First published in 2006 and updated regularly ever since, The Definitive Guide to Horror Movies might not be the last word in critical discussion of one of the most enduring, evolving and divisive genres in cinemas, but a few hours in its company is guaranteed to give you a decent working knowledge of the history of horror movies, its major themes and characters and the most important titles unleashed across the last century or so. How you approach the book is entirely up to you; you can pick it down from the shelf, flick through its pages and read the bullet reviews of your favourite horror movies or some obscure title you’ve never heard of (but might be minded to seek out), or you can sit and work your way through the entire volume; frankly we’d advocate the latter approach.
This is a big, chunky tome, nearly 400 pages of densely-packed text which takes us right back to the origins of horror fiction itself, stopping off at 1896’s The Devil’s Castle, the first horror film, in which a bat flies into a castle, transforms into the Devil who conjures up a variety of demons and imps before being vanquished by a crucifix-wielding cavalier. Job done in two minutes flat. The film was the work of the legendary George Melies who went on to direct dozens of fantasy shorts as cinema began to grow and develop, many of its early horror films inspired by popular contemporary literary classics such as Dracula, Frankenstein and Jekyll and Hyde. By the 1930s horror cinema was up and running thanks to the classic Universal monster movies, and The Definitive Guide explores the key titles of every decade with sections specifically devoted to the classic monsters, subgenres such as Mad Science, Serial Killers, Occult Cinema, Giallo, Horror on TV, Cannibalism (ulp) and with sections on prime genre movers such as Edgar Allen Poe, HP Lovecraft and Stephen King. Across 365 reviews written by a string of contributors (Newman and Marriot provide much of the meatier linking text) the book moves through the 1940s – where horror fell out of favour – and into and through the 1950s and 1960s and the rise of Hammer, Romero’s ground-breaking Night of the Living Dead and on into the 1970s where the genre was at its peak. The book reasons that 1980s horror – characterised largely by the rise of identikit slasher movies – began the dumbing-down of the genre before it began its slow rehabilitation in the 1990s thanks to classier, more sophisticated movies like Silence of the Lambs and Seven. This latest edition brings us pretty much up-to-date with recent classics such as Get Out, It Comes At Night and even this year’s extraordinary A Quiet Place.
As ever with any review-skewed study, opinions on featured titles may vary (many hackles are likely to rise at the description of 1979’s Alien as “a missed opportunity”) but The Definitive Guide is undoubtedly a hugely ambitious book which makes a good fist of boiling the genre down to its most important moments, influences, movies and movie-makers. The number of contributors – many of them uncredited, which is a little frustrating – leads to some repetition here and there, but overall this is as good a title as you’re likely to find if you’re after a handy, nicely-designed and illustrated and easily-navigable reference guide to both the best and the most obscure titles in a genre that continues to grow and evolve over a century after its first flickering fumblings on the big screen.
THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE TO HORROR MOVIES / AUTHOR: JAMES MARRIOTT, KIM NEWMAN / PUBLISHER: CARLTON BOOKS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
