The Horror,The Horror!

by Bruce Lanier Wright

Taylor Publishing $17.95, paper

Anyone who was fortunate enough

to pick up a copy of Wright's previous book Yesterday's Tomorrows: The Golden Age of Science Fiction Movie Posters (and if you haven't, do so) which illuminated the SF film cycle of the Fifties and early Sixties in a remarkably informative and entertaining manner, has likely read through it several times and wished for more. Your wish has been granted. Nightwalkers focuses on the cycle of gothic horror films made between 1957 and 1976 and is an equally superb piece of work that, although somewhat different in content and tone from its predecessor, makes a perfect companion volume to Yesterday's Tomorrows. Where Yesterday's Tomorrows devoted almost half its space to poster reproductions, Nightwalkers concerns itself almost exclusively with the films themselves. Nightwalkers is by no means visually dull, however; movie stills abound and there is a center section with a fine variety of posters, color stills, and lobby card repros.

Nightwalkers has a brief prologue regarding the nature of gothic horror and its history in both literature and film. Wright's obvious understanding of the importance of the literary source material to the films within the genre allows him to analyze the pictures without being myopically shackled by a purely filmic perspective. The author then gives a thumbnail (well, maybe talon-sized) account of the rise of the House of Hammer, the studio that accounted for more horror films during the period than any other, before moving on to deal with AIP and William Castle. Subsequent chapters cover subjects by monster (Dracula, Dr. Frankenstein, ghosts, miscellaneous vampires) or literary source material. Each movie is discussed at length and rated. Wright's critiques of the films are based on his extensive knowledge of and affection for the genre. He also lambastes the many clunkers that staggered corpselike through theaters and were horrific only in their execution. Although Nightwalkers is not quite as amusing a read as Yesterday's Tomorrows, Wright still manages to make observations that are both dead-on and hilarious. When describing Nick Adams' performance in Die, Monster Die, he notes that the actor "fills the role of Steve Reinhart like caulking compound." Oh, so true. Although few films, such as Dark Intruder, don't receive any discussion, there's little room to argue with most of what Wright has to say.

The finest film work of Price, Cushing, Lee, Fisher, and Corman are all given stellar coverage in Nightwalkers. The horror movies represented here, as Wright points out, have acquired "a fine patina of age on themselves, settling into respectability despite their disreputable origins." Wright has done a much more than respectable job on Nightwalkers. I recommend it to fans of the genre without reservation. -- Bud Simons