Category Archives: Reviews: Horror Reference Book

Book Review: Monsters on the Couch

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Monsters on the Couch: The Real Psychological Disorders Behind Your Favorite Horror Movies
Published by Chicago Review Press, 2024. 274 pages.
By Brian A. Sharpless

When I started reading this title, I thought it would be a look at specific movie titles and putting them through a psychological profile or study of the monster. It’s kind of is that, but not really specific movies, though there are a few. It mainly covers the different real-life psychological disorders that plague some people, that are tied into different horror sub-genres. Granted, some of these disorders are pretty rare, but honestly, some of them are pretty damn fascination.

We get to read about the history of lycanthropy, going back to folklore hundreds of years before we saw them on the big screen. Did you know that in Serbia, it is believed that if you drink water that has collected in the paw print of a wolf, you can become a werewolf? Or in Scandinavia, you’ll get the curse by wearing a wolfskin belt. Or there are many different kinds of ‘anthropy’, from turning into a horse, cow, or even a gerbil! It is kind of cool to see where it started, and how it… transformed into what we know about werewolf legends and mythology now because of film. Once the movie world gets a hold of it, those almost becomes the new “facts”, even though 90% of them came from some screenwriter’s imagination.

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Book Review: Monsters Unborn

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Monsters Unborn: The Lost Universal Monster Remakes
Published by Harker Press, 2026. 271 pages
By Bruce Kilkowski Jr.

Every time fans see another remake/retelling/sequel/or whatever they are calling their version of one of the classic Universal monsters, some tend to groan, thinking, here we go again. But the funny (actually no so funny) thing what this picture probably went through to even get started. And in this new book by Bruce Kilkowski Jr., you will get a good idea what I’m talking about.

This book goes through a bunch of unmade sequels or remakes, and proposals that were all based on some of the classic Universal monsters, mainly the Bride of Frankenstein, the Mummy, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. We learn how the story of a particular project got started, by who, and who else was involved, such as the writer(s), possible director(s), producer(s), and even the makeup effects guys who were going to design the new look.

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Book Review: Partially Devoured

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Partially Devoured: How Night of the Living Dead Saved My Life and Changed the World
Published by Counterpoint, 2026. 313 pages.
By Daniel Kraus

Back in 2015, before I read Gunnar Hansen’s book Chain Saw Confidential, I had asked myself the question, “did we really need another book on this film?” And after reading it… indeed we did. Especially when it is coming from a person that was there through the brutal shooting of it. And now we have another book, on another epically famous horror film, George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, but this time not written by someone directly involved. That little fact really doesn’t matter because within the 300+ pages of this book, you will learn more about Night of the Living Dead than you ever thought you could. About the movie, the people involved, and so much more. But author Kraus also shows us how and why this film was so important to him and why it made such an impact on his life. While me might not all go on to become professional writers, every fan will feel that same connection to film as he describes this one. So, no matter where our individual path in life takes us, we are the same.

When mentioning a variety of low-budget films in general, with real makeup effects and settings, Kraus writes, “The importance of art like this grows by the day. In a world where AI and CGI create seamless visual media, seeing those seams right where fallible human hands put them in everything – it’s proof of intent, of passion, of life itself.” That really hits home and I hope younger fans can understand that. The people involved in this little film believed in what they were doing. You have to remember, none of these people had a clue what this film was going to become over the next half a century! Kraus goes on to say, “Call it Don Quixote Disease. Or just call it the American spirit. It’s not the finished product that matters, it’s the chase of it. Night of the Living Dead is a literal and symbolic chase all the way through, and that’s why I love it.” I think that’s why a lot of us horror fans are as passionate about these as we are. We know there is something more than just cheap thrills.

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Book Review: Hitchcock & Herrmann

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Hitchcock and Herrmann: The Friendship and Film Scores That Changed Cinema
Published by Oxford University Press, 2025. 295 pages
By Steven C. Smith

I had purchased Smith’s previous book, on composer Max Steiner, so when this new one was coming out, I pre-ordered it. Not only because I knew it was going to be interesting with the subject matter being the work that Hitchcock and composer Bernard Herrmann did, but I just love learning more about the making of the films. Learning about the making of the music for these films was something new and made me very curious to dig into. Especially since I have not one bit of musical talent myself, would I be able to understand what the author was describing? While there are parts where Smith delves into the actual music, for a layman like me, it was still very comprehensible and not overpowering where you lose interests.

The book opens with Herrmann conducting the score for Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976), which would be his last score. It shows just how much influence his scores had been to this new generation of directors, such as Scorsese, Brian De Palma, and even modern composers like John Williams. And while Herrmann started his film score career with Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941), it really was his work with Alfred Hitchcock that gave him his fame. Even with his last scores, it showed Herrmann’s temperament and attitude, but also his ethics, style, and just sheer talent.

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Book Review: Behind the Mask

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Behind the Mask: The Secrets of Hollywood’s Leading Creature Suit Performers
Published by BearManor Media, 2025. 308 pages.
By Joe Nazzaro

This was a tough review to write. There is so much information within these pages, on so many talented people working in the movie business that consistently create new characters to put on screen that just give us a sense of wonder. On more than one occasion, it had me busting out a movie to rewatch because of the information they go into on creating a creature suit and how they did it. Nazzaro covers a lot of different artists and designers, sculptors and painters, that really help make these movies what they are.

