and then promptly shelved. My main desire to see it comes from the same morbid desire that makes me look at crime scene photos. How bad can it be?

6) Le Cinque Giornate (1973) — This Italian film is apparently many things. It’s a comedy. It’s a historical epic. It’s a satire of then contemporary Italian politics. And most of all, it’s also apparently the only non-horror film directed by Dario Argento. This was Argento’s fourth film, coming after his celebrated animal trilogy and it was apparently an attempt, on Argento’s part, to break away from the giallo genre that he has since come to symbolize. Though the film apparently did well enough in Italy, it failed to establish Argento as a director of comedy and that’s probably for the best as Argento’s fifth film would be the classic Deep Red. Still, it’s hard not to play the “What If?” game, especially when it involves an iconic a figure as Dario Argento. It’s also interesting to compare Argento’s attempts to go from horror to comedy with the career of Lucio Fulci, who went from comedy to horror.

7) Cocksucker Blues (1972) — Robert Frank’s documentary of the Rolling Stone touring America was officially unreleased because of its title. While that title certainly played a role, it also appears that the film was unreleased because of just how much hedonism Frank managed to capture backstage. The Stones apparently went to the court to block the film’s release. Somehow, this resulted in a ruling that the movie can only be shown if Robert Frank is physically present. Mr. Frank, if you’re alive and reading this, you have an open invitation to come down to Texas and stay with me anytime you want. Seriously.

8 ) The Profit (2001) — The Profit is a satiric film about a cult. The film’s cult is known as The Church of Scientific Spiritualism and is led by a recluse named L. Conrad Powers. Sound familiar? The film’s release was (and continues to be) prevented by a lawsuit brought by the Church of Scientology. Say what you will about the Vatican, at least you can attack them in a movie without having to worry about getting sued or blown up.

9) Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (1987) — Probably one of the most famous film that most of us will never see, Superstar tells the story of Karen Carpenter through the use of Barbie dolls. Director Todd Haynes supposedly failed to get the rights to the music he used in the film and, obviously enough, nobody in the Carpenter camp was all the eager to give him permission.

9) Can Hieronymous Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe And Find True Happiness (1969) — God, don’t you hate that title? And, honestly, are you surprised that a film with that title is apparently history’s 1st X-rated musical? Anyway, this is a movie I’ve come across in various film reference books where it’s either described as a masterpiece or (more often) one of the worst movies ever made. Myself, I love musicals and if the musical numbers are mixed in with explicit sex — well, why not? But that title — that title just gives me a bad feeling. Another thing that gives me a bad feeling is that the movie was apparently the brainchild of Anthony Newley. I don’t know much about Mr. Newley but what I do know seems to indicate that he personified everything that most people hate about musicals. The film is apparently autobiographical and its about a really talented composer who treats the women in his life terribly but has a lot of reasons (or excuses) that we learn about in elaborate flashbacks and — wait, I’ve seen this movie. Oh wait, that was Nine. Anyway, Merkin was a huge flop and it has never been released on any type of video format. Yet, it has not been forgotten which can only mean that it must have really traumatized the critics who saw it. In other words, this is another one of my “how-bad-can-it-be” crime scene movies.

10) The uncut, original, 9-hour version of Erich Von Stroheim’s Greed (1924) — A girl can dream, can’t she?

Review: Rats: Night of Terror (dir. by Bruno Mattei)

Posted on April 15, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Can one scene make an otherwise thoroughly useless movie worth seeing?

That’s the question that I’m pondering right now as I attempt to write this review of 1984‘s Rats: Night of Terror.

Rats: Night of Terror opens in the 23rd century. As the result of a nuclear war, Earth has been transformed into a barbaric wasteland. While the majority of humankind has retreated underground, small bands of scavengers occasionally get dressed up like a New Order tribute band before coming to the surface and driving around on their motorcycles. The movie follows one group of survivors as they scavenge for food, come across a deserted ghost town, and eventually end up getting attacked by hundreds of rats.

For the most part, that’s the movie. None of the characters are all that memorable and the so-called rats appear to be bored. For the most part, the film wouldn’t even be worth reviewing except for the Scene. After 90 minutes of languid mayhem, Rats: Night of Terror comes up with one scene that manages to be odd, brilliant, and numbingly stupid all at the same time. The Scene simply has to be seen to be believed.

