It Came from 1957
By Rob Craig
Published by McFarland, 2013. 256 pages.
I’m a huge fan of the sci-fi/horror films of the ’50s. In fact, I love them. In 1957, there were a ton of releases during that period, many of them classics. All fifty-seven titles of them are covered within the pages of the book, some in a little more detail and discussion than others, but they are all there. After an extensive introduction discussing the time period and what was going on in the world, we get to read about such films as The Brain from Planet Arous (which is featured on the book’s cover) to Attack of the Crab Monsters, The Unearthly, Invasion of the Saucer Men, to The Thing from Another World and plenty more. Craig really knows his stuff here and is very informative when it comes to discussing these pictures. But therein lies the problem.
The Mammoth Book of Slasher Movies: An A-Z Guide to More Than 60 Years of Blood and Guts
A Vault of Horror: A Book of Great (and Not So Great) British Horror Movies from 1956-1974
A Year of Fear: A Day-by-Day Guide to 366 Horror Films
Slasher Films: An International Filmography, 1960 Through 2001
First of all, I must state that I am in this book, writing about the ’50s flick The Giant Claw, so some might think this review could be a little jaded. But I can assure you, I am only a very small part of a much larger picture here. What editor Morgan has done is collected a wonderful array of voices here to give praise (some more than others) to a particular killer animal movie that hits home to them. And that single element alone is reason enough to pick up a copy of this book.
