[Bezulsqy]

Surfing the internet in search of interesting movie related items from the 1970s and 1980s I found about these two releases. Still in print with a soft cover, but expensive. So I looked for a second hand copy and found these two first edition hardback covers on ebay for a price just under the new paperback versions.

Horror Films of the 1970's is 662 pages filled with information about 200 horror movies from that time. The volume about the 1980's is 829 pages thick and has info on 325 horror movies.
There is also a volume about the 1990's, but that for me is less interesting.

Nowadays you can find everything on the internet, but to have an encyclopedia on horror in your hands while listening to scores on wax does feel rather special.

I thought I had watched a lot of horror during the 1990s from the decades before that (I was born in 1980), but I am mistaken. Actually I knew that already since I visit STBC. A lot of scores have come out from movies I have never seen. But I am trying to catch up.

Below some pics to give you an idea about the contents. A lot of words and few images.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Horror-Films-1 ... nneth+muir

[Mateo Sanboval]

Those look quite interesting, Bez. How's the content?

[Bezulsqy]

There is a lot of content :-)
I still need to delve in more. It has some introductions to start with. For instance one about the typical elements in a slasher pic.
Then there is the main part. Around 550 movies across both volume are mentioned. Some briefly with a synopsis and cast and crew details. Info you can easily find on IMDb.
But for most of the movies you have the info as seen in the pictures in my first post. It contains some quotes from reviews when the movie came out. Then there is a synopsis. And comments about the movie.
I'll post the piece about Altered States tomorrow so you have a better idea.

In the end it is great source for horror movie titles bundled together. I haven't seen a lot of them and this book makes me want to watch more of them.
Is it something one needs for this price? No, not really. You can find a lot of list and websites about this contents, but if you are a collector of horror related items it is a very nice addition to a collection.

[Mateo Sanboval]

Thanking your good self for the info, Bezulsqy. When available, I almost always reach for a book over a computer or tablet. It just feels...right.

[Bezulsqy]

@ Mateo, in stead of doing some actual work I decided to create this bit for you. I hope it says enough.

Volume about 1980’s has three main parts. I put some parts of the contents in quotes so you get the gist of it.

Preface (p1 to p5)

More than 325 horror films are surveyed and detailed in Horror Films of the 1980s. Unlike the popular and useful Internet Movie Database, however, the films included herein are dated by the year of their American release, not the production or copyright year, which in some cases is different. In other words, Tremors was produced in 1989 but released in 1990, so it is not featured in this book.
Why go about a survey in this fashion? As moviegoers with long personal histories, we tend to think immediately of the year and season a film arrived in multiplexes to thrill us. It would seem just plain wrong to include two hits from the memorable summer of 1986 – The Fly and Aliens – in the year 1985. Similarly, the summer of 1982 was a golden age that included John Carpenter’s The Thing and Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist and it would be strange and disconcerting to think of them arranged instead in 1981 rather tha 1982 when they were seen and reviewed.
This book covers all horror films released from the year 1980 through the year 1989. There may be some debate about whether some of the films included in the text are actually horror or science fiction. Brainstorm (1983), Dreamscape (1984), The Terminator (1984) and Aliens (1986) leap to mind. For the purposes of this book, this the judgement I’ve made: If it is the movie’s aim to terrify, horrify or frighten, it qualifies as a horror production. If the film’s purpose is to illuminate with wonder or awe some aspect of a scientific discovery of future age, it is science fiction and thus not included.
Representative films from Italy, Canada, New Zealand, Japan and other countries are sprinkled throughout this text, too, especially if they had impact on American shores, emerging as video cult hits or even welcoming a foreign director into the brotherhood of American filmmaking.

Part I: Don’t Worry, Be Happy (Or, Be Afraid … Be Very Afraid…) An Introduction To Horror Films of the 1980s (p5 to p16)

This part describes the political and economic climate of the time (8 years of Reagan for instance, AIDS, Cold War, etc.) and the influence on filmmaking.

Part II: A History of the Dead Teenager Decade (p16 to p55)

Very nice piece to read about The Slasher Paradigm in 1980s Horror Cinema. This part is divided in conventions.
Two examples:

Convention One: The Organizing Principle:



Convention Three: Character Archetypes (Or, The Killer and the Victim Pool)
A. The Killer
B. Bitches, Practical Jokers & Jocks
C. The Cassandra Figure
D. Useless Authority (and the Veneer of Respectability)
E. Red Herrings
F. The Final Girl


Part III: The Films (By Year of Release) (p55 to p771)



To put the size of this volume in scale:

[Mateo Sanboval]

What a fantastic looking tome, Bez. Many thanks for the effort.

[Hatter313]

wow...i may need to track these down. Good reference for the work i'm doing right now. thanks!

[Bezulsqy]

wow...i may need to track these down. Good reference for the work i'm doing right now. thanks!

http://www.amazon.com/John-Kenneth-Muir ... 240&sr=8-1

or eBay