Director Bruno Mattei often said that Rats: Night of Terror was his personal favorite out of the countless number of exploitation films that he directed. While it’s generally agreed that Mattei was responsible for making some of the worst films in history, I’ve always had a sneaky admiration for him. It’s hard not to love someone who defies the odds while pursuing his dream. Mattei’s dream was to make movies and he never let a thing like budget or talent to stand in his way. While Mattei is best known for taking over the direction of Zombi 3 after Lucio Fulci walked off the set, he was a prolific director who dabbled in every genre. Rats: Night of Terror is his contribution to the post-apocalyptic genre.

For a brief period in the 1980s, Italian exploitation filmmakers moved away from cannibals, gialli, and zombies and instead concentrated on making movies about post-apocalyptic bikers. For the most part, I’ve never been a huge fan of these Italian versions of The Road. There’s an overwhelming blandness to them. If the underlying goal of Italian exploitation cinema was to make movies that could pass for American studio productions, then the postapocalyptic genre is the closest the Italians came to accomplishing that goal. As opposed to the zombie films or the gialli, the only thing that was obviously Italian about the majority of these films was George Eastman.

Rats: Night of Terror, strangely enough, does not feature George Eastman. What it does feature is a lot of gerbils. We’re continually told, throughout the movie, that these gerbils are actually rats but no, they’re gerbils and they’re pretty obviously not only gerbils but cute gerbils too!

I’m sure I’m not the only person out there who has a strong phobia of rats. I can still remember when I was 12 years old and visiting my grandad’s farm in Arkansas. I was exploring an old barn with my older sister, Erin. The barn, which already smelled like death, was also full of hay and, within a few minutes of stepping inside, I stared to have trouble breathing. I stepped outside, used my inhaler, and leaned up against the barn’s wall. As I caught my breath, I heard a very distinct squeaking coming from inside the wall. I jumped away from the wall, spun around, and realized that I had been resting my head against a small hole. Staring contemptuously at me from inside that hole was a really ticked-off looking rat. No matter how many times I washed my hair that day (and, believe me, I washed and rewashed it a lot), I could not stop imagining the feeling of germ-ridden rodents running across the back of my head.

Ever since that day, whenever I’ve seen a rat in a movie (or, God forbid, real life), I’ve remembered that feeling and it still makes me shudder. It’s a reminder that, in the end, we’re all going to end being devoured by the same scavengers.

On the other hand, whenever I see a gerbil, I’m reminded of that episode of South Park where Mr. Garrison, attempting to get fired, makes Mr. Slave his new teaching assistant.

And whenever I see Rats: Night of Terror, I’m reminded of the Pandemic episodes of South Park because the gerbils in this film appear to be about as naturally aggressive as a bunch of guinea pigs dressed up like pirates.

Yes, Rats: Night of Terror has a lot going against it. The characters are boring, the rats are gerbils, and the director is Bruno Mattei. It would be easy to dismiss this film if not for the Scene. Oh, how I wish I could tell you something about the Scene without giving the whole thing away. I wish there was some way I could safely expand on just how weird and silly and oddly wonderful the Scene is.

Tell you what. My e-mail address is LisaMarieBowman@live.com. Or you can talk to me on twitter where I’m @LisaMarieBowman. If you’ve seen this movie or if you see the movie after reading this review, contact me and tell me what you thought when you saw the Scene. Seriously, it’s something that has to be discussed.

If you haven’t seen the film, I’ll give you a clue about the Scene. It happens at the end of the movie. It makes absolutely no sense and it is so extremely odd that it actually makes you wonder if maybe the entire film was meant to be somehow satiric. What’s especially odd is that most viewers usually guess what the Scene is going to be halfway through the film before then thinking, “No, no way. There’s no way that’s going to happen.”

So, to a return to the original question, can one scene make an entire film worth seeing?

In the case of Rats: Night of Terror, the answer is yes.

