The Making of The Descent
Published by Telos Publishing, 2025. 184 pages.
By Janine Pipe and Neil Marshall
Back in 2005, I didn’t think I was claustrophobic. Then I watched Neil Marshall’s The Descent and quickly realized just how much tight spaces affected me. Just the first half of the film, I was on pins and needles, as these women crawled their way through incredibly tight passages, under water, and even getting stuck at one point. Oh yeah, and then the monsters show up!
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Sausages: The Making of Dog Soliders
Published by Encyclopocalypse Publications, 2022. 307 pages.
By Janine Pipe
I picked up this book some time ago, but like most of the books I buy, they each anxiously await to be read. When you buy as many as I do, sometimes that can be a long wait. But due to another book coming out about a movie directed by Neil Marshall, and co-written by the same author here, I figured it was about time to dig into this.
Right off the bat, the thing that I really enjoy about Pipe’s writing is that it comes across like talking with another fan. Her love and passion for the subject is front and center, which can’t help but engulf the reader in it. This isn’t just a fan gushing about a favorite movie, but so much more. In fact, it was Marshall himself that suggested the idea to Pipe about tackling this book project. Pipe has interviewed so many people involved, from most of the major cast, and plenty of the crew, with each of them gives insight into their little part of this world that Marshall had created. Working all together, they have left us with one of the best werewolf films with practical effects since the early ’80s, that still holds up after two decades.
Continue readingGerman Popular Cinema and the Rialto Krimi Phenomenon: Dark Eyes of London
Published by Lexinton Books, 2022. 211 pages.
By Nicholas G. Schlegel
I had this author’s previous book, Sex, Sadism, Spain, and Cinema, which is on the Spanish genre and really enjoyed it. I loved that he was putting a nice spotlight on a sub-genre that tends to get overlooked. So, when I heard his next book was going to be on the German Krimi films, I was actually even more excited. I had already been a big fan of the Spanish horror film, but knew very little of the Krimi, which means this was going to be a great learning experience for me. It was, as well as expensive, since it has sent me down another sub-genre of films to try and add to my collection! So be warned!
Before we get into the book, there are two quotes at the beginning of it that I just loved, and it really shows the difference about what some critics consider “good” and what the public thinks about them. Author Edgar Wallace had said, “I do not write good books, I write bestsellers.” So, no matter what the critics thought, they sold, which means people enjoyed them. And when it comes to the films based on his work, film scholar Olaf Möller wrote, “Nobody really seems to have liked this cinema other than the public.” Again, critics may have torn the films apart or just didn’t like them, but that didn’t stop people from going to the cinemas to see them. There have been several times in my lifetime that a film was overly criticized upon its release, but yet still made a ton of money at the box office. Or decades later it is now a fan favorite. I guess that shows that opinion is just that. And a critic’s opinion could mean just as much as your neighbor.
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It’s Me, Billy: Black Christmas Revisited
Published by BearManor Media, 2022. 299 pages.
By Paul Downey & David Hastings
Black Christmas is a film that should have so much more attention than it usually gets. I know it’s a fan favorite, but it just seems like that it should be brought up and referred to, anytime the horror genre from the early ‘70s, or the slasher sub-genre is being discussed.
Thankfully, we have this wonderful book by Paul Downey and David Hastings that delves a lot deeper into the film. There is a ton of interviews with both the cast and crew, with articles and references about the movie, from the initial release, original review quotes, and a lot more. We get to read about the origin of where the initial idea came from, originally called Stop Me!, and how it transitioned into a screenplay. For a story that is really shrouded in mystery, specifically who “Billy” is, it does a good job giving readers more details but really without spoiling anything.
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We’re Here for the Krites: The Making of Critters
Published by Harker Press, 2025. 339 pages.
By Matthew C. DuPée
The great thing about these types of books is that you learn so much about what happened behind the scenes, on every aspect. Whether it’s how the actors brought their character to life, how the sets were built, the other technical stuff like prop building, the monster, even the sets, it really helps give you more of an appreciation of the work that went into it, from the very beginning to the end. Not to mention showing you just how much work does go into a film, even if it’s a low budget film. Harker Press continues to put out books that are a wealth of information that eager film fans can devour and will make you look at the subject matter with more of an educated and often different view going forward.
This new title covers the Critters franchise, from the original 1986 feature, the sequel, and the two straight-to-video follow-ups. Then we finally get the 8-episode series, Critters: A New Binge, and the last entry, Critters Attack!, both of which came out in 2019. There is a lot more focus on the first feature, and then a little less with each film, but that doesn’t mean you’re still going to learn so much of what went on during these productions. The best thing about this is that we get to hear from so many people involved, from the actors, directors, writers, special effects crews, detailing some of the issues that came up, how things were laid out and designed, and all the fun stuff that goes into filmmaking!