But here’s the part that gets me. The title of the book is about suit performers, but that is only a very small part of the book, talking to the actual performers. It is mainly on the effects people creating the suits, but very little time is given to the ones having to wear them. There is 20 pages spent discussing all the different characters in Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), from the main characters to minor ones like Wink, the Angel of Death, and the legless goblin with a cart. Then when interviewing John Alexander who played that goblin character, as well as Johann Krauss, it’s only 6 pages. Alexander had played apes or gorillas in a few movies over the years, starting with the character of White Eyes in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan (1984), as well as the title character in Mighty Joe Young (1998). So, it’s a shame that we don’t get to hear more from him, as well as all of these other performers, which is what I assumed the book was about.

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Book Review: The Ghastly One

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The Ghastly One: The 42nd Street Netherworld of Director Andy Milligan
Revised Edition Published by FAB Press, 2022. 256 pages.
By Jimmy McDonough

This has been one long journey. I started reading this revised edition back in 2023, but for some reason, I kept putting it down for a variety of reasons. There were other projects that got in the way, books I needed to get to that were sent to me to review, and life in general. But first and foremost, it was probably just because it is such a depressing story!

I knew of Milligan from seeing a few of his movie titles on VHS back in the day, namely The Rats are Coming! The Werewolves are Here! (1972) but never watched too many of them. In 2021, when Severin Films released their box set, The Dungeon of Andy Milligan, that featured 14 of his films, I knew I would pick it up. By that time, I had really become interested in a lot of these different low budget filmmakers, such as Steckler, Adamson, Buchanan, and knew that Milligan was one that I really wanted to learn more about. And I wasn’t let down by what I saw.

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Book Review: Rear Window

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Rear Window: The Making of a Hitchcock Masterpiece in the Hollywood Golden Age
Published by Citadel Press, 2025. 253 pages.
By Jennifer O’Callaghan

I hadn’t expected to read a second book on a Hitchcock film after just finishing Criss-Cross by Stephen Rebello, but since Rear Window is my favorite of the director’s work, and I was already knee-deep in the Hitchcock cinematic world, I figured why not. And just like the Rebello book, there is a ton of information on the making of it. From finding the right writer to tackle adapting the short story by Cornell Woolrich, to getting the studio to foot the bill for an entire neighborhood to be built on a soundstage.  And then there casting as well, along with the design, art direction, and all that other fun stuff that goes into making a classic.

Finding an actor for the lead role would have to be someone that would follow Hitchcock’s direction. When he had worked with Montgomery Cliff in I Confess (1953), the director ran into issues getting him to do what he wanted because Cliff was a method actor, something Hitchcock did not care for. Hitchcock worked in visuals, what the audience was going to see and how that carried the story along. When Cliff didn’t want to do something in particular because “my character wouldn’t do that”, it caused issues with Hitchcock not being able to get the shots he wanted. Hitchcock had said “It’s a movie. You’re an actor. Act.”

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Book Review: Criss-Cross

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Criss-Cross: The Making of Hitchcock’s Dazzling, Subversive Masterpiece Strangers on a Train
Published by Running Press, 2025. 312 pages.
By Stephen Rebello

I don’t remember when I first watched Strangers on a Train, but the first time I saw clips of it (even though not knowing where it was from) was in the film Terror in the Aisles (1984), a compilation of scenes from different horror films, as well as some from the suspense sub-genre. For Strangers, it’s the scene at the carnival, where Robert Walker pops the kid’s balloon, and then strangles Laura Elliott. At the time, I didn’t even know it was a Hitchcock title. But when I finally got around to watching the entire film, it became one of my favorites of Hitchcock.

I was thrilled to see a book out on this film especially since it was written by Rebello, who had previously written about Hitchcock and the making of Psycho. Anytime I’ve read about a particular movie, or director, or anything in general about a film, I always come out of it learning something new as well as seeing the film a little different. Anytime you learn more about what exactly went into the making of one, from the casting, the set design, cinematography, it makes you see more but gives you more appreciation of it. But in the case of something from Hitchcock, it goes even further than that, when you come to understand what was going on in his mind during the making of one of his movies.

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Book Review: Icons of Fright

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Icons of Fright: 100 Interviews with Legendary Horror Filmmakers
Published by Harker Press, 2025. 469 pages
By Mike Cucinotta, Rob Galluzzo, Adam Barnick, and Jason Alvino

When you first look through this massive volume of interviews, it’s astonishing the number of people covered within the pages. The subjects range from directors, actors, screenwriters, makeup artists, stuntmen, and just about everyone in between! And the names in those categories ranges from the very well-known to the more up-and-coming ones that have just started in the industry or are just getting some notoriety from their work. But then I quickly noticed that the interviews are old… like decades or older. And I quickly thought, “Who wants to read interviews from 15 years ago?”

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Book Review: Fulci’s Inferno

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Fulci’s Inferno: Faith in the Films of a Horror and Giallo Auteur
Published by McFarland, 2025. 257 pages.
By Matt Rogerson

Anytime I see a book dedicated to Lucio Fulci and his work, I’m immediately in, which was the case for this book from Rogerson. That’s mainly because there isn’t a ton of work on him, which is very sad. I will say this work is more in the “academic study” style, which for me at least, were usually a little too “out there”, with lots of theories as to what the filmmaker really meant, at least according to the authors. But I’ve found that as I’ve gotten older is that while I may still not agree with what the author is saying, and that’s with any author, I really now do enjoy reading about these different ideas or theories and just thinking about them. Doesn’t mean I’m going to agree with them, but I love the fact that it gets your mind pondering different ideas and maybe thinking about a particular film, or even a single scene in the movie in a way you didn’t before.

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