Review: A Blade In The Dark (dir. by Lamberto Bava)

Posted on April 13, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

If you’re lucky, you remember your first time. I know I do. I was 17 years old and I was trying very hard to convince myself that I was an adult. It had been less than a year since I was first diagnosed as being bipolar and I was still struggling to understand what that truly meant about me. My days were spent wondering if I was crazy or if I was just misunderstood. In the end, I just desperately wanted to be loved. As for the event itself, I remember being more than a little anxious and, once things really got going, pleasantly surprised. However, the main thing I remember is thinking to myself, “Wow, that’s a lot of blood.”

Yes, everyone should remember the experience of seeing their first giallo as clearly as I do.

Over the years, I’ve read a lot of different definitions of what a giallo is and none of them have really managed to capture what makes this genre of film so strangely compelling. The simplest and quickest definition is that a giallo is an Italian thriller. Typically (though not always), the film features a protagonist who witnesses and then proceeds to investigate a series of increasingly gory murders. Often times, solving the murders means uncovering some dark and sordid sin of the past and, just as often, the film’s “hero” turns out to be as damaged a soul as the killer. However, the plot is rarely the important in a giallo film. What’s important is how the director chooses to tell the story. When I watch the classic giallo films of the 60s and 70s, I get a sense of a small group of directors who were all competing to say who could come up with the most startling camera angle, who could pull off the bloodiest death scene, and who could pull off the most audacious tracking shot. Giallo is a uniquely Italian genre of film, an unapologetic opera of mayhem and murder. For the most part, the films seems to have a polarizing effect on viewers. You either get them or you don’t. (From my own personal experience, I think it helps if you come from a Catholic background but, again, that’s just my opinion.)

My first giallo was Lamberto Bava’s 1983 shocker, A Blade in the Dark.

The protagonist of A Blade in the Dark is Bruno, a popular young composer who has been hired to score a horror movie. The film’s director has arranged for Bruno to stay in an isolated villa while he works. Every night, Bruno sits in front of his piano and searches for the perfect note. Occasionally, his actress girlfriend calls him from the other side of Italy and demands to know if he’s cheating on her. He’s not despite the fact that he has two attractive neighbors who tend to come by at the most inconvenient of times and who make cryptic comments about the woman who lived at the villa before him. Bruno would probably be even more frustrated if he knew that, on most night, he’s being watched by someone outside hiding outside the villa. One night, Bruno listens to the movie’s soundtrack and hears a menacing voice whispering on the recording. Meanwhile, the mysterious watcher begins to brutally murder anyone who has any contact with Bruno.

(Despite all these distractions, Bruno continues to vainly try to create the perfect score. Much like Kubrick’s Shining, A Blade in the Dark is as much about the horrors of the artistic process as it is about anything else.)

As it typical of most giallo films, the plot of A Blade in the Dark makes less and less sense the more that you think about it. However, this is a part of the genre’s charm. One doesn’t watch a giallo for the story. One watches to see how the story is told and that is where A Blade in the Dark triumphs. Wisely, director Lamberto Bava keeps things simple. Working with a small cast and one main set, Bava fills every scene with a palpable sense of dread and uneasiness. As Bruno finds himself growing more and more paranoid, so does the audience. Watching the movie, you feel that anyone on the screen could die at any moment and, for the most part, that turns out to be the case.

A Blade in the Dark is probably best known for the brutality of its violence. Even after repeat viewings, the murders are still, at times, difficult to watch. In the most infamous of them, one of Bruno’s neighbors is killed while washing her hair over a sink. The violence here is so sudden and so much blood is spilled (and spurted) that its easy to miss just how well-directed and effectively shocking this scene really is. In this current age of generic cinematic mayhem, the violence of A Blade In The Dark still packs a powerful punch.

(The scene is so effective that, for quite some time after seeing it, I actually got uneasy whenever I found myself standing in front of a sink. A Blade in the Dark does for the bathroom sink what Psycho did for showers.)

Bruno is played by Andrea Occhipinti, an actor whose non-threatening, Jonas Brotheresque handsome earnestness was used to great effect by Lucio Fulci in the earlier New York Ripper. Since I’ve only seen the dubbed version, it’s difficult to judge his performance here. He’s never quite believable as a great composer though you could easily imagine him writing whatever syrupy ballad that James Cameron chooses to play at the end of his next blockbuster. However, Occhipinti does have a likable enough presence that you don’t want to see him killed and that’s all that the film really requires anyway.