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The Cinema Coven: Witches, Witchcraft and Women’s Filmmaking
Published by McFarland, 2024. 208 pages
By Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
Do we need another book on female filmmakers? Honestly, yes, we do. It goes back to my thoughts when I saw The Substance (2024) in the theater last year. Did we need another movie showing us how shitty women are treated in the film industry? Then you realize it is still going on, and that we obviously still haven’t learned enough, so that message must continue on.
So yes, we definitely need another book on women filmmakers!
As a life-long cinephile, at any point when we can learn more about a sub-genre, or subject, that we might not be familiar with, it just opens doors. It opens up more titles that we might not have heard about. It opens up more filmmakers that we might not have known. Or we knew their work, but not who it came from, or who made it. It also opens up, and this is probably the most important part, a new or different way of thinking about and looking at a specific story or subject that might have been lost on us. The beauty of any art form is being able to see something different once we’ve learned more about it. It’s inevitable. And it is one of the things I just love about cinema and more importantly, reading about it.
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Bride of Frankenstein: The Definitive History of the Horror Classic
Published by CenterLine Publishing & Consulting LLC, 2024. 422 pages
By Christopher Lock
For a film that is making its 90th Anniversary this year, there is a lot that has been written about Bride of Frankenstein (1935) over those nine decades. In fact, I have a couple of books solely dedicated to this title, not to mention more than a few that cover the Universal classic horror titles of the ’30s in general. Of course, when you see one with the subtitle “The Definitive History of the Horror Classic” it does grab one’s attention.
Who am I kidding? It’s a book on one of the most famous horror films ever made. Of course I’m going to add it to my library! So, the real question is . . . is it the “definitive history”? And is it worth adding to your own library?
The author has a lot of information in here, not just on Bride, but the original film as well, and even including some info on Mary Shelley and her original novel. There could be an argument on why it covers that stuff when the book is about Bride, but I do agree that you need to cover those first before you get to the famous sequel. Though I did find it a little strange that while going over the beginning, when the original Frankenstein was in the early stages, the author mentions the early scripts by Balderston and Webling, but nothing is mentioned about Robert Florey, who was the one that brought the original idea to Universal, with the intent of directing it. A minor quibble.
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Bride of Frankenstein
Published by Midnight Movie Monographs, 2023. 184 pages.
Edited by Emma Westwood
This is a rather small volume, priced at a little more than I would have liked to have paid for it, but that being said, there is a lot of wisdom and information packed into these 184 pages. The thing that I really enjoyed about this is that it contains 12 essays by 12 different writers, all covering a variety of subjects that have to do with James Whale’s 1935 sequel, The Bride of Frankenstein. While some are not specifically on the movie, there is that connection.
There is one on Franz Waxman and the incredible music he created for it, written by Dr. Dan Golding. Remember, there was a time in the early day of sound films that the studios didn’t want musical scores, feeling they would interfere with the voices and other sounds in the film. Then there is Scott Essman’s essay on the makeup for the Bride and the makeup artist Jack Pierce. Lots of good stuff in here.
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Cinema Speculation
Published by HarperCollins, 2022. 392 pages.
By Quentin Tarantino
This is sort of a first here at the Krypt, because this book isn’t really about the horror genre. While there is a chapter on Tobe Hooper’s The Funhouse (1981), it covers a bunch of other films, mainly in the action genre. So why am I covering it here? Simple. Because I can’t remember the last time I read a book where the writer’s passion for cinema was felt in every single word.
The title alone, Cinema Speculation, shows that this isn’t Tarantino making a statement that the titles covered are the best in the history of cinema, but he writes why they are to him. It is his “speculation”. And he goes into great detail as to why, all coming from his deep-rooted passion for them. Everyone knows anything about Taratino knows how much he knows about cinema. You can’t see an interview with him where he’s usually name dropping some obscure film that he loves. There are reasons for that.
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Naked Theater & Uncensored Horror
Published by FAB Press, 2023. 360 pages
By Stuart Gordon
I’ve been wanting to get to this title ever since it arrived in the mail from FAB Press when it first came out. But like all things in life, something else always came up. Until a few days ago when I decided now was the time. It was a Sunday, and I didn’t have any real plans for the day, so I knew I could at least start it. 3 days later, I finished it.
I’ve known Gordon’s work since his debut film, Re-Animator (1985), hit the theater I worked at when it first opened. All horror fans immediately knew him as “the guy who did Re-Animator” and would watch for his next venture into the film world. The more films Gordon did, the more interviews and articles about him came out, the more we got a hint of his history. I knew very well that he came from theater background, even being here in Chicago for quite some time, but I really had no clue to the extent he had, or the impact that he made.
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