Reference

I usually always enjoying reading all the "horror movie" review books/encyclopedias out there, but I really wish I had never wasted my time and money on this one! First of all, the price tag seems a little steep to me for a softcover book. More importantly, though, is that the whole time I was reading this book I had to keep asking myself why did this author even want to write this? It is clear through reading his reviews that he is NOT a fan of 80's horror/splatter films at all. He gives very unfavorable reviews to most of the films in the book. He makes rude comments about them, the people who make them, star in them, or even those of us that like to watch them! He pretty much trashes everything about the very films that he is writting a whole book about! I feel like it must have been absolute torture for him to endure even watching all these movies that he was reviewing. Well, come to think of it I do think he states that a couple of times in the book! So anyways, the reviews aren't much help if you are truly a fan of the genre. There is some useful information on availability of the films in either VHS and/or DVD formats. Cast lists and production information seem pretty accurate too. There are also some rare pictures/artwork included too. Yet another surprising and disappointing thing about the book are the number of obvious omissions from it. There's no reviews to such well known 80's horror films like: He Knows You're Alone, Terror Train, The Fog, Chopping Mall, Intruder, Just Before Dawn, Sorority House Massacre, April Fool's Day, etc.?! The author also states that some of the "older" purchasers of his book will probably be finding themselves having to hide it out of others' sight due to feeling ashamed of owning it! Well, in my case I won't be hiding this book because of being ashamed for liking horror movies but instead for unfortunately owning this particular "book" about them.

I picked up the author's first book, and enjoyed it even though I don't care for older gore movies. (I don't know about you, but I don't know how anyone can say they enjoy films by hacks like H.G. Lewis and Andy Milligan without being seriously deranged. Different strokes for different folks I guess.) I liked Mr. Stine's magazines, especially Gick which sometimes covered newer films, but I still buy Trashfiend even though it's all older bad movies. His first book was pricey, and badly edited, but it was still informative and a good read. His second book is much better though. It costs about the same as the first, but is much bigger, by about a hundred pages! It is much better edited, and the reviews are better written. Mr. Stine's humor seems to get better with time, and I can't help but to laugh even when he's tearing apart a film I like. (He doesn't seem to like newer films in general, but I don't mind as it makes for a better read than when he actually dislikes the film he reviews. Especially the Jason and Freddy movies, which are cult films even though they aren't very good.) I don't have much use for all the cast and crew names, but serious film geeks should be happy since most books and even magazines don't have all of this information. Where I would have given the first book four stars, I feel his second book deserves much more, so I'm giving it five because the few faults it has can be easily overlooked. Highly recommended.