A far more interesting presence in the cast is that of Michele Soavi. Soavi plays Bruno’s landlord and, even with limited screen time and even with his dialogue dubbed into English, Soavi is such a charismatic presence that he dominates every scene that he’s in. Before being cast, Soavi was already serving as Bava’s assistant director on Blade in the Dark and, of course, he later went on to have a significant directorial career of his own. Soavi is perhaps best known for directing one of the greatest films of the 1990s, Dellamorte Dellamore.

While Soavi would go on to great acclaim, the same cannot be said of this movie’s director. Among fans of Italian horror, it’s become somewhat fashionable to be dismissive of Lamberto Bava. It’s often pointed out that the majority of his filmography is actually made up of cheap knock-offs that he made for Italian television (and, admittedly, A Blade in the Dark started life as a proposed miniseries). Most of the credit for Bava’s most succesful film — Demons — is usually given to producer Dario Argento. Perhaps the most common complaint made about Lamberto Bava is that he isn’t his father, Mario Bava. With films like Blood and Black Lace, Lisa and the Devil, Black Sabbath, and Bay of Blood, Mario Bava developed a deserved reputation for being the father of Italian horror and Lamberto is often accused of simply trading in on his father’s reputation.

It’s true that Lamberto Bava is no Mario Bava but then again, who is? Blade in the Dark was Lamberto’s second film (as a director) and its a tightly constructed, quickly paced thriller. Bava makes good use of the vila and creates a truly claustrophobic atmosphere that keeps the viewer on edge throughout the entire film. Even when viewed nearly three decades after they were filmed, the film’s murders are still shocking in both their violence and their intensity. There’s a passion and attention-to-detail in Bava’s direction here that, sadly, is definitely lacking in his later films. If most of Bava’s film seem to be the work of a disinterested craftsman, A Blade in the Dark is the work of an artist.

My Top Ten Books About The Movies

Posted on April 6, 2010 by Lisa Marie Bowman

I love movies and I love books so I guess it would stand to reason that I love books about movies the most of all. (I also love movies about books but there are far fewer of those, unfortunately.) Below are my personal favorites. I’m not necessarily saying that these are the ten greatest film books ever written. I’m just saying that they’re the ones that I’m always happy to know are waiting for me at home.

10) Soon To Be A Major Motion Picture by Theodore Gershuny — This is one of the great finds of mine my life. I found this in a used bookstore and I bought it mostly because it only cost a dollar. Only later did I discover that I had found one of the greatest nonfiction books about the shooting of a movie ever written! Gershuny was present during the filming of a movie called Rosebud in the early 70s. I’ve never seen Rosebud but, as Gershuny admits, it was a critical disaster that managed to lose a ton of money. The book provides a fascinating wealth of backstage gossip as well as memorable portraits of director Otto Preminger and actors Robert Mitchum (who was originally cast in the lead role), Peter O’Toole (who took over after Mitchum walked off the set), and Isabelle Huppert. If nothing else, this book should be read for the scene where O’Toole beats up critic Kenneth Tynan.

9) Suspects by David Thomson — A study of American cinema noir disguised as a novel, Suspects imagines what would happen if George Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life fell in love with Laura from the movie of the same name. Well, apparently it would lead to Sunset Boulevard’s Norma Desmond having an affair with Chinatown’s Noah Cross and to one of George’s sons, sensitive little Travis, getting a job in New York City as a Taxi Driver. And that’s just a small sampling of what happens in this glorious mindfuck of a novel.

8 ) Profondo Argento by Alan Jones — Long-time fan Alan Jones examines each of Dario Argento’s films (even Argento’s obscure historical comedy The Five Days of Milan) and proceeds to celebrate and (in many cases) defend Argento’s career. Jones also interviews and profiles several of Argento’s most frequent collaborators — Daria Nicolodi, Asia and Fiore Argento, Simon Boswell, Claudio Simonetti, Keith Emerson, George Romero, Lamberto Bava, Michele Soavi, and many others. Jones’ sympathetic yet humorous profile of Luigi Cozzi is priceless.

