Written by Chris Alexander
Published by Headpress
Starting with Forrest J. Ackerman’s Famous Monsters of Filmland at the end of the 1950s, there have been scores of magazines devoted to weird movies and helmed by writer/editors with—shall we say? —unique tastes.
These include Calvin T. Beck’s Castle of Frankenstein, Michael Weldon’s Psychotronic Video, Tim Lucas’s Video Watchdog, and Robin Bougie’s Cinema Sewer.
As I say, these mags celebrated any or all types of weird movies, not just horror films—everything from US pre-Code and noir films to Eurospy films, Kaiju flicks, martial arts movies, Turkish copyright rip-offs, spaghetti westerns, and even porn films. They offered articles, essays, interviews, and, of course, pictures, all filtered through the stylized point of view of the eccentric person running that particular mag.
All of this brings us to Art! Trash! Terror! Adventures in Strange Cinema. Written by Chris Alexander, this nearly 500-page book is a modern take on those types of periodicals so many of us loved so much. As the author points out, he can usually find something good to say about any movie, no matter how bad others might say it is. This allows for some refreshing takes on quite a number of movies that tend to be denigrated by mainstream critics and reviewers.
Among the well-known stinkers that Alexander at least makes sound interesting are 99 Women, Maximum Overdrive, the remakes of The Beguiled and The Cabinet of Caligari, Night Patrol, The Omega Man, and Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park.
Accompanying that latter one is an interesting interview with KISS’s Gene Simmons. Other familiar to me interviewees include cult film director John Waters, the goddess Caroline Munro, German director Werner Herzog, Alien’s other female heroine, Veronica Cartwright, British exploitation star Nicky Henson, and Joe Dante, one of the best friends the movies ever had. Alongside those folks and a few others, one finds equally intriguing talks with a number of names with which I was previously unfamiliar.
My favorite parts of the book, though, are the essays told from very personal points of view.
In discussing the Hammer horror film Vampire Circus, for example, Alexander writes about the multiple lengthy bus rides he had to take to see movies as a teenager. This is where I could totally relate, as I didn’t learn to drive until I was 32 and took buses everywhere before that. I practically had all the local bus routes and schedules on both sides of the Ohio River memorized. I, too, would go to lengths some might consider absurd, just to catch a rare showing of a film. I actually took a Greyhound bus 100 miles to catch Hammer’s Count Dracula and His Vampire Bride several years after its UK release. (Unlike Chris, I had actually caught Vampire Circus new at a local theater).
Another favorite essay covers Tombs of the Blind Dead, which I just recently watched for the first time, myself. He follows it up with an informative interview with that film’s female starom 1988. The author manages to get Benjamin’s take on the recent Westworld series as well.
The book has a number of color movie posters and a goodly amount of photos as well, mostly color, and often bloody. Toward the back, there are a few black and white pics in a section dealing with what Chris considers the nine best episodes of The Twilight Zone.
Rounded off with an extensive Index, Chris Alexander’s Art! Trash! Terror! Adventures in Strange Cinema is a wonderfully nostalgic and yet thoroughly up-to-date appraisal of a whole bunch of weird films. No doubt, FJA would have loved it!
Booksteve recommends.
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