The Monsters and Me -or- How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Horror

Growing up, we had lots of VHS tapes. Not store-bought movies, but blank tapes that we filled with movies taped off television. We had all kinds: science-fiction, drama, comedy, children’s films, classics and so on. What we didn’t have was horror. 

Well, that’s not entirely true. We had exactly two horror films: Poltergeist and House of Wax. 

Growing up in the 1980’s was a booming time for horror. It seemed like every few weeks there was a new horror film playing at the local theater, often the latest A Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th. On our frequent trips to Blockbuster, there would always be new horror films on the New Release wall, often with lurid, shocking (and enticing) artwork.  

But these films were forbidden, by decree of Mom. 

She didn’t (and still doesn’t) like horror, therefore we weren’t allowed to watch it either. In retrospect, it’s a little strange, considering what she did let us watch. I remember watching The Color Purple when I was about six years old and obviously not understanding most of what I was seeing. I saw both Dances With Wolves and Schindler’s List in theaters, at the ripe old ages of nine and twelve, respectively. Not that these are bad films, far from it, but I find that I, as a parent now, have the exact opposite view that my mother did. I’m more okay with my kids seeing monsters and fanatical horrors than real-life ones. 

Anyway, as I got older and began broadening my cinematic knowledge, horror was still a blind spot for me. On Halloween, after trick-or-treating, my friends mom would let us watch Universal Monster movies like Frankenstein or Dracula. A few years later, I managed to sneak a screening of Bram Stoker’s Dracula when it came on HBO. I had even, when I was home alone, surreptitiously borrowed my older brother’s copy of Army of Darkness, a film I expected to completely terrify me. Imagine my surprise. 

It wasn’t until I got to college, surrounded by other film nerds that I started really looking at horror and then it was just so I could keep up with the conversation. It was around this time that I discovered and embraced the films of John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper and George Romero. I still hold a special place in my heart for the Universal Monster movies and the Roger Corman/Vincent Price/Edgar Allen Poe films, but I am also a huge fan of the Evil Dead franchise and Romero’s zombie films. 

I believe that John Carpenter’s The Thing is an absolute masterpiece. I love that films like The Wicker Man and Audition don’t really become horror films until the third act, and then what horrors they unfold! While I’m still not a big fan of “torture porn” and most slashers leave me cold, I can now happily point to many horror films that I love and admire. 

I just don’t show them to Mom. 

In Search Of Something Different

I go through phases in my film viewing. For example, last year I went through a phase wherein I was absolutely enthralled by early cinema, the works of the Lumiere Brothers, Georges Melies and W.K.L. Dickerson. I watched lots and lots of the earliest films, because the prospect of watching an art form be born and discover itself was fascinating to me. Currently, my attention has swung in a radically different direction: towards grindhouse and B movies. 

I recently purchased Arrow Video’s wonderful box set The Herschell Gordon Lewis Feast and I’ve been watching films that aren’t necessarily good, but at least they’re different and right now, different is good. 

You see, I saw The Super Mario Bros Movie and Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, two films that the majority of people enjoyed. I stand outside those theaters and listen to people exiting them, with big smiles on their faces talking to each other about how great the films were and I inwardly (sometimes outwardly) roll my eyes. I thought Mario was dreadful, but mercifully short and I found D&D to be okay at best. As I look at the slate of upcoming films, I find very little to get excited about. I’m tired of Marvel movies and superhero movies in general (although, admittedly  Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse looks promising). I’ve never seen any of the Fast and Furious movies, so I really don’t care about the tenth (!) one. The last Indiana Jones movie was terrible, so I have little hope for the next one. 

Even last year, Top Gun: Maverick did not “restore my faith in the magic of movies” (I found it boring because it was essentially a remake of the first film). 

Am I turning into an elitist snob? 

Probably. 

But, it’s also that I just want something different. So, yes, I got more enjoyment out of Blood Feast than D&D. I’m looking forward to my next shipment from Vinegar Syndrome which has From Beyond, The Cat Creeps and Curucu Beast of the Amazon far more than anything hitting the multiplex in the next few months. 

It’s not that I inherently dislike mainstream Hollywood films, I’m just getting bored with them. It’s like if every restaurant was a burger joint. After a while, a taco or some Chinese food sounds fantastic. 

Boutique Labels

I’ve never been one for brand-name labels. When other kids (or even siblings of mine) stressed about having Tommy Hilfiger or Calvin Klein, I never cared. I was more interested in what was on my shirt than what was on my label. I freely admit that at awards shows, when vapid TV hosts ask “Who are you wearing?” I always think Who cares?!?