7) Spaghetti Nightmares by Luca Palmerini — Spaghetti Nightmares is a collection of interviews conducted with such Italian filmmakers as Dario Argento, Ruggero Deodato, Umberto Lenzi, Lucio Fulci, and others. Among the non-Italians interviewed are Tom Savini (who, as always, comes across as appealingly unhinged) and David Warbeck. (Sadly, both Warbeck and Fulci would die shortly after being interviewed.) What makes this interesting is that, for once, Argento, Fulci, et al. are actually being interviewed by a fellow countryman as opposed to an American accompanied by a translator. As such, the subsequent interviews turn out to be some of the most revealing on record.

6) Sleazoid Express by Bill Landis and Michelle Clifford — Landis and Clifford’s book is both a history and a defense of the old grindhouse theaters of New York City. Along with describing, in loving and memorable detail, some of New York’s most infamous grindhouses, they also write about some of the more popular movies to play at each theater. Along the way, they also offer up revealing profiles of such legendary figures as David Hess and Mike and Roberta Findley. Reading this book truly made me mourn the fact that if I ever did find myself in New York City, I won’t be able to hit the old grindhouse circuit.

5) Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci by Stephen Thrower — Fulci has always been a terribly underrated director and, indeed, it’s easy to understand because, in many ways, he made movies with the specific aim of alienating and outraging his audience. It requires a brave soul to take Fulci on his own terms and fortunately, Stephen Thrower appears to be one. Along with the expected chapters on Fulci’s Beyond Trilogy and on Zombi 2, Thrower also devotes a lot of space to Fulci’s lesser known works. Did you know, for instance, that before he became the godfather of gore, Fulci specialized in making comedies? Or that he also directed two very popular adaptations of White Fang? Thrower also examines Fulci’s often forgotten westerns as well as his postapocalyptic sci-fi films. And, best of all, Thrower offers up a defense of the infamous New York Ripper that, when I read it, actually forced me to consider that oft-maligned film in a new light. That said, Thrower does admit to being as confused by Manhattan Baby as everyone else.

4) Immoral Tales by Cathal Tohill and Pete Toombs — Tohill and Toombs offer an overview of European “shock” cinema and some of the genre’s better known masters. The book contains perhaps the best critical examination of the work of Jean Rollin ever written. The authors also examine the work of Jesus Franco and several others. This is a great book that reminds us that the Italians aren’t the only ones who can make a great exploitation film.

3) Eaten Alive by Jay Slater — This book offers an overview of the Italian film industry’s legendary cannibal and zombie boom. Along with reviewing every Italian movie to feature even the slightest hint of cannibalism or the living dead (this is one of the few books on Italian cinema that discusses both Pasolini and Lucio Fulci as equals), Eaten Alive also features some very revealing interviews with such iconic figures as Catriona MacColl, Ian McCullough, and especially Giovanni Lombardo Radice. Radice, in fact, also contributes a memorable “guest” review of one of the movies featured in the book. (“What a piece of shit!” the review begins.) Memorable reviews are also contributed by Troma film founder Lloyd Kaufman who brilliantly (and correctly) argues that Cannibal Holocaust is one of the greatest films ever made and Ramsey Campbell who hilariously destroys Umberto Lenzi’s infamous Nightmare City.

2) The Book of the Dead by Jamie Russell — If, like all good people, you love zombies then you simply must do whatever it takes to own a copy of this book. Starting with such early masterpieces as White Zombie and I Walked With A Zombie, Russell proceeds to cover every subsequent zombie film up through George Romero’s Land of the Dead. Russell offers up some of the best commentaries ever written on Romero’s Dead films, Fuci’s Beyond Trilogy, Rollin’s Living Dead Girl, and Spain’s Blind Dead films. The pièce de résistance, however, is an appendix where Russell describes and reviews literally ever zombie film ever made.

1) All The Colors Of the Dark by Tim Lucas — This is it. This is the Holy Grail of All Film Books. If you’ve ever asked yourself if any book is worth paying close to 300 dollars, now you have your answer. This one is. Tim Lucas offers up the most complete biography of director Mario Bava ever written. In fact, this may be the most complete biography of any director ever written! Lucas examines not only Bava’s life but also every single movie that Bava was ever in any way connected to, whether as a director or as a cameraman or as the guy in charge of the special effects. This is 1,128 pages all devoted to nothing but the movies. This is the type of book that makes me thankful to be alive and I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Tim Lucas for writing it.