united states

Adam Lukeman, Fangoria's 101 Best Horror Movies You've Never Seen (Three Rivers Press, 2003)

The main criticism of this book is that, well, the target audience for this book is going to have seen a lot of these movies. Like every other reviewer I've read on this topic, I've seen the majority of them as well. But it's still refreshing to see some of these movies ending up on SOMEONE'S 101-best list, as they're entirely underrated (Wendigo, for example, or Day of the Dead) or suffered from little or no American distribution (Cronos, A Chinese Ghost Story, etc.).

Rather than a definitive compendium, look upon this book as a checklist of all those movies you saw once, liked, and forgot to re-rent, or the ones you forgot about. And if you want to keep true to the title, give your copy to one of your non-horror-loving friends with a list of where to start. (Start someone out with some of the movies in here and they'll never watch another horror flick again...) And then go write up your own list of the 101 best horror films no one has seen. We need more of them. *** ½

As a long time horror fan I was happy to find a list of lesser-known films to help me compile a bill of fare for movie nights. A couple of times a year I like to gather a group of friends and stay up until the wee hours hopped up on caffeine and cheez covered snacks for a night of fright and delight. The listings in this book will definitely help me keep the selections fresh and interesting.

I have to admit, I was familiar with at least ninety percent of the films listed in here, but had written off a good number of them as dreck. Looking through the reviews and trivia peaked my interest enough for me to drop a few bucks here on Amazon to get some used copies for under the price of a movie ticket. I've watched a couple of the flicks and was pleasantly surprised by them. I honestly didn't know that there were so many movies out there based (albeit loosely in some cases) on the writings of HP Lovecraft.

The one complaint I have is in the actual mechanics of the writing. I first looked through the book fairly late at night, pretty much just glancing over the reviews, looking for a couple of flicks to try out. I found some that looked interesting and folded the pages over to order them the next day. Last night I was flipping through those listings and reading some of the passages to my wife to try and persuade her to give some of the new movies a shot this weekend. Reading some of the passages aloud actually made her laugh at the clunky writing style and fact that the prose was littered with sentence fragments and run ons that made me have to pause awkwardly to breathe.

There is a lot of interesting information here, but whoever edited this book should have gotten a good night's sleep and made one more pass before sending it off to the publisher.

The "FANGORIA" name on the cover was what caught my interest (and got me to pick it up since The Lair of the White Worm photo is like repellent - HATE THAT MOVIE). Once I journeyed beyond the cover I discovered enough solid recommendations to keep me stocked for ideas for a "Bad Movie" Night.

As with any book of this nature everything is subject to opinion and where your preference lies. Personally I avoid any Italian Horror Movie (after sitting through Devil Fish) and some of the GROSS movies aren't my friends thing. But luckily, the 101 offerings cover a wide spectrum so at the very least you can come away with a solid 40-50 films that I'm betting will be new to you.

Each entry includes: actors, directors, DVD company that offers the film, run time, a summary, and some fun-trivia facts.

While I won't spoil the contents some films covered are: Apt Pupil, The Blob, Castle Freak, The Dentist, Hell Night, I Spit on Your Grave, Nomads, The Stepfather, and 93 others.

Hopefully, Fangoria will continue to release books in this vein with ideas like, "101 Best Horror Films You HAVE Heard Of, 101 Goriest Horror Films, and 101 Sci-Fi Classics.