However, I appear to be turning a corner on this issue. Not on my clothes, necessarily (although I am becoming a fan of Doc Martens), but on video labels. 

It used to be, whoever put out the tape or disc was whoever made the movie: Universal, Paramount, Disney, whatever. Now, as physical media moves more and more towards collectors (as the average consumer is content with digital content) boutique labels are on the rise. 

The front-runner, and arguably the king of boutique video labels is The Criterion Collection. Boasting films from Kurosawa, Bergman, Chaplin, Welles, Tati, Bresson, Fellini and so many others, their roster is incredibly impressive. This, coupled with their restorations, bonus features and packaging, it’s no wonder that they have the reputation that they do. 

However, as great as Criterion is, Kino Lorber is also worth many accolades. While Kino has distributed wonderful Blu-Rays of the films of Truffaut, Spike Lee, Rian Johnson and many other contemporary filmmakers, I believe that where they really shine is when it comes to silent films. In addition to the complete films of Buster Keaton, Kino has also released beautiful restorations of the films of F.W. Murnau, Fritz Lang and Lon Chaney. Perhaps their greatest contribution has been in releasing Pioneers of African-American Cinema and Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers. These two sets are indispensable for anyone interested in film history. 

Shout Factory/Scream Factory also does great work. They have released two collections of the films of Werner Herzog as well as some frankly amazing restorations of John Carpenter’s horror films. They are also the home of one of my favorite television shows,  Mystery Science Theater 3000.  Their box set of all five films in The Fly franchise is also worth checking out and it’s one of my favorites. 

Arrow Video specializes in horror and science fiction and their Blu-Rays are something to behold. Around the same time that The Criterion Collection released their amazing Godzilla collection, Arrow Video put out two box sets containing every film featuring everyone’s favorite giant flying turtle, Gamera. Arrow is also where you will find the films of Takashi Miike, the Herschell Gordon Lewis Feast box set (featuring fourteen films from the Godfather of Gore), Hellraiser, The Hills Have Eyes and so many other great horror and science fiction films. 

Last, but not least I want to talk about Severin Films and Vinegar Syndrome. I’m putting these two together because they both specialize in off the beaten path releases and grindhouse fare (not exclusively, mind you. Severin released the amazing British TV-movie Threads and Vinegar Syndrome released Buster Keaton’s last film The Railrodder). Thus far, my favorite releases from these two labels are Vinegar Syndrome’s The Films of Rudy Ray Moore  box set and Severin’s release of Werewolf in a Girls Dormitory (which just might be my favorite movie title of all time- no synopsis is required). These films look great, they sound great and they never fail to put a smile on my face. 

There’s other, smaller labels I could talk about, like Blue Underground, Grindhouse Films, AGFA and others, but I really just wanted to highlight some of my favorites and come to terms with the fact that for the first time in my life, a label matters. 

The Great Shuffle

I keep my movie library in alaphabetical order…mostly. 

Whenever I buy a new movie (or two or ten), I have to shift everything down to maintain the order of things. My wife likes to laugh at me about this, using it as an example of my selective OCD. 

My book library, I should note, isn’t arranged in any special way. Often, but not always, books by the same author are together, but that’s about it. If I want a specific book, I have to look for it. 

When I said “mostly” alphabetical, what I meant is that I will put all films in the same franchise together, regardless of their specific title (for example, all of the Planet of the Apes films are under P and all of the Marvel movies are under M, and in order of release). If it is a box set from a specific filmmaker or actor, it is under their last name (Marx Brothers are under M, Martin Scorsese under S). And all of my Buster Keaton films are under K and in order of release. My system works for me. It might seem silly or weird, but I do honestly enjoy shuffling them around. If nothing else, simply because it gives me the opportunity to look at certain films I own and go “Oh, yeah. That’s a good one.” 

My collection is growing so large however, that I’ve had to start relegating certain DVDs to other places. I’ve put all my TV DVDs on a separate shelf and all of my Mystery Science Theater 3000/Rifftrax/Cinematic Titanic DVDs and Blu-Rays have their own special video rack in my bedroom. I’m also using the top of the large video racks to store big box sets, like Criterion’s Ingmar Bergman or their Godzilla: The Showa Era set. 

Why am I talking about this? 

I dunno. 

Maybe for the same reason that I organize my movies like I do: because I’m weird. 

Five Film Book Recommendations

Here’s five film books that I can easily recommend. This is not a definitive list, nor is it the Top Five, it’s just five that I enjoyed. 

More to come. 

Pace yourself. 

1) The Emperor and the Wolf: The Lives and Films of Akira Kurosawa and Toshiro Mifune by Stuart Galbraith. This dual biography/filmography is exhaustively researched and comes with literally hundreds of pages of notes, appendices and lists. It’s great for anyone interested in what was arguably the greatest actor/director combination in cinema history. 

2) Conversations With Wilder by Cameron Crowe. Rock journalist turned filmmaker Cameron Crowe sat down with the late, great Billy Wilder and this book is a wonderful, indispensable record of their talks. In it, Wilder talks not only about his films, his contemporaries, the actors, actresses, writers and studio executives that he had the fortune (or misfortune) to deal with over his multi-decade career but also, his tips for writers (which I used to have hanging over my desk) to his opinion on then-current release Titanic (“Have you ever seen such horseshit?”). It’s no wonder that after compiling this book, Crowe went on to make his masterpiece Almost Famous. 

3) Writing Movies For Fun and Profit: How We Made a Billion Dollars at the Box Office and You Can, Too! By Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant. This witty, no BS book details the highs and lows of being a professional screenwriter in Hollywood. While being encouraging, it also reassures you in some of the hard facts of how movies are made (“you will get fired”). It also breaks down some of the more obscure jobs on a typical film set, gives you the addresses and menu recommendations for L.A. landmark In-N-Out burger and shares humorous stories of various celebrity encounters. 

4) The Lady From The Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Millicent Patrick by Mallory O’Meara. If you’ve never heard of Millicent Patrick, don’t feel bad, too few people have. This book is a long-overdue exploration of the woman who was instrumental in creating The Creature From The Black Lagoon be was subsequently uncredited in the final film. Interwoven with Patrick’s story is O’Meara’s, in which she doggedly pursues any and all information on Patrick while simultaneously dealing with critics (often men), who are either condescending or tell her that it would be better as an article rather than a book. I can honestly say that the moment I heard about this book, I preordered it. 

5)  Oscar Micheaux: The Great and Only: The Life of America’s First Black Filmmaker by Patrick McGilligan. Honestly, all  of McGilligan’s biographies are great reads, but I’m picking this one because it’s the first book of his that I ever read and because at the time I read it, I had never heard of Oscar Micheaux before. Micheaux, one part entrepreneur, one part artist and one part conman, was writing, directing and producing Black-centered films back when being an independent filmmaker was a huge challenge, let alone being a minority one. Micheaux’s films have been collected on Kino Lorber’s excellent box set Pioneers of African-American Cinema and are often streaming on The Criterion Channel. It is a fascinating exploration of not only an individual, but a time when inclusivity was virtually nonexistent and people yearned for cinema that represented them. We’ve come a long way, but we’re not there yet. 

Six Years Later…

 I’ve been through many things in my life. Three children, two wives, five states in three time zones, God knows how many jobs, etc, etc, etc. But, the one constant in my life has been movies. I talk about movies (a lot), I watch movies, I buy movies (probably more than I should), I read books about movies and so on. 

More than once, in times of sadness, I’ve questioned my love of film. I’ve worried that others would view my love of movies as shallow, or indicative of a lack of literacy. I’ve re-enrolled in college to study literature, because that’s a “serious” art, unlike cinema (or so I thought). I’ve purged my physical media collection, telling myself that I should only own “great” or “important” films, that there was no room for schlock or simple entertainments. 

Why do I do this? Why do I question my love of something? Why do I not simply acknowledge my love and move on with my life? 

Put simply: I have issues. 

It’s only been in the last few months that I’ve come to accept, even embrace my love of all things cinema. Sadly, I had to go through some pretty dark stuff to reach this point. Thankfully, I have a wife that understands, even if she doesn’t share, my passion. I can’t imagine my life without movies and I don’t want to imagine my life without her. 

I’m going to make a point of updating this blog a bit more frequently (I know, I know: I’ve said that before), but now I want to focus less on academic analysis and trying to impress strangers and more on just being honest. This will be a place where I share my thoughts on all things movies: collecting physical media, boutique labels, the cinema experience, how films are intertwined with memory and anything else that happens to pop into my head. 

Will I still talk about movies? 

Well, obviously.